Chicago-based futures brokerage and clearing firm RJ O’Brien & Associates (RJO) today announced the appointment of Patrick Christie as Senior Executive Director and Head of Hrvyst, the firm’s agricultural technology (ag tech) business unit.
Mr. Christie has more than 25 years of experience starting, operating and investing in emerging technologies, including most recently in the technology and agribusiness sectors.
Developed in-house by RJO’s Commercial Agricultural team, Hrvyst is the company’s grain marketing profit platform, enabling commercial grain industry users to manage cash and staple grain ownership risk in real-time and automatically turning cash grain contract management into futures hedging orders. Hrvyst’s scalable cloud-based platform enables users to digitally optimize grain sourcing, merchandising and automated compensation.
Hrvyst connects quotes, buys and sales electronically with the futures market and with a grain company’s accounting software system and mobile app, seamlessly and efficiently. Broker-agnostic, the platform can be used by cooperatives and processors with a connection to their existing brokerage firms.
Based in Minneapolis, Christie reports to RJO President and CEO Gerald Corcoran.
Mr Christie said:
“In all my roles, I’ve sought to spend my time on things that matter, creating lasting value, building go-to-market strategies and working with great people. RJO is a company that demonstrates a genuine sense of caring about its people and as I’ve spent more time with the team I’ve found that these are people who really care about the industry and their role in it. I know that with this group we can develop Hrvyst into a scalable solution to provide customers with a competitive advantage in how they operate their businesses and manage their risks.”
Mr. Christie was the founder and CEO of Conservis Corporation, a leading Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) agricultural data management solution that provides confidence in decision making and insights by collecting and organizing operational and financial data on farms. He founded the company in 2009, focusing the company’s mission after identifying an unmet need in the farming community. He and his team grew the business, serving clients ranging from family farms in the Midwest to large-scale international agribusinesses, helping them use technology to manage and grow their operations.
Earlier in his career, Christie owned and served as President and CEO of Cybernet Systems, a technology systems integrator specializing in large-scale data and network architectures.