Speakers Bureau

The Alliance team is experienced with giving presentations on topics including animal rights activist tactics, farm and plant security, crisis management, consumer engagement and advocating for agriculture on social media. If you are taking your event virtual and need a speaker, we are offering waived fees for members and discounted presentation rates for non-members! Contact us for rates, availability and more information.

Here is a printable copy of our Speakers Bureau!

Presentation Topics

The Alliance is experienced with presenting on the topics of:

Animal rights activists and their tactics, such as “undercover” videos, faith-based outreach, pressuring restaurants and retailers, targeting investors and more
Farm and facility security
Crisis management
Communicating about current issues in animal agriculture such as animal care and sustainability
Social media- how it can be used for proactive communication, examples of using it to promote agriculture and workshops on how to set up and utilize the different social media platforms

Meet the Presenters

Kay Johnson Smith

Kay Johnson Smith, president and CEO, has worked professionally with agriculture promotion and education for more than 20 years. She is a leading spokesperson on farm animal welfare issues and animal rights campaigns in the U.S. and has provided hundreds of presentations and media interviews on related matters. She has worked with numerous stakeholders to help them strategically manage activist campaigns targeting their businesses.

Hannah Thompson-Weeman

Hannah Thompson-Weeman, vice president, strategic engagement, develops and implements the communications strategy for the Animal Agriculture Alliance. Thompson-Weeman monitors and responds to misinformation about food production and reaches out to the media with accurate, science-based resources about modern animal agriculture. She completed a thesis focused on crisis communications and planning within the dairy industry.

Casey Kinler

Casey Kinler, director, membership and marketing, fosters relationships with current and prospective members and donors of the Alliance. Kinler works to get the Alliance’s resources in the hands of the farmers, ranchers and industry professionals. She communicates with the industry about activist strategy and what the Alliance is doing along with what the industry can do to provide a counter voice to activists.

Emily Solis

Emily Solis, communications specialist, is a social media guru. She develops and distributes both written and graphic content for the Alliance. Solis tracks media engagement, provides special reports for members and manages the Alliance website. In her role, Solis utilizes traditional, digital and social media to help connect consumers with factual information about modern food production.

Testimonials

Kaitlin Mathews

Women in Agribusiness Summit

The Women in Agribusiness Summit in Chicago was a great success, in large part because of wonderful speakers like you! We are so grateful for your support and participation in this event – you were a big hit with our attendees! You did a phenomenal job speaking and we are so happy you were able…

Dr. Michael J. Fields

International Stockmen’s Educational Foundation

Your wealth of experience and your critical evaluation that you brought to the Congress was an invaluable contribution to the day’s topic.

Erin Nessmith

Georgia Farm Bureau Young Farmers and Ranchers

Your presentation received high praise and great feedback. It is important that Farm Bureau members know they have amazing advocates in the industry.

Noel Perkins

Florida Dairy Farmers

I appreciate that you presented in a very engaging and authoritative way and I think our guests left the meeting with a much better understanding of the scope of animal activist activity – particularly outside of our own world here in Florida.

Dr. Michael Payne

University of California - Davis

It was hands-down the most enlightening, comprehensive and useful presentation I’ve attended addressing the challenges of dealing with animal activists. Over the years I’ve sat through a number of such talks and while they never failed to scare the pants off me, typically they were pretty light on the ‘What do I do about it?’…

Aaron Putze

Iowa Soybean Association

You had enthusiasm, mastery of the subject matter and were very articulate. You made me proud to be a board member and a sponsor of such a fine organization doing such important work.