Erin VanLanduit is the Head of Corporate Ventures at multi-national food and agriculture company, Cargill. Her team is responsible for making strategic investments in growth-stage companies that align with Cargill’s long-term growth objectives. Her corporate career spans two decades across a variety of commercial operator and investor roles at global CPG companies such as Kraft Foods, McCain Foods, SC Johnson and Tyson Ventures/Tyson Foods. Before her corporate career, she served as an active duty Field Artillery Officer in the United States Army, including two combat deployments to Iraq during Operations Iraqi Freedom I & III, ultimately attaining the rank of Captain. In her free time, she enjoys the outdoors, home improvement projects, concerts, snowboarding, and traveling the world with her family.

Erin holds a Bachelor of Science (BS) degree in American Legal Studies, with a concentration in Nuclear Engineering from the United States Military Academy at West Point, and a Masters in Business Administration (MBA) from the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business with concentrations in Entrepreneurship, Strategic Management, General Management and Managerial & Organizational Behavior. The highest award attained during her US military service is the Bronze Star Medal for meritorious service in combat during Operation Iraqi Freedom III.

Jason Sydow is a Founding Partner at Frontier Works, Siemens’ venture platform, where he invests in and partners with startups building in artificial intelligence, industrial software, and deep tech. A physicist by training — Ph.D. from Cornell University, and a British Marshall Scholar at the University of Strathclyde — he has spent nearly twenty years as both a financial and a corporate venture capitalist. Based in Silicon Valley, he works alongside colleagues in Munich and Tel Aviv on what the team calls an outside-in approach to corporate venturing: starting from the founder’s technology and the customer’s problem rather than the corporation’s roadmap. Frontier Works partners with high-growth startups on validated use cases, invests selectively to deepen those partnerships, and helps Siemens turn ideas into new businesses at startup speed.

That dual perspective makes him unusually comfortable on both sides of the table — the startup pitching and the corporation deciding. Over the past decade he has led investments in Bonsai AI, Riffyn, Identify3D, Falkonry, Citrine Informatics, Realtime Robotics, and BuildOps, and has held more than ten board seats. Several of those companies found industrial homes: Bonsai was acquired by Microsoft following a co-development project with Siemens, Riffyn’s technology became the core of Siemens’ pharmaceutical software strategy, and Identify3D was acquired by Materialise. His current board and advisory work spans carbon removal, industrial analytics, robotics, and energy management.

Before joining Siemens’ venture team, Jason was a Partner at QuestMark Partners, a growth-stage fund with $1 billion under management, where he invested in semiconductors, data analytics, and cloud computing — including Enpirion, acquired by Altera, and Guavus, acquired by Thales. Earlier he led technology ventures at Arizona State University’s commercialization arm, launching six funded companies; served as general manager of the medical battery division at EaglePicher Technologies; and spent four years at The Boston Consulting Group advising Fortune 100 clients on strategy and new business creation.

A single thread runs through his career: moving technology out of the laboratory and into industry, whether by licensing, by venture capital, or by partnership with a global manufacturer. He has also served on the boards of the Johns Hopkins Technology Alliance and the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship.

Patrick Eggen is Co-Founder and General Partner of Counterpart Ventures. Previously, he was Managing Director of Qualcomm Ventures North America, where he led approximately $500M in AUM and over 80 investments across stages and sectors. He also founded Qualcomm Ventures’ Global Early Stage Fund, which grew to $100M+ AUM and 70+ investments, including Zoom, Cruise Automation, and 99. With 13+ years of venture investment experience, Patrick has been personally involved in 100+ transactions and 30+ exits. He has served as a Board Member or Observer for companies including Zoom, Matterport, Clarifai, and Swift Navigation, and was closely involved in investments in Ring and Waze.