Rod Parsley been a leader in agriculture and water investing for over fifteen years. He is a Partner and President of Sustainable Ag Ventures LLC, where he has helped build the world’s largest organic blueberry farm. Rod is responsible for all of the firms farm acquisitions, and negotiates the firm’s purchases and leases of fertilizer, equipment, plants and other key inputs. In addition, he oversees the Sales & Marketing team and co-manages the Root 24 Farms brand (Root24Farms.com).

From 2006 to 2012, Rod was a Partner and Portfolio Manager at Perella Weinberg Partners in New York, where he managed a $500 million fund of private and public investments in water, agriculture and alternative energy assets. Rod was part of the original team that established the asset management platform, which reached $11 billion in assets under management at the time of his departure.

Prior to joining Perella Weinberg, Rod was a managing director at Terrapin Partners LLC, where he worked on various private equity deals and was portfolio manager of The Water Fund, LP, a New York-based hedge fund that invested globally in water-related companies, including irrigation, infrastructure and water technology companies.

Rod has spoken extensively on the subject of water investing, including at United Nations conferences in Paris, Jakarta and Singapore, where he served as chair of the water panel. He was an invited member of the IBM Global Innovation water team, and co-authored “Liquid Alpha: The Case for Investing in Water” (Wiley Financial Press, 2009, from the book Environmental Alpha). He has held a seat on the board of directors of several water companies, including Underground Solutions, Inc., a technology-driven company which creates and installs trenchless water pipe systems.

Rod was formerly a strategy consultant with McKinsey & Company. He is a graduate of Pomona College and the Harvard Business School, and lives in Manhattan Beach with his wife and three children.