Founder & Chief Executive Officer
Michael Jones
After leaving a healthcare services company in January of 2011 that he had started ten years prior, Michael had planned to spend some long-needed time with his family while deciding what his next course in business would be. It was during this sabbatical that he was revisiting a conversation with his father-in-law, a long-time Blue Mountain coffee farmer in Jamaica, about the severe disadvantages in the value chain of coffee, that ultimately led to the creation of Thrive Farmers – an innovative platform to change the world of coffee and align the interests of producers and consumers for the first time.
Michael is the quintessential entrepreneur, having founded and operated several privately held companies. He has managed high growth companies and has been successful in building significant market value for shareholders. Most recently, Michael founded Implantable Provider Group (IPG), a provider of market-based medical implant solutions that is delivered to payors, manufacturers, providers and patients. In his role as President/COO, Michael was named one of Atlanta’s top 25 entrepreneurs by Catalyst Magazine in 2008 (#4). Jones was selected because of his role in founding IPG and turning it into one of the country’s fastest-growing businesses. In 2008, Inc. Magazine ranked IPG as the sixth-fastest growing healthcare company in the country (1,500% three year growth rate) and the 138th fastest-growing overall. FORBES Magazine recently ranked IPG at #5 in its list of 100 Most Promising Companies in America.
Michael has been instrumental in raising capital from high profile private equity firms including Sequoia Capital, arguably the most revered venture capital firm in recent history due to its investments in Apple, Atari, Oracle, Cisco, Yahoo, Paypal, Google and others, who invested in IPG in early 2010. Michael’s background prior to IPG includes an early career in the financial services industry in corporate finance. He then segued into healthcare in the mid 90’s pursuing two other ventures.
Michael is married to Sharon, and they have three boys.
Chief Impact Officer
Kenneth Lander
As a retired trial lawyer from Georgia, Ken has extensive experience in advocating client’s interests on long-term projects as well as in complicated litigation in both the private and public sectors. After 14 years of the practice of law, Ken decided to move with the entire family to a coffee farm in Costa Rica. With the transition from trial lawyer to coffee farmer, Ken quickly began to understand the injustices that farmers face in the current value chain of coffee.
With the combination of Ken’s never failing passion for advocacy and his new found vocation as a coffee farmer, Ken decided to make the case for the coffee farmer and to reveal the truth about your morning cup. Thrive Farmers is the direct result of Ken starting the San Rafael Sustainable Coffee Initiative in mid-2010 with other farmers in his coffee-growing community. The SRSCI became the initial local platform and test case for the farmer in San Rafael. THRIVE Farmers was the natural next leap to take the case of the coffee farmer to the entire world.
As Chief Sustainability Officer of Thrive Farmers, Ken seeks to find, advocate and project the voice of the farmer and to tell the world that a new day has come in the world of coffee. His passion to stand and advocate on behalf of his fellow coffee farmers has found its place in THRIVE Farmers.
Prior to law and farming, Ken was a marketing director with Feld Entertainment, Inc. working in public relations and marketing for Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus and Walt Disney’s World on Ice.
There is no coincidence in life, only Providence. A past experience in public relations, the practice of law, the passion for advocacy, and now coffee farming all are being brought to bear in Ken’s life to make Thrive Farmers the connection between the coffee farmer and the lover of coffee.
VP of Marketing
Ricardo Caceres
Vice President of Marketing Ricardo Caceres has spent his career driven by a steadfast passion to change and challenge business-as-usual. He is a creative and resourceful marketer with a proven record as a leader in revolutionizing multinational companies through social good development.
Most recently, Caceres served as the Senior Director of Purpose at VF Corporation, where he was responsible for shaping the company as the global leader of purpose in the apparel industry. He worked closely with the CEO and Senior leaders to align and socialize the company’s purpose-driven strategies, vision and values, and with many global brands to turn social purpose into business growth.
Previously, Ricardo was the Global Marketing Director of Sustainability for the Coca-Cola Company, where he worked for more than 18 years. He partnered with corporate and regional teams to integrate sustainability across all marketing, which enhanced brand strategies, set up new capabilities and improved analytics. He was also a key player in the creation of the New Still Beverage Business in Latin Center.
Prior to joining TCCC, he worked as an account executive for O&M and was later recruited to work in Brand Management at Unilever.
In addition to purposeful business strategy, Ricardo has helped many nonprofits. Notably, he served as the Regional Strategic Partnership Director for CARE, an international humanitarian organization dedicated to fighting global poverty and world hunger.
Ricardo holds a BA in International Business from Tulane University and an MBA from Thunderbird, The American School of International Management. He was a Member of the Advisory Board for Sustainable Brands from 2014-2017 and a co-leader of the Practice of Purpose Project, where he galvanized brands to integrate sustainability and social purpose into their marketing activities, with Professor Omar Rodriguez from Emory University.
The mission of Thrive Farmers is deeply personal to Ricardo. He is originally from El Salvador, where his family has farmed coffee for five generations.
Chief Origin Officer
Edgar Cabrera Cozza
Edgar Cabrera Cozza, Chief Origin Officer, has been a successful entrepreneur in his home country of Guatemala for over 20 years. Edgar has a heart for coffee and the impact it can have on the many lives that intersect the coffee community. Edgar was introduced to the coffee industry through his wife, who is a member of the Falla Family, and part of the successful San Miguel coffee operation. As an entrepreneur, Edgar saw the opportunities in the family business and successfully launched a chain of specialty coffee shops around Guatemala City called Café San Lucas. Edgar connected the family coffee production directly to the consumer on a daily basis.
With coffee as a growing passion, Edgar immersed himself deeper into the family business, managing the quality and scale of the organization. Edgar has successfully developed new markets and long-term relationships worldwide that have expanded the use of the family’s coffee around the globe.
With Thrive Farmers, Edgar’s focus is on quality, scalability and impact. His mission is connecting farmers in Latin America to the consumer and witnessing true impact for his home country of Guatemala, and for all the coffee producing countries in the region.
Most importantly, Edgar is a husband to Regina and a father to four beautiful children Alejandra, Adrian, Javier, and Marcelo.
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