Roxi is a strategic communications professional who is passionate about solving challenges – for clients, co-workers and the food system. Through her work at Look East, she focuses on consumers and connecting food industry stakeholders with them through research, programs and hands-on experiences.

An active speaker, trainer, facilitator and a trusted advisor to food system thought leaders, Roxi helps organizations think differently about earning trust. She brings 20 years’ experience working with clients across the food system, directing strategy and activities for consumer-facing food and agriculture initiatives – connecting the dots on the varied pressure points that shape today’s food system and helping organizations incorporate transparency principles and trust-growing approaches into their culture. She serves as Director of Consumer Engagement for The Center for Food Integrity (CFI) and leads Look East’s client service team.

Roxi believes genuine motives, straightforwardness and solid communication skills can move mountains in work and life. With family in tow and a hot latte in hand, any place is a happy place. She loves spending time with her husband and two kids. Most weeknights and weekends involve volunteering in any of their many activities including choirs, bands, soccer, football, Scouts and more. Roxi enjoys travel of all sorts – as an international tourist in planes, trains and automobiles, as a doer of all the things cruise ships and port stops offer, and even as a chaperone in a caravan of eight school buses holding 250+ students.

Office Location

Des Moines

Career Background

Roxi grew up in Minnesota where she was an active part of her family’s dairy farm – and learning the value and rewards that come from hard work, dedication and grit. She took an active role in dairy promotions at community parades and through hosting school groups at her family’s “Dairy Day on the Farm.”

Roxi joined Look East in 2007 as an account executive and developed and launched an anticipatory issues management system for one sector of the food system that was receiving pressure from fringe groups. After it launched, the system was expanded to benefit the full food system. She has held various roles and responsibilities with both Look East and The Center for Food Integrity.

She started her professional career at Osborn+Barr as a Public Relations Account Executive working on agriculture focused clients.

Awards and Accomplishments

• Graduated from Coe College with degrees in psychology and public relations and a minor in communications.
• Named 1 of 15 Kick-Ass Women in Food by Food Processing Magazine in 2016.
• Graduate of the 2010-11 class of the Greater Des Moines Leadership Institute.

Organizations

• Public Relations Society of America – member
• Ankeny Instrumental Music Association – vice president
• Centennial Choral Music Parent Organization – president
• Scouting America adult leader and volunteer
• Advisory Council Member to Iowa State University’s “Start Something” agricultural entrepreneurship program
• Iowa Chapter of the National Agri-Marketing Association (President- 2007-08)

Stages and Presentations

A sought-after speaker, Roxi has developed and delivered more than 100 keynote presentations, interactive workshops, research presentations and facilitated speaker panels since 2010 in the United States, Canada, Germany, Hungary, Austria and Mexico.

She led development of trust-building training curriculum and served as lead trainer for more than 100 trainings since 2010 in the United States, Costa Rica, Mexico, Switzerland, Brazil, Argentina and Thailand with an average satisfaction rating of 4.62 out of 5 stars across all training components.

In addition, she developed digital influencer engagement and tour service offerings and trained an influencer engagement team that has led to more than 15 years of successful engagements and events, with a recent tour and influencer-generated content having a total reach of more than 24 million impressions.

Thought Leadership

How can the livestock industry explain difficult decisions