Ayşen Üstünay brings 25 years of international business experience in sales, marketing, and strategy to her work with the Soil Food Web. Her corporate career took her across the Middle East and Asia, working with people, businesses, and cultures in very different environments. Today, she brings the same curiosity, problem-solving mindset, and big-picture thinking to soil, plants, and regenerative agriculture.
Her journey into the Soil Food Web began with a personal search for better health and a long-standing connection with growing food. After years of gardening and looking for answers, she discovered Dr. Elaine Ingham and the Soil Food Web approach. What started as a search for answers became a fascination with the hidden world of microorganisms and the relationships that make healthy soils and plants possible. Working with these principles and changing the way she approached food and growing ultimately helped restore her health.
As an SFW consultant and mentor, Ayşen enjoys helping people connect what they learn with what is actually happening in their compost, soil, plants, and farms. She particularly enjoys the questions that arise when things do not go as expected, looking at the details, exploring different possibilities, and finding practical ways forward.
One of the best parts of mentoring for her is meeting like-minded people from all parts of the world. Every student brings a different climate, soil, crop, composting system, challenge, and way of thinking. And the learning never stops. Through her students’ experiences and accomplishments in microscopy, composting, field trials, and consulting, Ayşen continues to learn and gain new perspectives herself.
For Ayşen, the Soil Food Web is both serious science and an ongoing adventure. The more you look, the more there is to discover and there is always something new to learn from the soil, the plants, and the people working with them.