Sallie Calhoun

Sallie Calhoun owns and manages Paicines Ranch, a 7600-acre ranch in central California. She is also an impact investor, activist, and philanthropic funder in regenerative agriculture. Her work focuses on improving the health of agricultural soils and sequestering carbon in soil to mitigate climate change, while creating thriving communities. She is the founder of the No Regrets Initiative, which seeks to use a wide variety of forms of capital—human, natural, investment, and philanthropic—to affect change in the agricultural system.

Calhoun was born in Knoxville, TN and received a BSEE degree from Rice University. She worked in engineering and engineering management at a variety of high-tech firms for 25 years. From 1994 to 2000, she served as VP Operations and CFO for Globetrotter Software, Inc., which she co-owned with her husband Matt Christiano. In 2001, they sold the software company and purchased Paicines Ranch, which has been a working ranch since the mid-1800s. Since then she has operated the ranch implementing holistic management to improve the health of the soil, increase biodiversity, and produce grass-fed beef and lamb. Every year, dozens of ranchers, farmers, activists, philanthropists, sustainable agriculture investors and conservationists attend seminars at Paicines Ranch’s conference center.

She is the managing member of Cienega Capital, an impact investing firm, and the president of the Globetrotter Foundation, a family foundation. She has served on a variety of for-profit and non-profit boards, including Holistic Management International, Sierra Cascade Nursery, Agrarian Trust, and Estancia Beef. Sallie Calhoun loves to play tennis, hike, and travel.