Trio of keynote speakers among Southern Exposure 2023 highlights
An actress and bestselling author, an agtech industry executive, and an aviation veteran will be featured as keynote speakers at the Southeast Produce Council's upcoming Southern Exposure trade show and conference.
Southern Exposure, to be held March 2-4 at the Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin Resort in Lake Buena Vista, Fla., also will feature educational sessions and entertainment.
Keynote speakers scheduled for the event include Kimberly Williams-Paisley, Sonia Lo and Heather "Lucky" Penney.
Celebrity keynote speaker: Kimberly Williams-Paisley
Perhaps best known for her role as the daughter in “Father of the Bride,” actress Kimberly Williams-Paisley is also a New York Times bestselling author, Alzheimer’s advocate and co-founder of nonprofit The Store, an organization in Nashville, Tenn., that aims to address food insecurity.
Williams-Paisley’s memoir, “Where The Light Gets In: Losing My Mother Only to Find Her Again,” chronicles her mother’s battle with Alzheimer’s disease. Published in 2016, the book made the New York Times bestseller list.
She was awarded a Champion Award in 2016 from the Alzheimer’s Association for her advocacy work dedicated to sharing her family’s story, funding research and supporting caregivers. Her annual Dance Party to End Alz in Nashville has raised over a million dollars in its first three years, according to the SEPC website.
Williams-Paisley also is a global ambassador for CARE International, traveling to Haiti and Guatemala to follow U.S. funding for programs that support women and children, and then sharing her story back home, including engaging with lawmakers on Capitol Hill to help preserve global health funding.
She is a spokesperson for CARE’s She Feeds the World partnership with the PepsiCo Foundation to address food insecurity and tackle gender inequality in the agriculture sector. In 2020, she joined Charlize Theron’s Together For Her campaign in partnership with CARE, to help deploy funds and support the global fight against domestic violence during the global COVID-19 pandemic.
In 2020, Williams-Paisley and her husband, country singer and songwriter Brad Paisley, opened their nonprofit, free, referral-based grocery called The Store. The Store aims to empower and dignify individuals and families seeking self-sufficiency by providing choices for their food needs.
In association with Belmont University, The Store pivoted from its original model to disaster relief shortly after its opening in March 2020, when tornadoes hit Nashville.
Industry keynote speaker: Sonia Lo
Sonia Lo is an experienced agtech industry executive who brings a wealth of experience scaling indoor agriculture operations, says SEPC. She has served as CEO of Sensei AG, Crop One Holdings Inc. and in various leadership roles, including Google and eZoka, the latter of which she co-founded.
Lo currently also serves on the board of directors of Griffith Foods International, Urban-Gro, and Hart Dairy.
She earned her bachelor’s degree in political science with a minor in mathematics from Stanford University and an MBA with distinction from Harvard Business School. She also holds professional chef and pastry degrees from London and City College.
Southern Roots speaker: Heather ‘Lucky’ Penney
Most widely recognized for her service on 9/11, Heather “Lucky” Penney speaks on topics including personal courage; citizenship; decision-making under stress; leadership; organizational transformation; inclusivity; high performance teams; national defense issues; and aviation.
Penney grew up around aviation and warbirds, learning that Congress had opened combat aviation to women while she was earning her master’s of arts degree at Purdue University, where she stood up the first collegiate team to race in the Air Race Classic.
She applied to the Air National Guard and earned her wings at Euro-NATO Joint Jet Pilot Training, where she flew the T-37 and T-38. The first and only woman in the 121st Fighter Squadron, Penney deployed to Operation Iraqi Freedom for initial combat operations as a nighttime SCUD Hunter in the western deserts of Iraq, also supporting Special Operations Forces.
Penney flew the F-16 for 10 years, deploying for a second combat tour, before having to make the difficult decision to leave fighter aviation as a single mother. She continued to serve, flying the Gulfstream G-100 Astra jet for another six years in the VIP Special Airlift Mission.
For over 10 years, Penney was a director of various Air Force programs for Lockheed Martin, specializing in capture management, government relations and strategic business development.
Today, she is a senior resident fellow for the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies at the Air Force Association, where she researches and advises on national security and defense policy issues related to airpower and the Air Force.
