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About us

We're creating a future where nature and automation work in tandem to solve the food waste and climate crisis.
Goterra's Modular Biological Services (MIB unit on site at Lendlease

Our company

At Goterra, we believe climate change is the crisis of our time. We exist to help solve it.

We’re reimagining a future where nature and automation work in tandem to solve complex problems like reducing food waste and securing our food supply chain. We’re creating that future today, with modular, autonomous insect farms converting food waste into sustainable protein and fertiliser.

Born in Canberra, expanding globally, our circular economy infrastructure is making a genuine impact. We’re part of a community of unreasonable companies solving pressing global problems.

 

Origin story

Meet our executive team

We’re powered by our mission and led by our founder. Our expertise in engineering, manufacturing, software, electronics, agriculture, biology and environmental science help us solve wicked problems together.

Olympia Yarger

Founder & CEO

Olympia has a global vision to decentralise food waste management with insect-powered, smart city infrastructure. As Goterra’s chief executive and evangelist, she’s redefining food waste culture in Australia and creating sustainable feed options for our farmers. A founding Director of the Insect Protein Association of Australia, she’s an active advocate and mentor for the emerging insect farming industry, women in STEM and promoting agtech as a career path for young people.

A species of soldier fly is named after her: Hermetia Olympiae!

Justin Frank

Head of Strategy and Communications

Justin is a purpose-driven circular economy leader with over two decades of experience implementing sustainable development strategies for industrial and environmental services companies. Most recently, he served as Chief Strategy, Sustainability, and Communications Officer at SUEZ Australia.

At Goterra, Justin will draw on his expertise in circular economy principles to advance the company’s mission. He will lead strategy development and oversee internal and external communications as Goterra scales its groundbreaking food waste solutions across Australia.

Justin’s experience driving sustainability strategies and engaging stakeholders will be instrumental as Goterra partners with forward-thinking businesses to tackle food waste nationwide. He will be key in communicating Goterra’s impact and vision of decentralizing food waste management.

Chris Shackleton

Head of Delivery

Chris has a background in business evolution, private and government stakeholder engagement and compliance and governance. He has led complex projects for major clients as well as a successful commercial exit to Civica (acquired by Blackstone).

As Head of Delivery at Goterra, Chris leads the execution and implementation of strategic projects. Leaning on 20 years of experience in multifaceted and time sensitive projects, he brings a strong focus on delivery excellence, coordination of complex projects, management of timelines and budgets, and drives sustainable solutions that align with Goterra’s mission to address climate change.

Vippan Kumar

Financial Operations

Vippan Kumar is a strategic senior finance professional with an established career in investments across M&A, cost improvement and regulation. Extensive experience leading organisations to profitability through systems development and implementation of business continuity and performance assessment process.

Robert Melin

Chief of Staff

Robert is a seasoned and people and business leader with a background rooted in startups and technology. Robert was Head of Talent & Development at Fleet Space Technologies 2019-2023 ($A86m raised in this period). Robert joined in 2023 to drive high performance across the business as we scale.

Connect with us

Goterra represents where we need to be as a global community. Combining natural biological systems with smart tech to change our carbon and ecological footprint for the better.

Lucy Sharman, Sustainability Manager, Lendlease

Join our mission

We're looking for people as excited about solving the climate crisis as we are!

Join us