Karla Klingner-Diaz

CEO, Palindromes, Inc.

Karla Klingner serves as the CEO of Palindromes Inc., a visionary platform positioned to serve as the catalyst to solve the challenges in our modern-day food system through deploying a series of regionalized projects that adhere to sound principles of agroecology. As co-founding shareholder of Palindromes Inc., Karla’s extensive career spans the entire food supply spectrum where she has acquired experience and knowledge from her domestic and international work and travel that ranges from small rural American farm towns to major metropolitan areas including residing in Washington D.C. and Shanghai, China. Karla was raised on a diversified family farm on the Missouri/Iowa border where she remains involved with her parents and siblings in crop / livestock production and elite genetics. Her passion for production agriculture and rural economic development led Karla through her education and early professional career working as a small-town multi-disciplinary litigation attorney to serving as the agricultural aide to Senator Christopher S. Bond through the 2007 Water Resource Development Act and 2008 Food, Conservation and Energy Act that included contributive legislative drafting and introduction of the National Institute of Food and Agricultural Resource (NIFA) that remains a viable U.S. federal government body that stimulates competitive funding to advance research and technological innovations that enhances American agricultural in a manner that balances productivity with environmental sustainability. An experience that spurred a number of downstream opportunities such as a stint working for what was formally known as McLeod, Watkinson & Miller Law Firm in Washington DC to the founding of her own DC-based law firm, Klingner Jazayerli LLP, that focuses on international, immigration and agricultural law. Karla has helped bring international capital combined with localized incentives to work in rural America through her involvement in managing and overseeing an international immigration investment program known as EB-5 that includes ongoing management of the Rural Economic Development Regional Center situated in the heart of the Midwestern United States as well as a private/public partnership with the economic development authority for the City of Atlanta, Georgia, The Invest Atlanta Regional Center. Through this program, Karla facilitates access to capital that provides the opportunity for localized small business ownership with viable investment