Ryan Rakestraw is a director at Temasek, where he focuses on making venture capital investments in early-stage food and agriculture companies. Given the importance of innovation needed to feed a growing global population, to support better nutrition, and to increase the sustainability of global agricultural production - Ryan seeks to back promising entrepreneurs and teams that can profitably address these needs with new technologies and business models. Previously, Ryan was an early-stage investor with Monsanto Growth Ventures (MGV), Cultivation Capital, and the Yield Lab, which he helped to found. Earlier in his career, Ryan was a systems engineer with Northrop Grumman, where he helped design and implement military platforms ranging from undersea to space applications. Ryan holds a Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, a master's of science in electrical engineering from Johns Hopkins, and an MBA from Washington University in St. Louis.