Indoor-Farming Portfolio Scale Adviser

The mandate

Directors repeatedly ask whether strong output from a flagship farm supports three parallel modules or only demonstrates what an expert team can achieve under protected conditions. Management cases combine nameplate yield, future energy tariffs, ideal crop mix and preliminary retailer demand, while excluding ramp loss, seed variability, rejected product and specialist attention. The adviser’s standing question is which operating evidence is genuinely transferable and what scale sequence protects capital, food integrity and market learning.

The commitment is four days monthly: one farm-performance review, one scale-and-capital challenge, chair preparation and either committee attendance or an evidence visit. Five committee meetings and four visits across farm, energy or customer operations are included. Material crop-loss or capital questions receive a response within forty-eight hours; live growing decisions, food-safety action, engineering approval and customer negotiation remain outside the advisory cadence and with appointed professionals.

The term runs nine months through two crop cycles and the next module-sanction decision. A single three-month renewal is possible only if a named crop proof is incomplete and independent directors minute why continuity is valuable. The adviser concludes with a module archetype framework, evidence history, scale conditions and indicators that the committee can apply without permanent dependence. Renewal is determined by the chair after effectiveness and conflict review.

The adviser holds no line authority, executive responsibility, cultivation role, food-safety approval or board vote. Farm teams grow and release product, engineers own systems, commercial leaders manage customers, and directors approve capital. The adviser may challenge comparable evidence, press for staged release and recommend stopping a module, but cannot choose crop recipes, certify yield, approve food, direct a farm, select equipment or guarantee economic performance.

Connections to competing growers, seed providers, lighting and climate vendors, utilities, retailers, construction partners, financiers or government programmes require disclosure. A current mandate for a proposed supplier or customer may require recusal or appointment termination. Other non-conflicting work is permitted within the stated envelope. Fees will not vary with kilograms produced, yield claims, capital sanctioned, power contracts, subsidy receipt, retailer awards or valuation.

Why the board wants this voice

Farm scientists understand biological performance and project teams understand repeatable equipment, but neither is independent of the expansion case. Investors see attractive food-security demand while struggling to compare maturing crop evidence across modules. The board wants an operator who has governed controlled-environment scale and can identify when a modular engineering story still contains non-modular biological and human dependencies.

What you will own

• Press management to reconcile seeded area, harvest, grade, waste, downtime, labour, energy, water and customer acceptance by cycle.
• Test transferability across crop, module design, climate, commissioning team, operator experience and input supply.
• Challenge demand cases where retailer interest is not matched by grade, shelf-life, delivery and price commitments.
• Examine whether expansion preserves enough expert capacity and spare operating margin to learn safely from early modules.
• Shape capital gates for construction, commissioning, crop introduction, customer release and portfolio replication.
• Maintain independent records of assumptions, failed batches, dissent, conflicts and evidence awaiting another crop cycle.
• Leave the committee a repeatable module-scale review tied to comparable operating and customer evidence.

Candidate qualifications

• Has governed controlled-environment agriculture, greenhouse or food-bioprocess scale across multiple operating units.
• Can evidence a module or farm sanction changed because biological transferability had been overstated.
• Understands crop cycles, environmental control, energy and water, food safety, grading, waste and retailer service.
• Has challenged project and commercial teams using cycle-level evidence without making cultivation judgments.
• Can distinguish nameplate yield, stable yield, saleable yield and contribution after ramp and rejection.
• Is independent of relevant growers, equipment vendors, seed providers, utilities, retailers, financiers and public programmes.

Non-negotiables

• Can attend five Riyadh committee meetings and complete four farm, energy or customer evidence visits.
• Will not prescribe crop recipes, certify food safety, approve engineering or promise yield through this appointment.
• Brings direct biological-production scale governance; generic agriculture investing or construction oversight is insufficient.
• Will disclose supplier, utility, retailer, investor and government-programme relationships before reviewing expansion evidence.

1. 49 words maximum. Which apparently modular performance assumption failed when a controlled farm was replicated, and why?
2. 49 words maximum. What grower, supplier, retailer, utility or investor commitments would this board need disclosed?
3. 49 words maximum. When have you required another biological cycle before releasing capital for expansion?