About InterGrain

Karlie is a strategic communications specialist with experience in managing brands and reputations, complex stakeholder relationships and communications.

She has 20 years’ experience spanning industry advocacy, marketing & public relations, publishing and research and development.

Karlie joined Australia’s largest agribusiness, the CBH Group in 2005 where she subsequently spent almost a decade as General Manager Grower and External Relations working directly with grain growing producers, their rural communities and CBH’s many other stakeholders.

Karlie has established a communications consultancy, is currently the Deputy Chair of the Western Australian Regional Development Trust, a Director of Fremantle Ports, serves as a Board member of the Guildford Grammar School Foundation and is a member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.

Chris Bazley joined the InterGrain board in December 2017, bringing with him a plethora of experience as a former senior executive in the Australian grains industry, and more recently, an accomplished board career.

Formerly the Managing Director of Pacific Seeds, Chris successfully pioneered new seed varieties while overseeing extensive R&D, production and management of stock, and the marketing of seed varieties both domestically and internationally. Concurrently, he continued to improve the company’s market share and commercial success, while also earning the business an Employer of Choice award. Since stepping away from Pacific Seed in 2010,

Chris has gone on to hold multiple board positions. He has served as a board member on the University of Queensland Gatton Advisory Committee, is Chairman of the Board at Clifton Community Health Services, and serves on the University of Southern Queensland Council, where he is Chairman of the Finance and Facilities Committee, as well as serving on the Member Audit, Chancellor’s, and Remuneration Committees.

Chris is a Member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors, and is an inaugural trustee at Queensland Crop Research Limited.

Bob’s extensive international career as a senior executive in high-tech seeds businesses and experience as a director will help him to contribute to InterGrain’s board and business.

Bob comes from a wheat-farming background in North Western NSW and has always worked across the technical – commercial interface of plant-based agribusiness. He began his career as a plant breeder with CSR Ltd in Queensland before moving to R&D leadership in the sugar industry, then to a plant biotech start-up, and finally to Syngenta Seeds. Based at times in Asia, North America, and Australia, he held country, regional and global commercial and marketing leadership roles in Syngenta.

Bob also brings wide experience as a company director, more recently serving as a non-executive director for New Edge Microbials Pty. Ltd., Future Food Systems Ltd, and Horticulture Innovation Australia Ltd. He chairs a number of research, commercialisation and investment committees for these boards.

Emma Scotney (BA, LLB (Hons) GAICD) is an experienced non executive director and former corporate lawyer with strong financial and commercial acumen who has over 25 years combined expertise in the mining, agricultural and property industries. She has extensive experience in advising on corporate, financial, governance and commercial matters, including mergers and acquisitions and equity capital markets. Emma was legal counsel at an ASX listed global mining services company where she specialised in international supply and distribution contracts for mining tools and equipment. Emma is also a member of a private company responsible for the operation of a high performing commercial livestock and cropping enterprise.

Haelee joined InterGrain towards the end of 2019 as the Cereal Chemist and has led the implementation and development of the quality laboratory at our Bibra Lake site. Haelee has a Bachelor of Science in Food Science and Technology (First Class Honours), and a PhD in Public Health (Food Science) from Curtin University.

Prior to joining InterGrain, Haelee was an experienced lecturer with a demonstrated history of working in higher education, most recently in the Food Science and Technology undergraduate, postgraduate, and higher degree programs at Curtin University. Haelee has also worked in the grain and food industry with roles at the Department of Agriculture and Food of Western Australia, CBH Group, and different food companies including Vesco Foods, Brownes Dairy, and Glenhaven Foods (ROI).

Haelee’s research interests primarily encompass the areas of cereal science, health, and sensory evaluation. The unique mix of prior roles has been valuable in gaining experience and understanding of the whole value chain from pre–breeding to paddock, to plate and beyond into human health. Haelee’s role at InterGrain is focused on delivering high value and quality grain testing to support our plant breeding strategy and programs; and advancing cereal science and innovation in grain quality through engagement with the grains and wider industries.

Dini is the Business and Research Development Manager for InterGrain’s wheat, barley and oat breeding programs and has more than 9 years’ experience in all aspects of RD&E. Dini has a PhD in plant breeding & statistics and an undergraduate degree in Agricultural Science (with Honours) and Economics from the University of Western Australia. During her involvement on the Emerging Industries Technical advisory panel, Dini hopes to contribute to the extension of R&D to ensure that various projects in their design and application, see implementation and deployment to the benefit of the industry.

Chris Lisle is the Biometrician for InterGrain where he leads the development and implementation of statistical methodology to InterGrain’s breeding programs.

Chris joined InterGrain in 2022 after spending 20 years as a statistical consultant for the Australian grains industry. He comes with a wealth of experience and application in the areas of linear mixed models, experimental design, big data management, and R programming. In particular, he is a world leading expert in the analysis of multi-environment trial (MET) analyses and the dissemination of their results. Recently, he has submitted his PhD thesis which provides statistical methodology and procedures for information-based diagnostics for the optimal construction of MET datasets, and was the recent joint winner of the 23rd Annual JB Douglas Postgraduate Award for his research.

Federico is the Plant Growth Facilities Manager at InterGrain, having joined the company in 2020. He has extensive experience in the development of biotechnology tools for accelerated breeding for pulses, cereals and oil seed crops, and on the management of large-scale commercial breeding populations. He has a strong background in plant physiology, genetics and breeding; doubled haploidy and tissue culture technologies.

Dr Ribalta holds a Ph.D. in pulse breeding technologies from the University of Western Australia and INRA, France. Before joining Intergrain, he was involved in the development and implementation of GRDC funded innovative biotech programs at UWA. This was achieved whether by the compression of breeding cycles in controlled environments through the manipulation of plant morphogenesis and use of state-of-the-art LED light technology, combined with integrated high throughput phenotyping, or through interspecific hybridisation, cloning, single-cell mutation and doubled haploidy.

In his role at InterGrain, Federico is responsible for overseeing all operations related to glasshouse production for Intergrain’s breeding programs. His role involves the development of high-level strategies for the acceleration of the early generation cycle times and integration of high throughout phenotyping within the glasshouse pipeline. He also has a high-level input to the design of InterGrain’s new glasshouse and early generation advancement facilities.