About Ferguson Cardo

Richard Ferguson is the managing director and founder of Ferguson Cardo. His career began in 1989 with the British Linen Bank, an Edinburgh-based investment bank. In 1993 he relocated to Hong Kong where he became the first European to work for a Chinese investment bank. He spent nine years in Asia working as an analyst covering mostly the telecoms, media and technology sectors for Shanghai International, Schroders and Nomura. After a four-year spell in Latin America and Paris, Richard re-located to London as a founder member of Nomura's new emerging markets group. During this period he formed an agriculture research function for the bank. After a spell at Moscow-based Renaissance Capital, Richard established Ferguson Cardo, an agribusiness consultancy. He has worked on many agribusiness fundraisings in Latin America (Libero Holdings), Africa (Feronia, Zambeef) and the CIS (Black Earth Farming, RusAgro, PhosAgro). In addition he worked on multiple capital raisings in Asia from Chinese B-shares to Korean telecoms operators. Between 2012-2013, he was a director, and latterly managing director, of MASDAR Farming, an emerging markets agriculture operator. He has also provided independent strategic advice to various companies and organisations including Black Earth Farming in Russia, Feronia in the DRC, Agrokultura in Ukraine, Amorim SA in Portugal, Asianomics in Hong Kong, the Centre for Agriculture & Biosciences International and PwC LLP in the UK. For three years he was an investment advisor to Washington DC-based Agricultural Transformation Initiative (ATI) which seeks to diversify several African economies from their dependence on tobacco exports. Richard is also a director and shareholder in Sahel Agriculture (Mauritius) Ltd, a company which develops and manages large-scale and smallholder agricultural operations across Africa.

Richard is the author of "African agriculture: This other Eden", "A revolution of sorts", "From field to laptop: the changing face of soft commodities trading" , ”Water on oil” and "China's grain drain" and "The future is another country: Brexit, CAP and the future of British agriculture". He also wrote the agriculture chapter of “The Fastest Billion” a book on Africa’s economic prospects. Richard sat on the Royal African Society's Africa-UK working group on Food Security. His work has been published by many think tanks and policy institutes including Bright Blue, The Bruges Group and Scottish Global Forum. He has written for various publications including the Financial Times, Standpoint Magazine, The Moscow Times, the SCMP, the Kyiv Post, Cable Magazine, AgFunder and Latin American Investor on a range of subjects including agriculture, urbanism, development, currencies, trade, technology and politics. He has also contributed widely to television and radio networks including BBC World, CNN, CNBC, Reuters and Bloomberg TV. He holds degrees from the University of Strathclyde in Scotland and L'Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées in Paris, France’s second oldest grande école.