Birmingham, Alabama and San Cristóbal, Gto., Mexico – 02 March 2017 – Kirchner Impact Foundation is pleased to announce the 2017-18 Kirchner Food Fellowship, one of the world’s most innovative capital markets initiatives, will be focused on Central Mexico. In collaboration with Centro Fox the program will be based at the Presidential Library in Guanajuato, Mexico and will bring needed agricultural impact investment capital and vital venture investment training to the region.

The Fellowship has begun to recruit the Fellows for this new Cohort. Candidates must be enrolled in university in Mexico, Canada or the United States and have roots in, or connections to, the region. They must be fully bilingual, self-motivated, hard-working and possess a passion for investing in promising early-stage, for-profit, socially-responsible agricultural companies that will ultimately benefit Central Mexico. To learn more or to apply click here.

“As the program enters its fifth year it is proving the ability to assemble high-functioning investment teams from a large pool of candidates in a matter of months,” stated Steve Dauphin, Director of Kirchner Food Fellowship. “Using the techniques we have developed over the previous years, along with the support of the Kirchner Group and Centro Fox networks, this new team will be able to invest wisely on a fully discretionary basis at a fraction of the cost of traditional fund structures.”

“The Kirchner Food Fellowship is the perfect complement to the ongoing entrepreneurial efforts of Centro Fox,” added President Vicente Fox. “I am pleased to be working closely with Kirchner Group and the Kirchner Food Fellowship program on this important initiative.”

“The international expansion of this program, designed to enable students to work together in addressing the common goal of global food security through impact investing, is very important to me,” stated W.B. (Bud) Kirchner, Founder and CEO of Kirchner Group. “The issues and challenges our Fellows will work to address in Mexico are similar to issues in many developing economies. Their work ultimately will be beneficial to the broader global community.”

The Kirchner Food Fellowship is made possible by the support of Kirchner Group, a traditional merchant bank that provides advisory, operational and transactional support to small and medium sized businesses as well as asset management services. Kirchner has a long history working with agriculture and food companies along with a strong ethos of earning and returning. The Fellowship is sponsored as part of its returning initiatives and capitalizes on Kirchner’s unprecedented track record and network in the agtech sector.

The Kirchner Food Fellowship is proud to be an investor in innovative businesses such as Lucky Iron Fish, a safe, cost-effective, easy-to-use alternative to pills for those suffering from iron deficiency. Green Zebra Grocery, a socially responsible convenience store chain focused on healthy and local options for customers. Till Mobile, a software company using SMS to address supply chain management deficiencies between small producers and large retailers and Kuli Kuli a consumer packaged goods company selling healthy food products made with moringa sourced primarily from small holder farmers in Africa and central America.