Meet the Team
John Read
Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder
John Read is CEO and Co-Founder of Whitefield Global Holdings. Since co-founding the company with John Taylor, Mr. Read has focused on building the company vision and leading its growth and expansion. John co-founded Whitefield in 2019 and quickly became a leader in consulting, growing, and processing hemp in Illinois.
Since that time, Whitefield has grown from a small company servicing growers in Illinois to now one of the fastest-growing nationwide leaders in the hemp industry.
Prior to co-founding Whitefield, John spent 20+ years in agriculture and risk management. In 2012, John served as Founder and CEO of Ag Armour, a crop insurance company focused on private product development, and most recently as CEO of The Assure Group, a leading crop insurance agency in the Midwest.
john lupien
chief innovation officer
John Lupien has more than 30 years of experience in hemp related research, businesses and technology development. John drives innovation and guides strategy at Whitefield. His achievements include patents and the production of the first ever U.S. grown and processed hemp-cotton blend yarn at commercial scale. For the past 15 years he has developed, tested, and operated a decortication system that perfectly syncs with cotton ginning equipment. He also pioneered new technological advances for wet processing bast fiber and converting hemp hurd into nanomaterials, plastics, and cellulosic fibers.
Paul Tate
Chief financial Officer
Prior to 2012, Chief Strategy Officer Paul Tate has held CFO and COO positions with NASDAQ-traded companies in the commercial airline and emergency medical airlift industries.
In 2012, Paul became Chief Operating Officer of AgriLogic Insurance Services, an Approved Insurance Provider under the USDA crop insurance program operating in 38 states. During his tenure, the Company grew its premium base to over $200 million annually. In 2015, he became the CEO/CFO of Ag Resource Management, LLC, a specialty lending institution to farmers in 22 states. While Paul was there, the annual loan originations grew from $160 million to over $600 million.
In 2020, Paul founded a wholesale crop insurance company (Growtech Indemnity, LLC) specializing in developing and selling hemp crop insurance policies. Paul has a BA and MBA from Northwestern University, is a CPA and holds insurance agent licenses in Texas and Colorado.
Jamie Campbell Petty
Vice President of Industry and Government Relations
VP of Industry and Government Relations Jamie Campbell Petty brings ten years of leadership in the non-profit hemp sector to Whitefield, where she advocates and educates as a fully integrated leader of hemp-based food, fuel and fiber.
Jamie founded the Indiana Hemp Industries Association in 2014, which soon became the recognized leader for hemp education and networking within Indiana. In 2018, Jamie joined long-time hemp advisor Alan Kimbell and Attorney Justin Swanson to form Midwest Hemp Council, which helped form Indiana’s hemp program, contributed to regulatory development and continues to help remove unnecessary barriers for farmers and retailers in the Midwest and beyond. Over the past year, Midwest Hemp Council and its members have made great strides in creating a whole-hemp-plant supply chain, providing numerous channels for domestic hemp as an ingredient or final product on shelves.
As a Co-Founder of Midwest Hemp Council, Jamie will continue to serve on the Board of Directors. Jamie also serves the greater agriculture community as a Foreign Labor Consultant with Keystone Cooperative. She was named "100 People to Know in Hemp" by Hemp Connoisseur Magazine 2018 and serves on the National Hemp Association's Standing Committee of Hemp Organizations.
Kyle Perry
President of Risk Management and Ag Production
Kyle Perry is Whitefield’s President of Risk Management and Production. Mr. Perry is responsible for managing relationships with partner farmers and leading the company's independent multi-state crop insurance agency, The Assure Group, where he is responsible for facilitating growth of agency premium via acquisitions and organic growth.
Kyle previously served as Business Development Director for Great American Insurance Group, where he was instrumental in training and providing a variety of business development decisions for existing and new crop insurance agents. This is one of several key roles he held with Great American in his 11 years with the organization.
Most notably, Kyle has a knack for building successful sales teams that result in increased sales and premiums. As Director of Sales for Climate Corporation, he more than doubled Total Weather Insurance (TWI) Corn and Soybean premium for 2012 Sales, increased The Climate Corporation's overall yearly written premium, and built a successful field sales team — growing from 2 to 25 sales managers — all within the same year.
Kyle holds a degree in Finance and Marketing from Eastern Illinois University in Charleston, Illinois.
