Working with aligned teams of experienced investment and operating professionals committed to our stakeholders.

Pioneers in professional farmland investing, our team has decades of experience serving institutional investors and generating attractive returns through wide-ranging market conditions.

Suzanne Petrela

Managing Partner & Chief Investment Officer

  • Suzanne Petrela founded Red Reef and leads the firm’s investment management business, including commingled funds and customized accounts, and strategic partnerships in agronomy, agricultural technology, and renewable energy. Ms. Petrela has specialized in real assets and natural resources investing on behalf of institutional investors since 2001. Her track record includes more than $1 billion invested in agriculture across numerous geographies and investment structures. As the firm’s Chief Investment Officer, Ms. Petrela leads the Investment Committee for each Red Reef fund.

    Prior to Red Reef, Ms. Petrela oversaw Ospraie’s global private investment effort in agriculture. She led two of Ospraie’s largest private equity investments, Adecoagro and Teays River Investments, and was involved in the acquisition of Gavilon. Ms. Petrela oversaw the inception of the Special Opportunity Fund's new agricultural real estate fund management business in partnership with Teays. She served as a Director and member of the Compensation Committee of the Board of Teays, and as a Director and member of the Audit Committee of the Board of Adecoagro.

    Before Ospraie, Ms. Petrela was a private equity Principal with Soros Fund Management/Grove International Partners, where she managed real estate investments internationally. Prior to Soros, she was a private equity Associate with TD Capital and a mergers and acquisitions Analyst with Salomon Brothers, where she specialized in real assets, energy, and natural resources. 

    Ms. Petrela has been featured as an expert agricultural investor in Forbes, Reuters, Institutional Investor Foundation & Endowment Intelligence, PEI Alternative Insight Global Agri Investor, AgAdvance Journal, the Fidelity Family Office Direct Investment Summit, Global AgInvest Conference, Women’s Alternative Investment Summit, PEI Agri Investor Forum, and Barclays Capital Commodities Investor Conference. She co-authored a real estate investing case study published by Harvard Business School Press and taught in the MBA curricula at Harvard and Columbia business schools.

    Ms. Petrela holds an Honors BA in Economics from the University of Toronto, summa cum laude, and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Scott Henry

Partner, Investment Management

  • Scott Henry oversees investments for Red Reef. Mr. Henry joined the firm following several years as a Business Development Manager with LongView Farms, an innovative row and specialty crop farming company in Iowa owned by the Henry family that owns and operates more than 10,000 acres of annual and specialty crop farmland.

    Before Red Reef, Mr. Henry was a key member of LongView’s operational team, where he developed partnerships with Bayer, Pioneer, and AgReliant Genetics, and implemented advanced agronomic practices, standard operating procedures and information systems in field operations. Additionally, he managed budgeting, capital allocation, and strategic investment analyses for Board-level decisions.

    Prior to LongView, Mr. Henry managed farmland and livestock investments for Summit Agricultural Group, where he sourced and negotiated transactions, and managed due diligence and portfolio operations. Before Summit, he was an Analyst with Farm Credit Services of America and Adayana Agribusiness Group, where he focused on farm appraisals, crop insurance and credit underwriting. Mr. Henry serves as a member of the Farmer Advisory Board of the Environmental Defense Fund.

    Mr. Henry holds an MSc in Agricultural Economics from Purdue University, a BSc in Finance, Agricultural Business & International Agricultural from Iowa State University, and an MBA from the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University.

Otto Ullrich

Partner, Investment Management

  • Otto Ullrich oversees investments for Red Reef. Mr. Ullrich has extensive experience and relationships in U.S. farmland acquisitions and management, and the development of utility scale renewable energy projects. He has purchased, sold, and brokered farmland transactions for more than 20 years, completing over $145 million of agricultural land transactions, primarily in the midwestern U.S. and Florida.

    Mr. Ullrich is an experienced farm owner and manager who has successfully implemented value-add strategies including pasture-to-cropland conversions, drainage improvements, natural gas storage leases, livestock integrations, large scale solar developments, carbon sequestration, and transitioning agricultural lands to higher uses, including residential, commercial, and renewable energy use.

    Prior to joining Red Reef, Mr. Ullrich was a sourcing partner to Red Reef through Emerald Land Company, an agricultural land brokerage he founded in 2005, focused on large-scale agricultural properties in Illinois, Iowa, South Dakota, and Minnesota.

    Mr. Ullrich holds a BSc in Finance and an MBA from Western Illinois University.

Andrew Ledwell

Partner, Operations

  • Andrew Ledwell oversees Red Reef’s business operations related to asset management, including technology and systems for communications, cybersecurity, research, analytics, data storage, general IT, and third-party service providers.

    Mr. Ledwell has extensive experience in IT, operations and systems management from his career prior to Red Reef with IBM and EMC/Pivotal in the U.S. and Canada, where he was a top 1% performer and member of the IBM Global Placement Program for top talent. 

    At IBM and EMC/Pivotal, Mr. Ledwell managed over $250 million of IT related sales and technical first deployments, coordinated large-scale projects with cross functional teams and specialized in developing customized solutions to support the operations of sophisticated private and public sector users including Environment Canada, the United States Department of Defense, and the Canadian Department of National Defense.

    Mr. Ledwell holds an Honors BA in Philosophy from the University of Ottawa and was a member of the Canadian Armed Forces.

Red Reef’s leadership team is complemented by additional team members (15), its Board of Directors (4), and its industry Advisory Board (4).