Theo serves as head of business development at SIGNATURE Agri Investments, where he plays a maverick role; identifying new business opportunities, bringing together professionals from around the globe, pursuing new market opportunities and helping guide company strategy. Theo started his career in the agriculture investment sector back in 2010, when he realised how it fed his passion for interacting with people and catalysing change. For Theo, the beauty of the sector and what motivates him the most is the inspiring people he encounters on the Fund’s farms – “where you get to see their lives transform, you’re able to give them different opinions, a different way of seeing the future for themselves and for their children”.
He sees SIGNATURE as an instrument for creating change, and prizes the progressive, lateral thinking attitudes within the company. “The way we do business has an embedded value, not an added value, and that’s the crucial difference in our approach. To make a difference and create something structural for the country in which we are farming in, for their families, and for the farming community” That is part of our legacy and hopefully shall be an inspiration for the next generations.
Theo is a man of enormous energy with many passions and interests beyond the farming sector, and rating highly amongst these is wildlife photography. Theo has been a keen photographer since his youth, when he focused mostly on images of race cars and airplanes. His time spend out in the field on Fund farms and in remote areas sourcing new business opportunities has resulted in a deep appreciation of nature and biodiversity and this led to a shift in his subject matter. Initially during his time in Africa he concentrated on the big cats, resulting in many spectacular shots of leopards in the wild.. Although these remain a favourite, he worked with a friend who encouraged him to look up at the sky and see the kingdom of the birds, and a new passion was born.
Theo’s favourite birds are the angular beauties of the crane family, particularly the Wattled Crane and the Grey-crowned Crane, and his favourite countries so far to capture their wildlife images are Malawi, Zambia and Uganda.
Talking to Theo, it is easy to see how his work and his passions connect with one another, and how they find expression in the beautiful continent of Africa.