Annual Investor Conference 2024

Keynote announcement

We are pleased to be joined by Guy Singh-Watson, founder of Riverford Organic Farmers, who will speak about “Challenges and opportunities in farming without destroying the planet – lessons from building a £100m business that sticks to its principles.”

Our keynote: Guy Singh-Watson

Guy Singh-Watson has over the last 37 years taken Riverford from one man and a wheelbarrow delivering homegrown organic veg to friends, to a national veg box scheme delivering to 70,000 customers a week. Tired of meetings, brands and the assumption that greed is our predominant motivation, Guy converted the business to employee ownership in 2018, using the proceeds to buy a small farm and return to growing organic vegetables.

In common with many of Riverford’s co-owners, Guy is an advocate of using business to shape a part of the world, however small, to be kinder, more considerate, and sustainable; more like the world most of us want to live in. A self-professed ‘veg nerd’ Guy’s weekly newsletters connect people to the farm with refreshingly honest accounts of the trials and tribulations of producing organic food, and the occasional rant about farming, and ethical business issues he feels strongly about.

Our agenda

The keynote will be followed by two expert panels hosted by the WHEB team. The first on progress on the energy transition and the second on the Sustainability Disclosure Requirements (SDR) and whether they will help to build capacity for impact investing.

We are thrilled to be joined by the following panelists: Luke Sussams (Jefferies), Ingrid Holmes (Green Finance Institute), Ida Levine (Impact Investing Institute), Phil Spyropoulos (Eversheds Sutherland) and Jake Moeller (Square Mile).

The impact investment team will then present a performance and strategy update, followed by an open Q&A session with the WHEB team.

The event will close with a vegetarian lunch and the opportunity to network with peers, colleagues and the WHEB team.