Covantis passes regulatory approvals
The company is co-owned by its founding members: ADM, Bunge, Cargill, COFCO, Louis Dreyfus Company and Glencore Agriculture.
A board of directors consisting of one member from each of the six co-founders will oversee the company and help to guide its evolution. The board will be chaired by one of the directors and will rotate annually. The director appointed by Louis Dreyfus Company will act as chair for the first 12 months.
Covantis also revealed its governance structure and executive appointments. “After a thorough search process, we are very pleased to appoint Petya Sechanova as the company’s CEO,” said Stefano Rettore, an independent advisor to the organization. “Petya brings a wealth of industry knowledge to Covantis and has been fundamental in shaping the initiative since its inception in 2018.”
Sechanova said: “We’re excited to create Covantis as a company. This paves the way toward launching the first release of our industry-changing digital solution, focusing initially on grains and oilseeds post-trade execution processes. In conversations with stakeholders around the world and up and down the value chain, we’ve heard time and again how critical it is for our entire industry to modernize our outdated global grain trading operations. Now that we’ve received regulatory approvals and incorporated Covantis as a legal entity, we focus on the preparation of the 2020 launch of the new platform.”
“We’re particularly pleased to announce that we are locating the company in Switzerland,” Sechanova added. “Switzerland is a thriving technology innovation hub, with access to tremendous talent and expertise in blockchain solutions. Geneva’s central location makes it ideal to continue our work with stakeholders across our value chain, as we build our new digital platform for the industry, by the industry.”
Earlier this year, Covantis announced the selection of ConsenSys, a Ethereum blockchain technology company, as the lead technology partner to develop its transformative set of digital solutions. ConsenSys will leverage its enterprise-ready blockchain products and services, including, Codify, PegaSys Orchestrate, Kaleido, and MythX to build the blockchain network on Ethereum.
