Our Team
Partner and Director of Investments
Amanda Zakharov
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Amanda joined Dirt Capital Partners in 2022 and is responsible for sourcing, evaluating, and closing new investments. She has a background in commercial real estate acquisitions and a passion for impact investing in sustainable agriculture. In roles at Strategic Office Partners (a platform of TPG Real Estate), Angelo Gordon, and W. P. Carey, Amanda acquired ~$2B in predominately single tenant real estate, including office, industrial, and retail properties. Additionally, she worked on social impact investments in the food and agricultural sphere as an angel investor, consultant, and entrepreneur, with groups such as Slow Money NYC, Blue Marble Ice Cream, and Local Farms Fund.
Amanda received a B.S. in Finance and Accounting and a M.A. in Food Studies from New York University. She is also a CFA® charterholder and serves as Co-Chair on the board of Sustainable Agriculture & Food Systems Funders (SAFSF). Previously, she served as a board member of the CFA Society of Phoenix and the Orange County Land Trust.
Finance and Operations Associate
Andrea Kaapke
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Andrea joined Dirt Capital Partners in 2025 and is responsible for internal data management and the integration of financial, impact, and operational data across the team.
She brings extensive experience in accounting, budgeting, and organizational leadership. Andrea began her career in public accounting managing compilations, audits, and tax engagements. She later joined Baxter Healthcare Corporation, where she led a team overseeing financial close and reporting for global operations. As Executive Director of Finance at Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law, she managed the school’s financial health and business processes.
Alongside her professional career, Andrea has spent years expanding her organic gardening skills and experimenting with ways to work in harmony with the natural environment. She proudly admits to having a vegetable, herb, and flower seed “addiction” and is continually in awe when the tiny seeds she nurtures transform into nourishing meals and preserved foods to enjoy throughout the year. She also has a passion for traveling the country in her RV, cooking and understanding how real, whole foods support long-term health.
Andrea holds a Bachelor’s degree in Accounting and is a Certified Public Accountant. As a lifelong learner, she pursued education in her areas of passion including a Master’s degree in Integrative and Functional Nutrition, National Board-Certified Health & Wellness Coach, Licensed Dietitian Nutritionist, and Certified Yoga Instructor.
Portfolio Management Associate
Blaine Seifert
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Blaine joined Dirt Capital Partners in early 2026 in a part-time role before joining the team full time in August. He is responsible for managing the existing portfolio and supporting the investment strategy through financial analysis, transaction execution, and portfolio optimization.
Blaine previously worked at Roch Capital, a commercial real estate firm, as a Senior Real Estate Investment Analyst before pursuing his MBA and advising ZEGO Foods on their acquisition of a grain processing and co-packing facility in Belgrade, MT. He brings his background in investment analysis along with prior internship experience in construction to support the development and management of Dirt’s portfolio. He spent part of his summer volunteering at Coverdale Farm Preserve; a regenerative vegetable farm located in northern Delaware.
Blaine holds a B.S. in Finance and MBA from the University of Delaware. He is based in Conshohocken, PA, and enjoys traveling to new places, exploring Philadelphia with friends, and spending time outdoors whenever he can.
Senior Associate, Investor Relations
Bryn Pellowe
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Bryn joined Dirt Capital Partners in 2026 to support investor relations. She brings a background in institutional asset management and an excitement for building more just and sustainable food systems.
Prior to joining Dirt Capital, Bryn was an Advisor at Align Impact, an impact-focused financial advisory firm, where she worked with families and foundations to integrate their values into their portfolios. Previously, she was an Associate on the institutional client team at BlackRock, partnering with pension plans and foundations to implement investment strategies across asset classes.
Bryn holds a B.S. in Economics and Environmental Studies from Santa Clara University. She is based in Boulder, CO and loves to spend time outside, tending to her organic community garden plot and exploring local trails.
Partner and Managing Director
Dominick Grant
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Dominick joined Dirt Capital Partners in 2021 and oversees investment and portfolio management activities. He has worked extensively in land-based investing, including for seven years at BioCarbon Group, a global private-equity impact investment firm backed by institutional investors. Previously he worked at Working Lands Investment Partners, a private-equity real asset investment firm specializing in complex projects with value derived from agriculture, timber, and ecosystem services; the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Office of Environmental Markets; and was a lecturer in Forest and Ecosystem Finance at the Yale School of the Environment.
Dominick serves on the Board of Directors for the Connecticut Green Bank and the CT Department of Agriculture Diversity Equity and Inclusion Working Group. In addition, he and his wife operate a small diversified organic farm in Connecticut. He holds an MBA, an M.E.M. and BA with distinction from Yale University.
Founder and Managing Partner
Jacob Israelow
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Jacob Israelow is the Founder and Managing Partner at Dirt Capital Partners. Jacob started Dirt Capital Partners in 2013 as a platform to channel private investment in support of farmland access, conservation, and land ownership for regenerative farmers. Previously, he was a Vice President at Goldman Sachs in Asia, where he spent five years acquiring and developing real estate and infrastructure on behalf of the firm.
Jacob chairs Dirt Capital’s Investment Committee and serves on the Board and Investment Committee for Mulberry Hive, an impact-focused family office. He previously served on the New York Advisory Council of American Farmland Trust, as well as the Board of the National Young Farmers Coalition for 10 years from 2013-2023. He has an MBA from Columbia Business School, an MA from Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, and a BA from Williams College.
Chief Financial Officer and Chief Compliance Officer
Jason Kenny
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Jason joined Dirt Capital Partners in 2018. Previously, he spent three years as the CFO and CCO of Kings Peak Asset Management, a currency and rates-based investment manager in New York. Prior to this, he spent seven years at Metacapital Management, a fixed income investment manager in New York in a similar role. Jason has public accounting experience through his time spent as an auditor at Anchin, Block and Anchin.
He holds a Bachelors in Business Administration and Finance from Marist College and is a CPA.
Martín Lemos
Director of Impact and Agriculture
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Martín joined Dirt Capital Partners in 2023 and leads the firm's impact strategy and farm advisory services. His deep background in agriculture stems from a decade farming across the U.S., including managing a 50-acre organic farm outside of Chicago. He also coordinated field research programs in support of SME investment in Ghana as senior agronomist at AgDevCo. He later joined BSR where he advised major food and agriculture companies on sustainability strategy, ESG integration, and responsible sourcing.
Prior to joining Dirt Capital, Martín served as Co-Executive Director of the National Young Farmers Coalition. During his tenure, the coalition grew significantly and delivered on historic funding for equitable land access, COVID relief benefiting community-scale farmers, and expanded resources for young and BIPOC producers.
Martín serves on the boards of FWD Impact and Farm Generations Cooperative. He is an alumni of the Castanea Fellowship of leaders working for a racially just food system. He holds an MBA in Sustainability from Bard College and a BA in comparative literature and mathematics from Hamilton College.
Farmer Services Associate
Sarah Bostick
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Sarah joined Dirt Capital Partners in 2026 and serves as a central point of contact for farmers throughout their time working with Dirt Capital Partners.
Sarah has worked in agriculture and food systems for more than two decades. Her journey has included being a certified organic vegetable and cut flower farmer in Maine, leading the education and marketing for a refugee farmer training program, providing technical assistance to food hubs across the southeast, and working as a Sustainable Agriculture Extension Agent with the University of Florida.
Sarah has a BA in Biology and Environmental Policy from Colby College and an MS in Global Food Security and Nutrition from the University of Edinburgh. She lives in a small town in the beautiful mountains of western North Carolina where she delights in hiking, growing an abundance of food, and watching the incredible diversity of wildlife feast and flourish in her wild yard.
Holly Rippon-Butler
Conservation Specialist
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Holly is an independent consultant dedicated to advocating for equitable agricultural policy and ensuring a future for small-scale, diverse farmers across the country.
She brings together a lifetime of experience in agriculture with over a decade of leadership in federal, state, and local policy advocacy, including ten years developing and leading the National Young Farmers Coalition’s land access work. Through her consulting, she supports organizations of all scales around the country in developing strategy, engaging in federal policy, and resourcing their work. Holly has served in numerous leadership and advisory positions, including currently as board chair of the Essex Food Hub and as a member of the Adirondack Land Trust board. She grew up on her family's multi-generational dairy farm in upstate New York, where she still farms with her parents.
Holly holds a Master of Environmental Management degree from the Yale School of the Environment with a focus on sustainable land use and agriculture.
Investment Committee
Anders Ferguson
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Anders Ferguson is a founding principal of Veris Wealth Partners. He is a seasoned entrepreneur and financier building sustainable companies and nonprofits since 1978. Anders specializes in sustainable alternative assets, capital formation, and business strategy. Prior to Veris, Anders chaired Uplift Equity Partners, a firm specializing in sustainable private equity. He speaks frequently about sustainable leadership and investing.
Anders is a principal consultant to the Envestnet Sustainability Platform. Headquartered in Chicago, Envestnet Asset Management is a leading provider of innovative practice management and asset management solutions for independent financial advisors.
In 1999, Anders achieved an important personal milestone with the success of a consulting company he founded. Rather than rush quickly into a new venture, he took time off to contemplate a deeper application of his business skills to his personal passion for social responsibility. Anders went on retreat to a small rural village on the border of Tibet and China where he witnessed firsthand the environmental impacts of an ascending Chinese economy. Forests were stripped of trees, rivers were dammed for hydro-electric projects, and the air in major cities was growing visibly toxic. All the good works of the small and medium-sized sustainable companies he advised were no match for what was occurring on a global scale. Anders knew he needed to engage major, mainstream business leaders in the next phase of his life’s work. With this in mind, he co-convened an extraordinary conference and NGO that brought together Fortune 500 executives and the Dalai Lama to explore the intersection of leadership, spirituality, mindfulness, and business performance. It was the beginning of a journey that continues to this day.
Anders is a co-founder of the Dalai Lama Fellows, Chair of Friends of The Oberlin Project, Oberlin College, and co-founder of the Global Leaders Academy. He was an advisor to the Evergreen Cooperatives initiative in Cleveland, OH, and served as a director of the National Cooperative Business Association and Foundation for 12 years. Anders studied agriculture at Purdue University and graduated from Oberlin College with a B.A. in History and Environmental Studies. He lives with his family in Leyden, MA.
Elisabeth Keller
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Elisabeth Keller is President of Inglewood Plantation, LLC, a 3,600-acre farm in Louisiana that has been in her family since 1926. Until 2012, Inglewood was a conventional commodity crop and livestock operation. Five years ago, she initiated the transition of the farm toward a fully sustainable, organic farming enterprise that includes organic vegetables, grains and pecans, along with grass-fed beef and pastured pork. Inglewood is now the largest organic farm in Louisiana and sells produce and meat through farmers’ markets, CSA sales, restaurants, and wholesale channels.
From 2012-2017, Elisabeth was Chairman of the Board of Keller Enterprises, and she is a current Board Director at Murphy Oil Corp. She has adopted something of a farming approach to managing her personal portfolio of investments, considering this question: What do I want to grow that will be sustaining and life-giving to the community, the world and the planet? She is driven by the vision of a family company whose ventures create sustainable economic vitality, promote environmental stewardship, and strengthen the communities where they are based.
Elisabeth came to Keller Enterprises after working for many years in the field of public health as a certified nurse-midwife. She holds degrees from Williams College, Yale Divinity School and the Yale School of Nursing. Elisabeth spends her volunteer time working with organizations focused on health and education in East Africa. She serves on the boards of Re-Entry Solutions, an organization in Louisiana supporting citizens returning from incarceration, and CHERA (Community Health & Education in Rural Africa).
Esther Park
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Esther is the CEO of Cienega Capital, a regenerative investment firm utilizing an integrated capital approach to systemic change in the areas of soil health, regenerative agriculture, and local food systems. Cienega Capital is also part of the #NoRegrets Initiative, a regenerative asset strategy focused on the health of agricultural soils and agricultural communities in North America. Esther has over 20 years of experience in mission-based financial services ranging from microfinance to risk capital investments, in partnership with financial institutions, family offices, foundations, and investment advisors. She is also a faculty member of the Just Economy Institute and serves as a Board member to a number of companies and non-profits.
Esther has also served as the Vice President for Strategy and Business Development at RSF Social Finance working with social enterprises; and as a senior consultant at ShoreBank Advisory Services, providing strategic and capital planning advice for Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs). And in a previous life, Esther lived in Nukus, Uzbekistan, teaching English and conducting program evaluation work for the United Nations. Esther received her MPP from University of Chicago, and BA in Social Welfare from the University of California Berkeley.
Jacob Israelow
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Jacob started Dirt Capital Partners in 2013 as a platform to channel private investment in support of farmland access, conservation and long-term land security for sustainable farmers. Previously, he was a Vice President at Goldman Sachs in Asia, where he spent five years acquiring and developing real estate and infrastructure on behalf of the firm.
Jacob chairs Dirt Capital’s Investment Committee and also serves on the New York Advisory Council of American Farmland Trust, the Investment Committee for Belltown Farms, and served on the Board of the National Young Farmers Coalition for 10 years from 2013-2023 including several years as Treasurer. He has an MBA from Columbia Business School, an MA from Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, and a BA from Williams College.
Tom Sargent
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Tom has been a member of the Dirt Capital Investment Committee since inception. He spent 30 years working on innovative community-oriented projects that bring to life underutilized urban areas. As a founding principal of Equity Community Builders LLC (ECBSF.com) in 1993, he led the development and ongoing management of such award-winning projects as the Thoreau Center for Sustainability in the Presidio of San Francisco, the Ferry Plaza Farmer’s Market in San Francisco and Cavallo Point Lodge in Sausalito. The firm is committed to responsible development, and focuses on historic rehabilitation, non-profit multi-tenant centers, affordable housing and green building practices.
Tom also participates actively as an advisor to the non-profit sector and as an investor in social enterprises through his firm Highlands Associates (HighlandsSRI.com), which has a particular focus on local sustainable agriculture and food production. He believes that public/private partnerships and creatively structured, patient capital investment strategies provide a significant opportunity for serving both human and natural communities. He co-founded the New Field Foundation (Newfieldfound.org), which supports rural women’s groups and agro-ecological projects primarily in West Africa; and is Trustee of the Tamalpais Trust (Tamtrust.org), which supports the strengthening of Indigenous People’s led initiatives and institutions that promote and serve traditional cultures, values, knowledge, rights, and lifeways.
He has always had a passion for learning about rural life and the natural world. After graduating from Ohio Wesleyan University in 1973, he worked on a dairy farm in Vermont and now lives on a multi-generational farm in Massachusetts. He studied landscape design at the Conway School.
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