John Teeple

Chief Operating Officer

John Teeple is the Chief Operating Officer at Bonsai Robotics, bringing more than 30 years of global leadership experience in agriculture and technology. He spent over two decades at John Deere, where he held key operational, engineering, and product leadership roles and shaped Deere’s precision agriculture roadmap, led the acquisition of Blue River Technology, and helped launch John Deere Labs. John has also held leadership positions at Sukup, Vermeer, and AWS, and has served as a board director and advisor to several AgTech startups and OEM dealers. Raised in Iowa and immersed in agriculture from a young age, John and his wife continue to own and manage a diverse farming operation in northeast Iowa, including cropland, timber, and land restored for wildlife habitat. John holds a B.S. from Iowa State and an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

Matt Pigeon

Chief Financial Officer

Matt Pigeon is the CFO at Bonsai Robotics, with a rich history in financial leadership spanning over two decades. Matt served as CFO at Bexson Biomedical, Senior Vice President for Business Development & Finance for the publicly traded company Inogen (INGN), and CFO for the medical technology company Sientra, where he led commercialization efforts and a successful IPO. Mr. Pigeon was also an investment banker with extensive M&A and equity capital markets experience where he spent a majority of his career with Montgomery Securities and Bank of America Securities.

Gary Bradski

Chief Science Officer

Gary Bradski (PhD) is Chief Science Officer at Bonsai Robotics. He is founder & Chairman of OpenCV.org (400M downloads in 2025), was a consulting Professor at Stanford CS (2006-2012). He led the vision team for Stanley (the robot car that won the DARPA Grand Challenge, now in the Smithsonian Museum – Stanley became Waymo). He was on the founding team at 5 Startups with exits to Google, Microsoft, Matterport and Stryker. He sits on several boards and advisorships and is an active angel investor, most recent exit (Lambda Labs 2025 2nd market in $2.5B D round, where he was the first investor). Gary was first investor and is on the board of Space-ng that did the nav system for Blue Ghost, the first successful commercial lunar lander (Gary’s name is on its team plaque on the moon). He has won 2014 IEEE PAMI prize for contributions to the field of computer vision and won in 2021 the ICCV Helmholtz Prize Test of Time Award for his “ORB” paper. 77 Publications, 138 Patents.

Brendan Dowdle

Chief Business Officer

Brendan Dowdle is the Chief Business Officer of Bonsai Robotics, bringing over 10 years of experience building computer vision, AI and robotics companies. Brendan was the Co-Founder and COO of Arraiy, a startup focused on automating high-end video production, which was acquired by Matterport. At Matterport, he led the services business driving enterprise adoption of digital twin technology and helped scale the business through its IPO and beyond. Most recently, Brendan served as CEO of farm-ng, a robotics platform company making autonomy accessible to small and mid-sized farms, which was acquired by Bonsai Robotics in 2025. Brendan grew up in an agricultural family across Southeast Asia, where he saw firsthand how technology and entrepreneurship could empower farming communities and improve livelihoods. He holds an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business and a B.A. in Economics and Political Science from the University of Michigan.

Arlen Frew

Chief Revenue Officer

Arlen Frew is the Chief Revenue Officer at Bonsai Robotics. With over two decades in cloud security, SaaS, and enterprise technology experience, he has repeatedly steered early‑stage companies to market‑defining success and successful exits. His leadership roles at innovators such as Akamai and Zscaler honed his ability to spot emerging market opportunities, craft winning go‑to‑market strategies, and build high‑performing teams that consistently deliver outsized growth. Arlen holds a B.A. in Economics from UC Berkeley and has completed executive education at the MIT Sloan School of Business.

John Macdonald

Head of Perception

John Macdonald is the Head of Perception at Bonsai Robotics. Having been convinced of the potential of robotics from a young age, he got his start in competitive robotics in grade school and hasn’t looked back. Previously, he worked on deep learning based obstacle avoidance and 3D reconstruction at Skydio. Before that, he worked on autonomous organic crop navigation & monitoring at Carnegie Mellon University. John holds an M.S. in Robotic Systems Development from Carnegie Mellon University and a B.S. in Computer Science from Cornell University.

Sarath Suvarna

Head of Autonomy Software

Sarath Suvarna is the Head of Autonomy Software at Bonsai Robotics. He is a seasoned robotics and software engineering leader with over a decade of experience spanning autonomous systems, consumer robotics, and artificial intelligence. Previously, he spearheaded robotics innovations as the Head of Robotics Software at OffWorld and Head of Autonomy Software at Neato Robotics, driving impactful projects like autonomous mining robots and next-generation vacuum cleaning robots with deep learning capabilities.

Jerry Zhao

VP of Strategy & Operations

Jerry Zhao is the VP of Strategy & Operations at Bonsai. He’s an entrepreneurial leader with experience building deep tech companies from ideation through growth phase. Most recently, he founded Maitri Systems to create highly energy-efficient animals through CRISPR. He was an early employee at cultivated meat leader UPSIDE Foods, as Chief of Staff / Head of Product, leading team growth, fundraising, and tech / product development. Formerly, he advised tech clients at McKinsey & Company and scaled agricultural products to millions of African farmers with One Acre Fund.

Elise Sudlow

Chief of Staff

Elise Sudlow is the Chief of Staff at Bonsai Robotics. She earned a Master’s in Public Administration with Highest Honors from the University of San Francisco’s School of Management, graduating in 2018. Shortly after, Elise joined Matternet, a pioneer in autonomous drone delivery systems, where she spent the next five years leading BizOps and various functions for the company. With a broad range of experience in scaling and leading startup operations and teams, she brings invaluable expertise to Bonsai.

Jeet Mehta

VP of Hardware Product Development and Operations

Jeet Mehta is the VP of Hardware Product Development and Operations at Bonsai Robotics. He brings over 12+ years of leadership experience in product & strategy, engineering design, new product development, and program execution across vehicle and agricultural technologies. Prior to Bonsai, Jeet served as Head of Product Development and Operations at Farm-ng and spent four years at Monarch Tractor, where he played a pivotal role in shaping the company’s product vision and roadmap for its fully electric, driver-optional tractors as Head of Product. Earlier in his career, he led Program Management and Product Engineering at Mahindra GenZe, a pioneer in electric scooters and e-bikes products. Jeet holds an M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from RIT and a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Mumbai.

Linda McNair

VP of Marketing

Linda McNair is Vice President of Marketing at Bonsai. She has a proven track record at startups and Fortune 500 companies including Adobe, Cisco, and Oracle. She has led communications, product marketing, and content marketing teams—partnering with executives, driving cross-functional initiatives, and guiding organizations through pivotal moments. Most recently at Adobe, she built a global network of higher education institutions equipping students with creative and AI-driven skills. At Matterport — a spatial data company that uses computer vision to capture digital twins — she prepared the company for a successful IPO. She also supported farm-ng, acquired by Bonsai in 2025, with its Series A, securing national, technology, and trade media coverage. Rooted in Santa Cruz County’s agricultural community, Linda co-owned an organic nursery, now turned lavender farm. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Marketing with a minor in Journalism from Santa Clara University.

Kevin Ross

Head of BD

Kevin Ross is the Head of Business Development at Bonsai. With over two decades of experience in the software industry, Kevin is a seasoned sales and business development leader. A graduate of the University of Southern California, his diverse background spans international sales, strategic partnerships, sales management, and channel development. Kevin has built his reputation as an expert in the agriculture software sector, holding leadership roles at CamoAg, where he led institutional sales, and at Fieldin, where he spearheaded the business development team.

Joanna Normoyle

Product Leader

Joanna Normoyle is the Amiga Product Leader at Bonsai Robotics. Raised in California’s agricultural heartland and rooted in a farming family, she brings both systems-level insight and firsthand experience to the design of practical, field-ready technology. Joanna has over a decade of hands-on agricultural experience, including eight years managing her own diversified farms. She holds an M.S. from UC Davis, where she focused on ecological orchard management and led early work on digital credentials that helped reshape how experiential learning is recognized in higher education. At Bonsai, she serves as the voice of the customer, ensuring every Amiga system delivers meaningful, tested value to growers, researchers, and educators.