Women are becoming increasingly visible across agriculture, from the farm and the boardroom to policy, technology and global agribusiness. In this episode of North American Ag Spotlight, host Chrissy Wozniak welcomes back Svitlana Synkovska, Portfolio Director for Women in Agribusiness, for a conversation about the changing role of women in agriculture and what attendees can expect from the 15th anniversary Women in Agribusiness Summit in New Orleans.
Svitlana shares how the Summit has evolved over the past 15 years while maintaining its unique combination of industry intelligence, professional development and meaningful networking. This year’s location is especially significant because the first Women in Agribusiness Summit was held in New Orleans. Beyond the city’s culture and atmosphere, New Orleans provides a direct connection to global agriculture through its role as a major gateway for U.S. agricultural exports. Attendees will even have an opportunity to tour a port transshipment facility and see how American commodities move from farms to customers around the world.
The conversation also explores the continued rise of women in agriculture and leadership. Chrissy and Svitlana discuss women’s growing educational attainment and representation in government and agribusiness, as well as how much the industry has changed over the past two decades. Svitlana shares her experience of once frequently being the only woman speaking at international agriculture conferences and how dramatically female representation has grown since then.
They also look at what the next generation of women can bring to agriculture, the importance of education and confidence, and the Women in Agribusiness student scholarship program. Svitlana explains why adaptability may be one of the most important leadership skills in an era of AI and rapid technological change and why agriculture continues to offer tremendous opportunities for young professionals.
The 2026 Summit will combine its popular executive leadership and female farmer panels with new programming around AI, consumer and food trends, mental health and stress management, along with experiences unique to New Orleans. The Summit will also recognize the International Year of the Woman Farmer with a new award developed in collaboration with the American Farm Bureau Federation to recognize an outstanding U.S. female farmer.
With decision-makers representing the entire agricultural value chain gathering in one place, Svitlana explains why this year’s anniversary Summit is about much more than celebrating 15 years. It’s an opportunity to build relationships, conduct business, learn from other leaders and help shape the next chapter for women in agriculture.
Register for the Women in Agribusiness Summit HERE.
TRANSCRIPT
00;00;34;24 – 00;01;02;02
Chrissy Wozniak
Hi, and welcome to North American Ag Spotlight. I’m Chrissy Wozniak, and I am so excited today to talk to our returning guest. For the past 15 years, one event has become the premiere gathering place for professional women across the agrifood value chain. What began with just a few hundred attendees has grown into an international community that brings together leaders from production, agriculture, agri technology, finance, commodities, food policy and beyond.
00;01;02;04 – 00;01;26;28
Chrissy Wozniak
This year’s summit marks a milestone anniversary as it returns to the city where it all began New Orleans, while also aligning with the United Nations International Year of the Woman Farmer. At the same time, women continue to play an increasingly significant role across agriculture and agribusiness. With women. I just learned this recently, now earning the majority of bachelor degrees awarded in the United States.
00;01;27;00 – 00;01;55;09
Chrissy Wozniak
They continue to expand their presence in leadership positions throughout business, government and agriculture. And these trends are creating new opportunities while raising important questions about the future of leadership across our industry. For more than two decades, our guest has been a leader in global agribusiness, organizing nearly 50 international conferences across 12 countries while building expertise in event management, marketing, market analysis, and industry networking.
00;01;55;09 – 00;02;16;12
Chrissy Wozniak
She’s also an accomplished agriculture journalist and speaker who is presented at more than 150 international conferences and today serves as the portfolio director for Women in Agribusiness. My guest today is Svitlana Synkovska. Thank you so much, Svitlana, for being here today. And, and welcome.
00;02;16;14 – 00;02;28;08
Svitlana Synkovska
Thank you. Chris. It’s always a pleasure to be, you know, on air with you. And yeah. So looking forward to see you in September in New Orleans because it’s always great to chat face to face. Right?
00;02;28;10 – 00;02;55;08
Chrissy Wozniak
Yes. It is so important to have face to face meetings. And today we’re going to discuss, you know, what’s new at the summit, why New Orleans is such a meaningful location, how women’s leadership is evolving through AG, and then what the future holds for the next generations of, of, agriculture professionals. So let’s begin by telling the audience a bit about yourself and then how you came to be the portfolio director for women in agribusiness.
00;02;55;10 – 00;03;25;26
Svitlana Synkovska
Wow, that’s an interesting story. I literally spent all my conscious life after graduation. I started to work in agribusiness consulting company, and I didn’t know that it will be like the beginning of the whole, like, you know, lifelong journey. Life’s like lifelong journey. And that is something absolutely amazing about it. The culture that this job is so multi-functional is whenever you an ad you need to be expert in so many things, a little bit in a, you know, agronomy, a little bit in commodities trade, a little bit there.
00;03;25;26 – 00;03;45;05
Svitlana Synkovska
So what I like to being a journalist like you are, you need to be, you know, informed every day. Because what is cool about every business comparing to some, I don’t know, like natural markets, like we have like a whole event, we have the whole market cycle one year. So we have crop, we have planting season, we have harvesting season.
00;03;45;05 – 00;04;09;10
Svitlana Synkovska
We have like everything changes every marketing year. And this is make this business very stressful because we all see how different could be different seasons for different crops. And but every year it’s a completely different picture. It’s a completely different challenges, different scope of actions we need to do. And I think this is what attracted it very much to the business, because I’m so on, I have the biggest fear to be bored.
00;04;09;12 – 00;04;27;18
Svitlana Synkovska
So I think the God, he heard all my prayers. Oh God, please give me the excited job, the most excited job. And I’m like, okay, something exciting, not boring and you always will be like, wow, what’s going on? So when I started to work in AG and it opened me, so many like, you know, gained so many international opportunities.
00;04;27;18 – 00;04;56;27
Svitlana Synkovska
I was a Secretary-General of International Sunflower Oil Association. I was one of the founders, and this is when I scaled to really like a global perspective of agriculture. And this is something absolutely amazing that how connected are farmers somewhere in Oklahoma to the Byers, Millers, somewhere in Cairo, you know, so this is really a very global business, and I’m still very thankful to that opportunity that I got this first job in agriculture.
00;04;56;27 – 00;05;19;04
Svitlana Synkovska
So I never regretted my decision. And more than 20 years, oh, my gosh, I even afraid to come. I’m staying in AG and talking about women and ad. This is an interesting fact. Twice I was a speaker on the events organized by the group, by the company who organized Women in Agribusiness. In 2012, I was the speaker of their event in Abu Dhabi.
00;05;19;07 – 00;05;52;06
Svitlana Synkovska
I did national event and in 2000, I think 15 or 16, I was speaking about Sunflower Oil Market on their event, about vegetable oils in Barcelona. So I knew the group of people and then I moved to the United States. It’s kind of was like very interesting how like my mutual friend connected to us. And so I think it’s really like a magic way when all your connections you’ve built through the years and the good business, they kind of like you know, you can see how connections work and you got job proposal through your connections.
00;05;52;06 – 00;06;17;17
Svitlana Synkovska
So this is what happens. That’s why I’m a big believer of networking and business connection, because it’s opened so many doors and gives so many opportunities to you. So yeah. And in 2020, and of 2024, I accepted it. I was so happy to, to, you know, to hear from these people and got this proposal to lead this fantastic, legendary event I heard a lot about.
00;06;17;19 – 00;06;46;22
Svitlana Synkovska
So here I am, you know, and I’m really happy because I think the whole idea of women business is very much resonates with my personal mission. I don’t want to sound very pathetic, but, you know, I think after 20 years in business, I could say that that I’m really happy that now I could help some young female singers to be a part of the process, to give a lot of spotlight and a lot of support to all that amazing, all this amazing women in agribusiness.
00;06;46;25 – 00;07;06;28
Chrissy Wozniak
Yeah. And that’s that’s what it’s all about, us being able to come alongside the next generation and lead them up and give them the courage and and yes, help them be brave as well. Right. And this year marks the 15th anniversary of Women and Agribusiness Summit. So what does that milestone mean for for you? How are we celebrating?
00;07;07;05 – 00;07;09;25
Chrissy Wozniak
And, yeah. And congratulations.
00;07;09;27 – 00;07;37;05
Svitlana Synkovska
Thank you. So it’s, interesting because the first women in agribusiness and it was held in New Orleans, so we can’t the whole fool, you know, cycle is now, you know, and we’re back again to this amazing city. So why is New Orleans? Because it’s a combination of two things. First, it’s a very vibey, very beautiful, very kind of like, let’s celebrate, place.
00;07;37;05 – 00;08;03;04
Svitlana Synkovska
So we really want all this hospitality, all this, like, vibrant atmosphere, all that magic. Absolutely. Magic city to help us to celebrate, to give us this, like celebration mood. And the second one is don’t forget that New Orleans is a huge port. It’s literally a gateway gateway for American agriculture products, for American commodities. So this is a place where farmers from Midwest are connected to their buyers across the whole world.
00;08;03;10 – 00;08;27;24
Svitlana Synkovska
So that’s the magic of this location. So it’s very let’s celebrate, you know, very like, you know, vacation. Cool place. And still it’s a very important, support for the global agribusiness and for American agriculture because it’s a huge port. And this is something that we want to combine. For example, we have on our agenda a lot of like events to celebrate and to feel New Orleans vibe.
00;08;27;24 – 00;08;53;28
Svitlana Synkovska
We have walking tours. We have, fantastic venue when we will have this agenda, you know, even dinner party and also we have a tour to see each port transshipment facility where people will be able to see, all this amazing American corn, soybeans, wheat are making their way to to these vessels and traveling, you know, long, long days to the destination.
00;08;53;28 – 00;09;17;16
Svitlana Synkovska
So where crashing plans in Indonesia or in Philippines or, you know, milling facilities somewhere in Morocco. So that’s the full magic of this location. And we definitely are happy to be back. I’m a big fan of the city. I think it’s absolutely magic. So we can’t wait to share our inspiration and our joy with all of our delegates in the magic New Orleans.
00;09;17;19 – 00;09;31;14
Chrissy Wozniak
Oh, I love it and I have never been to New Orleans, so I am very excited to see heard lots of stories. I can’t wait. And then for people who have attended in the in previous years, what is going to be new or different this year?
00;09;31;16 – 00;10;12;09
Svitlana Synkovska
So of course we try to keep very important, like we call it legacy elements of events. So you can see an agenda. We have some legacy elements, for example workshop organized together with agenda. When we give a lot of like very useful practical tools have to become better management or more visible, we will have our absolutely legendary and legacy elements on the agenda, like, executive leadership panel, where we will spotlight some very top level CEO level females talking about their secret of success, talking about their challenges, giving some tips how to become a better manager is always a very like popular panel.
00;10;12;09 – 00;10;41;05
Svitlana Synkovska
And the inspiration I seen last year, the women were even crying, just asking some questions about some challenge, asking some advices from the panel is being like and like new manager how to handle that kind of management situation. So that is something very inspirational. One the panel that everyone is always waiting for is our female farmers panel. So this year we will have a lot of female farmers from Louisiana, which is a very interesting region from a point of view of different crops.
00;10;41;06 – 00;11;14;26
Svitlana Synkovska
It produces sugarcane, it’s cotton, it’s rice. So it’s not just, you know, typical corn. Will like, you know, you know, traditional American commodities, but a little bit more like regional and niche. And it’s also very interesting always to, to to hear all the stories of this amazing female farmers, how they combine be moms keep being, you know, grand moms being like, you know, active members of their community, but also being the successful farmers and how they navigate in all these challenges and wearing all this multiple hats, as we discussed with you in the beginning of this conversation.
00;11;14;26 – 00;11;36;13
Svitlana Synkovska
So it’s always, always a very popular panel. But on top of that, we have we try always to add some new elements. And this year we will talk a lot about I will have one standalone fantastic standalone presentation about I. It will be like something really, really eye opening fundamental. I heard this speaker, she is a global superstar.
00;11;36;13 – 00;12;03;18
Svitlana Synkovska
She will come to us from Singapore. Dominique. She’s fantastic. And of course we will have some cool elements, like we will have tours which go to coffee and women who shape New Orleans story, and it will be like walking tour. So you will be able to eat. Been. Yeah. To drink coffee in the morning and hear about all the fantastic women who, you know, impacted the development of this beautiful city and some other stuff.
00;12;03;18 – 00;12;21;07
Svitlana Synkovska
We try always to keep this balance between some legacy elements, which people like and the like want to have it every year and something new, some new topics, some new formats, something we just give a little bit of, like an update. And plus, because we move every year to different locations, so it always feels different. It’s a new hotel.
00;12;21;07 – 00;12;40;09
Svitlana Synkovska
It’s a new city, and we definitely will add a lot of like exploration parts. So you will see like so many different elements of a gender on different locations. For example, our members only night a day before the conference will have it. Fantastic place also very like very no LA’s very sun, very cool. So a lot of stuff.
00;12;40;09 – 00;12;48;28
Svitlana Synkovska
Our agenda is so like diverse. So it is always something what we have all the time and something new and we try to keep the balance.
00;12;49;01 – 00;13;11;00
Chrissy Wozniak
Yeah. Yes, I love that. You know in it when I was in Nashville a few years ago, it was, you know, about music. And then in Orlando, it was like, yeah, it’s so it’s always great how you can meld in the personality of the city, too. I think that’s really exciting. Yeah. And then what are you, what are you personally most excited about for this year’s summit?
00;13;11;03 – 00;13;32;12
Svitlana Synkovska
I’m very excited about the whole idea of 15 years. So I do believe it’s a huge milestone. And being in events, industry and and ad, I’ve seen that many big events, it took them like five, six years and then just disappear. So it’s it’s a quite a competitive it’s a very like hard business, especially with the Covid. You know how it’s really reshaped the whole events industry.
00;13;32;12 – 00;13;57;20
Svitlana Synkovska
And like not everyone survived that time in in events. So seeing that amazing milestone 15 years and seeing how the event grown from less than 200 people to 800, what we have now, that’s fantastic, that’s amazing, inspirational and I’m personally looking forward to see some of the panels. Some like really like about food consumption and the old new recommendations for food and all the protein consumption stuff.
00;13;57;20 – 00;14;20;03
Svitlana Synkovska
So we will invite everyone across the value chain to talk about how it’s, you know, will impact everyone from farmers to the retail, because we all now talk about food differently when we talk about food like five, ten years ago. Right? So everyone wants to get more protein. Everyone is still thinking about cyber. Everyone is like, you know, consumers are getting much more conscious, much more educated on what they’re eating.
00;14;20;08 – 00;14;38;28
Svitlana Synkovska
So what are the takes away for the industry? What is our response to what we should, you know, track and understand about consumers behavior. So this is something good. And this is like because I also want to market colleges, you know the background. So it’s a combination of my interests. And I think that will be fantastic panel. And everyone will love that too.
00;14;38;29 – 00;15;01;00
Svitlana Synkovska
So there are some topics which are really looking forward because they are so interesting. And we have fantastic speakers. Almost like I think 90% of them already confirmed they are on our website. So I’m looking forward to it because I’m a big fan of very market heavy, insights, heavy agenda, and this is what we try to do every year.
00;15;01;03 – 00;15;11;25
Chrissy Wozniak
Yeah, amazing. And the the UN has designated this year as the this year as the International Year of the Women Farmer. And how are you guys recognizing that throughout the summit.
00;15;11;27 – 00;15;34;19
Svitlana Synkovska
So of course we as I mentioned, we will highlight again this, simple farmers panel. But also one thing we’ve done this year, and we are so proud of that cooperation together with, Jill Stein, we are collaborating with American Farm Bureau and which is a huge organization. I have so much respect to what they are doing. We launched additional Demeter nomination because we have our traditional Demeter award.
00;15;34;19 – 00;15;57;07
Svitlana Synkovska
So every year we select three women who impacted development of AG and also helped women to be more visible in American agriculture. But this year, we have the fourth of what we selected. Also like we are selected now still with Farm Bureau. This like outstanding US female farmers. So this is a new award. We create a lot of buzz on social media.
00;15;57;07 – 00;16;24;12
Svitlana Synkovska
We got a lot of application and reading all the bios of these fantastic women and seeing what they have achieved and see how they kind of even reconsider the whole idea of farming. Like, yeah, she’s a farmer, she’s a podcaster, she writes books, she has cool apps for for, for flowers and for florists education. They are doing so many things, like on the top of like traditional farming, but it’s a kind of a new era of agriculture.
00;16;24;12 – 00;16;51;09
Svitlana Synkovska
Then you’d like, you know, do multiple business. It’s like a like not like one revenue stream, you know, business anymore. And women, we are so good. And being creative, we are so good at doing multiple different things that I think it’s part of our nature. So that’s why I think that women are so good in agriculture, because this ability to do many things at the same time with the same precision, same focus, this is something that makes women so good in agribusiness.
00;16;51;12 – 00;17;14;00
Chrissy Wozniak
Yeah, yeah. You are you are correct. And AG is really facing tremendous change right now with technology, with labor shortages, inputs, all of these things, even to to AI and how we’re going to use AI. So how do you go about deciding or your team goes about deciding what topics deserve a place on this year’s event agenda?
00;17;14;02 – 00;17;38;20
Svitlana Synkovska
Yeah, because we have a very cool editorial team and Michelle Marshall, our fantastic editor in chief, and she’s always spot on. She is following up everything. What’s going on? We have our like teams group and we share some industry news. So I really want all of us to be very much understanding and knowing what’s going on. Plus, we have our newsletter, our bi weekly newsletter, when we create our own content like market related.
00;17;38;20 – 00;17;55;13
Svitlana Synkovska
And also we can rate. So we kind of check all the news. Michelle is doing tremendous job checking all the top news of the industry, and it could be like in two weeks. It could be like hundreds of titles, right. And trying to select what is the most important. And this is keeps us very much informed with everything what’s going on.
00;17;55;15 – 00;18;16;09
Svitlana Synkovska
Plus we also if you notice after the event, we send the link to all delegates. So we could sailing there like give us their feedback for us to understand like which topics we should, you know, highlight more or what we should add to the agenda. So we kind of collect all that feedback and we add some like extra what’s going on on the market.
00;18;16;09 – 00;18;35;09
Svitlana Synkovska
And we have like a lot of brainstorming inside the team. So it’s like it’s like multiple layers. But we really try to we take it very seriously. They take the whole agenda very seriously. And you know, the line out of the topic, the speakers, we always put a lot of intention and a lot of hard work behind it.
00;18;35;11 – 00;19;00;27
Chrissy Wozniak
Yeah. And and you can see that when you’re there too, that the feedback from the people who attend, it really does feed next year’s agenda. I, I appreciate that a lot. And one thing that I also appreciate about the summit is, is it’s incredibly business focused. And but then you also have leadership development too. So how do you strike that balance between leadership development and then and then delivering real business value?
00;19;00;29 – 00;19;20;07
Svitlana Synkovska
I think this is actually like the secret sauce of our event, the event which makes us very different, even for some kind of like female events and act that like and some of them are still on the market because we are not like a professional development event and we are not like strictly business, you know, agricultural event. We are something in between.
00;19;20;07 – 00;19;47;05
Svitlana Synkovska
And from my experience, we try to keep this proportion like 60%. All the topics on the agenda are about markets and 40% are professional development. We call it like leadership like and all that related topics. And I think this combination. So like we’ve been experimenting through the year some years we increased professional development. And I think for the last three years we keep this proportion like this.
00;19;47;07 – 00;20;05;11
Svitlana Synkovska
And this is the best where people like the most because we are still very business oriented. Agricultural event. When you will meet, a trader from another company, or you could meet like a seller of inputs and buy from them. So you could do a lot of like business and you can hear a lot of information about markets, about tariffs, about supply and demand.
00;20;05;11 – 00;20;48;09
Svitlana Synkovska
Balance is what’s going on. So all that, you know, hardcore agricultural data. But also that’s a lot of professional development. What is like the leadership tips of this fantastic executive panel leaders. What do they do to become successful. How do they navigate the whole, you know, this, you know, leader, you know, how do they grow inside their companies and what are their tips and secrets and advisors to young ladies or, what, how to become like a manager and to, you know, make AI your friend and help you to manage people, you know, so, so many other topics we’re talking about last year, one absolutely fantastic topic we talked about mental health and
00;20;48;09 – 00;21;27;02
Svitlana Synkovska
suicide prevention in agriculture. This is something definitely which needs to be addressed because the scale of the problem is huge. And we were a little bit kinda like thinking should we put it on the agenda. But the feedback and the whole presentation of that in mind, manager Malong, the name of the organization that was absolutely, absolutely like the bomb or soccer event, we got so many feedback and people were so, so like telling their stories, just standing and telling the stories to the Michael personally, what they have been experiencing, because it’s also part of the culture, is also like something we need to to address because it’s, you know, everyone could prevent everyone to put
00;21;27;02 – 00;21;58;26
Svitlana Synkovska
health. This year we’ll talk about like a mental health again about mental health and like stress management, the culture because it’s not gotten less stressful. It’s getting more and more stressful every year. So and we do think that mentioning and including some topic which is even like about professional development, it makes our mission and our social impact even bigger because we do want this event to have a huge social impact, not just helping people to be successful in their job.
00;21;59;01 – 00;22;20;18
Svitlana Synkovska
This is what is doing like primarily, and it’s like one of the goals, but also have this big social impact. Create awareness on some important topics, give some tools and help women and young female leaders or like C-level people to navigate all this crazy changing business environment. We are leading now in.
00;22;20;20 – 00;22;39;28
Chrissy Wozniak
Yes. Yeah, yeah, wonderful. And, like I said at the beginning, I was surprised to learn recently that women are now earning roughly 59% of all bachelor degrees awarded in the United States. So what does that tell you about the future leadership pipeline in agriculture?
00;22;40;00 – 00;23;02;01
Svitlana Synkovska
So it’s actually amazing news because we, we, we glad to see that women becoming more and more ambitious. I think that education is not a tool. It’s also a confidence. So I’m a big believer in education because it gives you tools, it equips you, but also it gives you confidence. This is what I think women are lacking, unfortunately.
00;23;02;01 – 00;23;20;01
Svitlana Synkovska
So we’re still talking about that imposter syndrome. It’s mostly women problem and I do I’m a big believer in education. I’m like, this is something I keep on repeating to my children. And I’m still trying to thinking, well, maybe I should get a PhD because I say I’m not educated enough. So I think it’s like also like imposter syndrome.
00;23;20;01 – 00;23;44;08
Svitlana Synkovska
Like I’m not good enough, you know? But seeing that young ladies being conscious and thinking to get this, you know, better education and seeing education as a step, step one, stage one of their professional development is fantastic. I really was happy, like always. So happy to see the statistics that that the, you know, the share of the female girls in many professions in universities is increasing.
00;23;44;09 – 00;24;06;09
Svitlana Synkovska
So I think that’s fantastic. And for AG, it’s good news. And every year we have these students who work like student scholarship and we reward students. We select like 30 students and they come to our events for free and our fantastic sponsors support them. And this is my favorite part of our then to talk to the students to see them day one, how their loss, how they like.
00;24;06;09 – 00;24;25;19
Svitlana Synkovska
Because for many of them it’s a first like event. They will be surrounded by, you know, adult, successful women and they’re like, what are their stress? And see them on day three. They are shining. They have this confidence. They have this desire. I can see this, this shining eyes, because they have seen so many amazing people, this women mentored them for three days.
00;24;25;19 – 00;24;51;09
Svitlana Synkovska
They communicated to them, they gave them some advices like last year, you remember Emily French after her presentation, she literally grabbed like ten students during the dinner and she said, and she was like mentoring them like that until like dinner. So this is something that always makes me like emotional. I always like, cry when I see the students on day three, because this is an important element of our mission and also what we do during all this years.
00;24;51;16 – 00;25;12;23
Svitlana Synkovska
And this year. We just now like start and deselecting the students. So yeah, so I think, yeah, that’s something which is really cool that we could help these young females to, you know, get this way to this agricultural market, maybe a little bit more easier because I think it’s a very stressful time when just you just graduating and you need to find a job.
00;25;12;23 – 00;25;18;08
Svitlana Synkovska
And that is so far, especially in this environment and in, in this economy, you know.
00;25;18;11 – 00;25;41;13
Chrissy Wozniak
Yeah. Yeah for sure. And, and I think it’s all helping shift mindset as well. I pay a lot of attention to policy as, as well in, in my career and in, and just personally as well, I love to pay attention to it, but I think a lot of people think about, you know, up in DC, it’s just a bunch of men, you know, and they’re just running the country.
00;25;41;13 – 00;26;07;27
Chrissy Wozniak
Yeah, well, 29% of US Congress and about a quarter of the Senate are female now. So there’s much a mindset needs to shift a little bit. There’s still room for growth, of course, but do you see a similar trend developing through agribusiness. Are we are we, are we becoming, you know, you know, more of us in that ratio than men?
00;26;08;00 – 00;26;26;22
Svitlana Synkovska
Yeah. This is interesting trend for this last 20 years, especially internationally. I’ve seen that like the situation is so different in different countries. So this one I’m very happy to be a moderator of this like an international female leadership panel panel just to discuss what’s going on in India, what’s going on in Brazil, what’s going on in the United States.
00;26;26;22 – 00;26;48;07
Svitlana Synkovska
So just see, and the globally just to see the global trend. But my takeaway that for 20 years they change was absolutely huge. I can tell they even going to some big international events away in Geneva London like New York. You will see that that you will like see with your eyes that the presence of females at the conference hall is bigger.
00;26;48;10 – 00;27;06;03
Svitlana Synkovska
And once I even mention that on a couple interviews, like two years ago, I was in London and very big like famous event, like regular event agribusiness. And I turned around and as a message to my friends, she was sitting close to me like, look around. We have like a little bit more females in the room than man.
00;27;06;03 – 00;27;33;21
Svitlana Synkovska
And it was like an a global agricultural event representing like officials and, industry associations. So we’ve had more females in the room of like successful people and and yes, it and something I could not even imagine like 20 years ago, like 15 years ago, like just beginning very often I was only one female speaker or like three of us, you know, or that was always like, kind of challenging, you know, then you have my lineup of 20 guys and you only want female speaker.
00;27;33;21 – 00;27;53;17
Svitlana Synkovska
It’s it’s hard you I, I, I was thinking like, okay, should I joke? No joke. What should I wear? It was such a pressure because. And now I see how many amazing female panelists, how many amazing families, podcasters, speakers and women become more visible. I think we always were present in AD, but we were kind of like Hidden Figures.
00;27;53;17 – 00;28;16;19
Svitlana Synkovska
You remember that movie? We were Hidden Figures and now this is amazing that we are want to be braver. We want to be more visible because we understand how important it is because women do it a lot. And I created this amazing art. Like like my friend from male magazine, amazing guy. He we have they created the whole even issue of International Mila magazine about women in ad globally.
00;28;16;22 – 00;28;33;27
Svitlana Synkovska
And one of the articles and I helped to write this article, so we collected the data. So the gap in productivity globally between women and men in AD is 24%. But when I represent like more than a half, I’ll say like, you know, work, labor.
00;28;34;00 – 00;28;34;29
Chrissy Wozniak
Yeah, yeah.
00;28;35;06 – 00;28;59;20
Svitlana Synkovska
Because women have less access to resources, less access like to to money to land. So we were but we cut invisible many, many like many levels. So this is, I think, the next stage for women. It just, you know, you know, just be a little bit louder and be a little bit more visible and just show all the work we are do silently for many, many years because we we deserve it.
00;28;59;22 – 00;29;07;11
Chrissy Wozniak
Yeah. That’s it. And great points. I remember when I first started out, you know, over 20 years ago, I was always the only woman in the room.
00;29;07;11 – 00;29;13;14
Svitlana Synkovska
Todd. Right. And you feel like you’re responsible. So all your gender, like it’s.
00;29;13;17 – 00;29;29;19
Chrissy Wozniak
Yes, that’s it. I have to say, though, looking back, I think it was a benefit to me. Like, I’ve never I never like it when people say, well, you know, make that negative. I think it’s, you get an extra respect or I, I think when I started my career, extra respect because, you know, you still get the door open for you.
00;29;29;19 – 00;29;46;09
Chrissy Wozniak
And yeah, people try to help you and things like that. So I always want to make sure people understand that I, you know, I’ve been so blessed in my career to grow up through this change, but I don’t, you know, I, I don’t think I was ever not given an opportunity for something just because I was a girl.
00;29;46;09 – 00;29;58;29
Chrissy Wozniak
I think I actually got an advantage because, there was there’s this, I don’t know, chivalry or grace or something where people wanted to watch over me, which I really appreciated through my career, for sure.
00;29;59;02 – 00;30;02;14
Svitlana Synkovska
Yeah. Yeah, that’s a good part of it. Yeah, yeah.
00;30;02;17 – 00;30;16;02
Chrissy Wozniak
Yeah, yeah. And, shifting gears a little bit, what leadership qualities do you see most often in successful women at throughout our industry.
00;30;16;05 – 00;30;54;16
Svitlana Synkovska
I you know with everything what’s going on around I and it’s a cliche but like adaptability and the ability to change fast because the new era we’re stepping in with all this artificial intelligence, it’s a big test for your ability to change fast, to change your thinking, the way you work, the way you see things. So I think that now it’s back, like it’s more important than ever to be flexible and to be able to shift, and move, you know, in the direction which is like everything is changing around us.
00;30;54;18 – 00;31;21;05
Svitlana Synkovska
So I do believe this is something we’ve always was important, but now it’s number one. And I see, like on my management level, that it’s hard for some people to change fast. It’s hard for some people really just to follow all this, you know, constant changes every day. And some people are struggling. So for a good manager, because you need to lead the process and you need to be someone who is good in it because you should be an example for your people, you know?
00;31;21;05 – 00;31;38;12
Svitlana Synkovska
So I think it’s makes management work even harder because you need to lead the changes and you don’t have to be intimidated with all the new stuff you need to be one who is trying. Claude. And so you guys are a cool stuff, but you know, you always should be one. Making this one step ahead of your team.
00;31;38;14 – 00;32;00;14
Svitlana Synkovska
And there are so many new things you need just to learn how to use, how to do just. And you should be like emotionally okay with that. You don’t have to be overwhelmed because your team will lead like, okay, you can tell that it’s cool because if you don’t believe it’s cool, you know, so there is something which is more important than ever with all this, you know, I Revolution we are stepping in and it’s it’s it’s hard.
00;32;00;17 – 00;32;15;13
Chrissy Wozniak
Yeah. Yeah I totally agree. And then if you were giving advice to a young woman just graduating college today, why would you consider, why would you encourage her to consider a career in agriculture?
00;32;15;15 – 00;32;32;05
Svitlana Synkovska
Well, as I mentioned before, it never will be. Boring job. Just. This is something I promise you. So if you definitely want to have something boring, maybe go to the, you know, finance or some kind of like numbers, but Add it’s a lot of people. It’s a lot of nature involved with all the weather surprises and all that stuff.
00;32;32;07 – 00;32;56;22
Svitlana Synkovska
But I’m always repeating that from my experience at agriculture everywhere in the world, this is the industry of so many amazing people. I, I see like I have like my, my husband in one business and my friends in different areas, and I see how blessed I am to be in and to see these fantastic people, you know, because I do believe that, in fact, this is such a real job.
00;32;56;23 – 00;33;15;02
Svitlana Synkovska
Like it doesn’t matter what level you still communicate to farmers, you still know how hard it is to produce every year to, you know, to provide this bread on the tables. You know how hard this job is. And it’s very grounding, very humbling. And this is a job that you need to be real. And you can’t like, do fraud.
00;33;15;02 – 00;33;33;15
Svitlana Synkovska
You can do because agriculture is a real business. You can survive in this business if you’re not doing right things, if you don’t believe in your values, it’s very kind of like you need to have a good morals. You need to be a good person. I do believe that agriculture is one of the industries that this is a must because people, they’re real people do in real style.
00;33;33;15 – 00;33;53;25
Svitlana Synkovska
They produce real bread on your table. So, you know, so all that smoke and mirrors, they don’t work in agriculture. So I think that part of agriculture could be a little bit like humbling in the beginning. But as soon as you get it and like I think it’s it gives a lot of joy. It gives a lot of pleasure, it gives a lot of intellectual stimulate stimulation, if you wish.
00;33;53;25 – 00;34;15;02
Svitlana Synkovska
Right? Because it’s a lot of data, a lot of numbers, a lot of factors. Now we have all the satellite data, satellite data about the crops and all that stuff. And it’s very still human to human. It’s still and it will keeps its human to human part very strong. So I think for young kids, especially with this, you know, Gen Z generation, they are much more on their phones.
00;34;15;02 – 00;34;32;02
Svitlana Synkovska
But I think it’s it will be amazing for them to go to ad and to be a part of that. You know, that amazing tribe of people who are feeding the world because as thousand years ago, today and tomorrow, that is one of the most important jobs.
00;34;32;05 – 00;34;45;12
Chrissy Wozniak
Yeah, I think that is so true. It’s awesome. So finally, for someone who is considering attending but hasn’t registered yet, why is this the year that they shouldn’t miss Women and Agribusiness Summit?
00;34;45;14 – 00;35;03;25
Svitlana Synkovska
First of all, it’s an anniversary, so you definitely will see a lot of cool pictures because we have so many surprises for you. We have so many cool stuff. So I just want you to scroll your LinkedIn. So we’re beginning October and seeing all this amazing picture thinking, oh my gosh, I should go. You know, this form is a big thing.
00;35;03;25 – 00;35;24;11
Svitlana Synkovska
You know, it’s something you need to consider. And number two, it’s fantastic location. If you have never been like new audience like you or you been there like several times, it’s never enough because this city is a magic. Like concentrated magic is a quintessence of like so many cool things like music, vibe, atmosphere. The weather will be fantastic.
00;35;24;13 – 00;35;50;23
Svitlana Synkovska
Number three, you can do a lot of business. You can meet a lot of people in one place, from sea level to farmers. Everyone across the value chain will be there. It’s not just a farmers event or events for like finance people or, you know, investors know everyone across the value chain will be there. So, for example, if you are a farmer with some kind of like, you know, question, you could discuss it with inputs provided with bank, with insurance company.
00;35;50;23 – 00;36;14;00
Svitlana Synkovska
So you could communicate to everyone who is the agriculture value chain. And this is something unique about this event, the quality of the audience. 52% of our audience are decision makers. They C-level, they head of departments. So this is another like third, because you can really do great business, you know, just networking and making all this connections. So I wouldn’t miss it.
00;36;14;00 – 00;36;19;07
Svitlana Synkovska
Like really this is something you might definitely regret about.
00;36;19;10 – 00;36;40;29
Chrissy Wozniak
Yes. Yeah I agree. So thank you so much Atlanta for joining me today. It’s always a pleasure having you on the show. And I can’t wait to see everything that you and all of the women have planned for this year’s summit. Congratulations to the entire organization celebrating this 15 year benchmark. And thanks to all who are watching or listening.
00;36;40;29 – 00;36;57;08
Chrissy Wozniak
If you want to learn more, all the you’ll find all the links in the show notes and don’t forget to subscribe to North American Tech Spotlight on Spotify, Apple, Amazon, listen notes. Wherever you listen to your podcasts. And if you enjoyed the episode, I would love it if you shared it. Thank you so.
00;36;57;08 – 00;37;01;25
Svitlana Synkovska
Much. Thank you so much and see you soon in New Orleans.