Mr. Pittman has served as our Executive Chairman since our initial public offering in April 2014 and served as our Chief Executive Officer until February 2023 and as our President until November 2021. Mr. Pittman grew up in a farm family and has been buying and operating farms since the mid-1990s. Many of his farmland assets in Illinois, Nebraska, and Colorado were contributed to Farmland Partners Inc. at the time of its initial public offering in 2014. Before devoting full attention to his farming and farmland ownership businesses, Mr. Pittman was the Chief Financial Officer of Jazz Technologies, a publicly traded semiconductor foundry. Prior to that, he started TheJobsite.com, which merged into HomeSphere, an enterprise software company where Mr. Pittman served as President. Mr. Pittman has worked as an investment banker in London, New York and San Francisco specializing in mergers and acquisitions with Merrill Lynch, Wasserstein Perella & Co, and ThinkEquity. He began his career as an attorney with Sullivan & Cromwell LLP. Mr. Pittman served in the United States Coast Guard. He earned a B.S. in Agriculture from the University of Illinois, a master s degree in Public Policy from Harvard University, and a J.D. with Honors from the University of Chicago Law School. Based on his knowledge of the Company, its business and properties, his past public company experience, his background in finance and his experience in the real estate industry, including acquiring and managing farmland, we have determined that Mr. Pittman should serve as the Executive Chairman of the Board.