General Director of Georgian agribusiness company YFN Georgia LLC

Simon Appleby is General Director of Georgian agribusiness company YFN Georgia LLC; the company is a sister enterprise to another firm in Hong Kong in business since 1997. YFN Georgia was stablished in 2010 and is engaged in irrigation design/construction and farm management, as well as technical and business consultancy for domestic and foreign commercial enterprises in Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Turkey. The company has recently started commercialising cloud-based farm management software for small and medium-sized farms in the South Caucasus, running on farmers' smartphones and integrated with the traceability systems of major food processors. The company also is the local food safety consulting, certification and audit partner of certification agency TUV Rheinland's Caucasus representative, Cyprus-based Management Mix.

Simon is also co-founder and Director of Georgia-based agro-tourism resort developer Kartlos Group LLC, with activities in three Georgian regions and two districts of southern Armenia.

After degrees in veterinary science in the Universities of Melbourne and Queensland in Australia, and a career in Japanese corporate agribusiness, Simon established his own consultancy and farm management operations in Indonesia and the Philippines in 1997. In 2002 he established Greater China operations, based in Hong Kong, and he and his local team engaged in similar activities in China's aquaculture, dairy, beef, pork, horticulture and biofuel industries in twelve different provinces, from four regional offices.

Simon's personal interests in Georgian agriculture are focussed on the use of locally-adapted IT to improve agricultural product safety and open new high-value markets, and how technologically advanced foreign-invested enterprises may act as knowledge centres and extension facilities for their contractors and surrounding smallholders