Benjamin has worked at the Crop Trust since July 2016. He coordinates the pre-breeding activities on 20 crops with 100+ national and international partners in 50 countries. He also coordinates efforts to manage and share pre-breeding data. He is coordinating the pre-breeding projects funded by the Templeton World Charity Foundation. He formerly worked at Bayer Crop Science NV in Zwijnaarde, Gent, Belgium (Breeding and Trait Development), the Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research (IPK) in Gatersleben, Germany (Genebank Department, Genome Diversity) and the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research in Cologne, Germany. He has a PhD in Genetics from the Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Germany and a degree in Botany from the Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Germany.