(upbeat music) -Hi everyone, Steve Adubato.

Recently, along with my colleague Mary Gamba, who is the co-host of our series Lessons and Leadership, we had a compelling, interesting conversation with Brendan Somerville, who's the co-founder and COO of a company called Oishii.

They're involved in indoor vertical agriculture.

Fascinating stuff.

It's about agriculture, leadership, vertical farming, if you will, so interesting.

And I tell you what I learned a lot and I think you will too.

Let's check out One-on-One or one-on two in this case with Brendan Somerville.

Hi everyone.

Steve Adubato with my colleague Mary Gamba.

We kick off the program with Brendan Somerville, who is the co-founder and COO of Oishii.

And Oishii, tell us where that name comes from, Brendan and what it means.

- Oishii means delicious in Japanese and it describes our amazing strawberries and tomatoes.

- Now, describe the firm.

Because I called you an agricultural entrepreneur.

Is that a good description?

- I think it is.

So Oishii is an indoor vertical farming company.

We're based here in New Jersey.

We grow strawberries, some of the best in the world, at consistent quantity, quality, and price, pesticide free year round using revolutionary indoor farming technologies.

- Brendan, lemme ask you this, it's vertical farming.

What is vertical farming?

- Sure.

So for us it's actually indoor vertical farming.

So we grow indoors, which allows us to decouple from the outside climate.

That enables us to grow 365 days a year.

And vertical means inside of our farms we're able to grow many levels.

So unlike an outdoor farm that has just kind of one level on the ground, we're able to increase our yield through stacking levels indoors.

So it's much more space efficient.

- So Brendan, your background as a Marine, how did you pivot?

How did your interest go from being a Marine and doing that?

Where did this interest in the, because you also, it wasn't just strawberries and tomatoes.

Talk about the, you know, how you went from point A, point B and now to point C, - But Mary, hold on, it wasn't just the Marines.

Not that there's just the Marines.

He was an intelligence officer in the Marines.

So go ahead.

- Well, yeah, thanks for the question.

You know, the thread that I think ties everything together is being mission driven.

For me to have to have the why behind all of my work.

And in the Marines it was pretty clear, right?

It's service to country and also service to fellow Marines.

And agriculture technology, really the problems that we're solving are also bigger than ourselves.

So our vision is we want to create a future with sustainable, climate resilient agriculture.

So I needed to be able to have something that I'm deeply passionate about.

For transition a lot of people think the military and entrepreneurship are diametrically opposed, and in many facets I think they are, but they intersect in very important ways at the center of the Venn diagram.

I think it's, you know, working in a mission-driven organization, having to deliver against all odds in certain circumstances, and in many cases having much more responsibility at a more junior kind of age than you would in the private sector in both military and entrepreneurship.

So for me, the transition wasn't too difficult.

- But your passion for the military and Marine Corps is clear, you communicate that clearly.

But your passion for agriculture comes from where?

- Yeah, so, you know, when I was actually in military intelligence, I started thinking deeply about cause of conflict and what are civilizations fighting over today?

But also what are we gonna be fighting over in 100 years?

And the deeper I dug, the more conviction I had that food security, driven by a shifting climate, could be a major conflict driver of the next century.

So this was over a decade ago when that conversation around climate change and sustainability wasn't really at the forefront.

At that time there wasn't very many people delivering new technologies for climate resilient agriculture.

So I wanted to tackle a big problem and agriculture was one of the biggest I could find, alongside energy and water, of course.

- Good stuff.

- You're telling us you're an underachiever, then.

(all laughing) So obviously being a Marine, it's all about partnerships, it's all about teamwork.

But really your work and in co-founding Oishii and how you got here, talk about that connection between leadership and partnerships.

Because none of this happens in a vacuum or in a silo.

- Absolutely.

Partnerships are everything.

I think there's two principles that are critically important to a successful partnership.

One, the foundation is trust and integrity.

- Absolutely.

- This partnership, it's like your marriage, right?

You spend more time with your, you know, your business co-founder than you do your family.

And your reputation, your financial future, everything you're building is very closely entwined.

And the second is mission alignment, right?

You have to be very clear about what you're trying to build and all partners to be need to be on the same page.

So I'm lucky, my co-founder Hiroki and I had very purposeful conversations early on.

Were we looking to build a business that we would just, you know, sell very quickly or were we trying to build something for the long term that could create a paradigm shift?

And we both deeply trust each other to make the right decision for the business and not for ourselves.

- And before we let you go, appreciate your comments about trust and partnerships.

But also this.

Your experience in Uganda.

What was that?

Very quickly.

'Cause I was struck by that in your background.

- I started avocado and coffee companies working with small holder farmers in Uganda.

So this was kind of the opposite end of the spectrum from indoor vertical farming in that it was basically no technology.

And really my transition to indoor farming was based on the view that climate change was affecting our growing in these regions, plant disease as well, very quickly.

And my view was, you know, if these small holder farmers aren't gonna have a success in the future unless we build climate resilient agriculture.

So I turn that over to my local business partner on the ground.

I do believe that indoor farming, conventional farming, greenhouse farming, big farms and small holder farmers, we're all here trying to do the same thing, which is grow sustainable food and deliver a profitability while also doing that.

So I stay deeply connected to the entire agriculture ecosystem.

- Before I let you go, before we let you go.

Agricultural leadership, any different from regular old leadership?

- I think the principles really tie together nicely across the board.

For us it's one, leading by example, not asking anybody to do something you wouldn't do yourself, as a leader.

Second is building a culture of teamwork.

We call it one team, one fight, just like we do in the military, inside of Oishii.

And the final is as a leader being at the point of friction.

Identifying what are the challenges in your businesses and that's where you need to be as a leader.

So I think those principles, you know, stand in private and public sector.

- Great stuff.

Hey Brendan, I wanna thank you for joining us.

We appreciate it.

- Thanks, Steve.

Thanks, Mary.

- That's Brendan Somerville, co-founder and CEO of Oishii.

Good stuff.

Stay with us, we're right back.

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