2024 March Classic

A frequent contributor to Barron’s, Futures Magazine, Reuters, Bloomberg, US Farm Report, Ag-TV, Market to Market-IPTV as well as a regular radio show contributor for the likes of Chip Flory-AgriTalk After The Bell, Susan Littlefield Fontanelle After the Bell-Michell Rook-AgDay and Linda Brekke-The Linda Network, Ag commodities expert Shawn Hackett has dedicated his life to educating Ag industry leaders and farmers about financial risk management, hedging and the utility of indicator-based Ag commodity price forecasting tools. His extensive research on long-term cycles and statistics on climate, currencies, geopolitics, and global capital flows have long been a key differentiating factor for Shawn’s price forecasting skills. Shawn takes complicated concepts and presents them in an easily digestible framework to a wide audience and discusses them regularly in his subscriber-based Hackett Agricultural Report and Hackett Dairy Report.

Twitter: @feridex11

Marshal was raised on his family’s fifth generation fruit and vegetable farm in Plant City, FL. After graduating from the University of Florida, he began a career in the vegetable seeds industry. He currently works with a multinational vegetable seed company as a member of their Global Strategic Accounts team. His personal farm experience and professional work across the produce industry have given him a close look at stress and challenges in agriculture. Outside of work, he and his family are active advocates for mental health and stress management in- and outside of agriculture. Through their Mind Your Melon platform, they seek to inspire healthier minds through proactive lifestyles.

Facebook: Mind Your Melon
Instagram: @mindurmelon
Website: mindyourmelon.org

An award-winning business journalist, Amanda Lang has covered North America’s top business stories for 25 years. Today, she is the host of Taking Stock, a weekly national television news program airing across multiple Bell Media networks, including BNN Bloomberg, CP24, and CTV News Channel, and available as a weekly podcast on iHeart. Known for her no-holds-barred approach to the people, companies, and stories making the news, Lang is available for keynote speeches or as an interviewer/moderator.

Prior to Taking Stock, Lang was host of Bloomberg Markets, a global program airing in Canada on BNN Bloomberg and on the Bloomberg Television network globally. Lang has also worked as CBC’s senior business correspondent, reporting for its flagship nightly news program, The National, and as host of The Exchange with Amanda Lang, a daily business program that aired on CBC News Network. For five years before that, Lang hosted The Lang and O’Leary Exchange, with Kevin O’Leary. The pair also co-hosted SqueezePlay on BNN for six years.

Lang studied architecture at the University of Manitoba, before becoming a journalist. Her first job in journalism was with the Globe and Mail and then she joined the Financial Post becoming their New York correspondent. In New York, she made the leap to television, joining the team that launched BNN before working as a reporter and anchor at CNN.

Lang is a senior fellow at the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto. She is also chair of the board of directors of Covenant House Toronto, the largest agency in Canada serving homeless and at-risk youth. She is also the bestselling author of two books. The Power of Why explores the connection between curiosity and success, and The Beauty of Discomfort examines how difficult change can be and outlines strategies for how to achieve it.

Twitter: @AmandaLang

Tareq Hadhad is telling his story. He was a Syrian refugee and now living his new life with his entrepreneurial family in Canada’s east coast. He is the founder and CEO of Peace by Chocolate, the recipient of the EY Entrepreneur of The Year 2021 for Atlantic, named one of the Top 25 Immigrants in The Maritimes, selected by Google as the National Hero Case, and was awarded RBC’s top Immigrant Award and Entrepreneur of the Year in 2020 and Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee Medal. All of this has happened since Tareq’s arrival on Canada’s East Coast in December 2015 as a Syrian-Canadian newcomer.

In 2012 the Hadhad’s home and factory that housed the family chocolate-making business were destroyed which forced them to seek safety in other countries. A former medical student at Damascus University and long-time peacekeeping advocate, Tareq joined medical relief efforts after arriving in Lebanon. A new life began when Tareq and his family were welcomed to Canada on a community-based sponsorship.

Passionate about peace and entrepreneurship, his family relaunched the family business to recreate the chocolates they once exported across the Middle East and their story turned into and international inspiring phenomenon.

Tareq and his family have a focus on job creation, utilizing a network of local community members and refugees from across Nova Scotia and Canada to help support the local economy. Now that their chocolates are distributed across Canada, they look to offer more employment opportunities as their business grows.

In January 2020, Tareq received his official Canadian Citizenship which garnered international attention and has become one of the greatest accomplishments of his life. He has had the privilege to meet former President of the United States, Barack Obama, Canadian Prime Ministers, and has had conversations with many World Leaders. Author, Jon Tattrie wrote a book about the Hadhad’s story which has become a best seller. A feature film, Peace by Chocolate, also based on the family’s story premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and launched in Cineplex theaters across Canada in the spring of 2022. The film won several film festivals awards and accolades.

Twitter: @TareqHadhad
Website: tareqhadhad.com