BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Walter De Logi, Chairman of the Board
Member of the Audit Committee
Member of the Compensation Committee
Walter De Logi is one of the founders of Ceres and served as our President and Chief Executive Officer from the founding of the Company in 1996 until September 2002. Dr. De Logi has served on our board of directors since our inception. From 1986 to 1996, he was the Chief Executive Officer of Plant Genetic Systems, an eminent first-generation plant biotechnology company that was sold to Hoechst Schering AgrEvo GmbH, now part of Bayer AG in 1996. He holds an M.B.A. from Harvard University and a Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology. Dr. De Logi brings extensive experience in the plant biotechnology business to the board of directors.
Pascal Brandys, Director
Member of the Compensation Committee
Pascal Brandys has served on our board of directors since December 1997. Mr. Brandys is the President of Biobank Technology Ventures, LLC, an early-stage life sciences investment company which he co-founded in 2001. He was previously a co-founder of the genomics company Genset S.A., and also served as its Chairman and Chief Executive Officer from 1989 to 2000. Mr. Brandys is currently a director of several private companies and previously served as a director of Ilog S.A and Innogenetics N.V. He holds an M.S. in Economic Systems from Stanford University and is a graduate of the Ecole Polytechnique of Paris. Mr. Brandys brings extensive business experience in the genomics field and experience as an executive and an investment professional to our board of directors.
Raymond Debbane, Director
Raymond Debbane has served on our board of directors since March 1998. Mr. Debbane is President and Chief Executive Officer of The Invus Group, LLC, a New York based multi-billion dollar investment firm which is the exclusive investment advisor of Artal Luxembourg S.A., a shareholder of Ceres. Prior to forming The Invus Group in 1985, Mr. Debbane was a manager and consultant for The Boston Consulting Group in Paris, France. He is currently a director of Artal Group S.A. and Lexicon Pharmaceuticals, Inc., as well as a number of private companies in which Artal or Invus, L.P. is an investor. Mr. Debbane is also the Chairman of the board of directors of Weight Watchers International. He holds an M.B.A. from Stanford Graduate School of Business, an M.S. in Food Science and Technology from the University of California, Davis and a B.S. in Agricultural Sciences and Agricultural Engineering from American University of Beirut. Mr. Debbane was nominated to serve on our board of directors by Artal Luxembourg S.A. Mr. Debbane brings extensive business and finance experience to our board of directors, as well as experience as a director of a number of companies.
Richard Flavell, Chief Scientific Officer and Director
Richard Flavell joined Ceres in 1998 as Chief Scientific Officer and has served on our board of directors since June 2009. He is currently an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology at the University of California, Los Angeles. From 1987 to 1998, Dr. Flavell was the Director of the John Innes Centre in Norwich, England, a premier plant and microbial research institute. He has published over 200 scientific articles, lectured widely and contributed significantly to the development of modern biotechnology in agriculture. Dr. Flavell is an expert in cereal plant genomics, having produced the first molecular maps of plant chromosomes to reveal the constituent sequences. In 1999, Dr. Flavell was named a Commander of the British Empire for his contributions to plant and microbial sciences. Dr. Flavell received his Ph.D. from the University of East Anglia and is a Fellow of European Molecular Biology Organization and of The Royal Society of London. Dr. Flavell brings extensive experience and knowledge of plant biotechnology to our board of directors.
Robert Goldberg, Director
Member of the Compensation Committee
Robert Goldberg is a Distinguished Professor of Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology at the University of California, Los Angeles and a founder of Ceres. He has been a Professor at theUniversity of California, Los Angeles for the past 35 years, teaching genetic engineering and studying the genes that are required for seed formation. Dr. Goldberg is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and has consulted extensively in the agriculture and biotechnology industries. Dr. Goldberg has served as a director of Ceres since 1996. Dr. Goldberg received his Bachelor's Degree in botany from Ohio University, his Ph.D. in plant genetics from the University of Arizona, and was a Postdoctoral Fellow in developmental biology at the California Institute of Technology. Dr. Goldberg brings extensive experience in the agriculture and biotechnology industries to our board of directors.
Richard Hamilton, President, Chief Executive Officer and Director
Richard Hamilton joined Ceres in 1998. He served as our Chief Financial Officer until September 2002, at which time he was appointed President and Chief Executive Officer. He has served on our board of directors since 2002. In addition to his leadership role at Ceres, Dr. Hamilton sits on the Keck Graduate Institute Advisory Council and he is a founding member of the Council for Sustainable Biomass Production. He has served on the U.S. Department of Energy's Biomass Research and Development Technical Advisory Committee and has been active in the Biotechnology Industry Organization where he has served as Vice Chairman of the organization, chaired its Food and Agriculture Governing Board and served in other leadership roles. From 1992 to 1997, Dr. Hamilton was a principal at Oxford Bioscience Partners, one of the leading investors in the genomics field and a founder of Ceres. From 1990 to 1991, he was a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Research Fellow at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Hamilton holds a Ph.D. in molecular biology from Vanderbilt University. Dr. Hamilton brings extensive management experience and renewable energy industry expertise to our board of directors.
Thomas Kiley, Director
Member of the Audit Committee
Mr. Kiley has served as a director of Ceres since May 2003. He was the first general counsel of Genentech and later served as its vice president for corporate development until 1988. Previously, Mr. Kiley practiced intellectual property litigation as a partner of Lyon & Lyon. Mr. Kiley is a director of Geron, Inc., a publicly traded biopharmaceutical company and Transcept Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a publicly traded pharmaceutical company, and several privately-held development stage companies. He received his B.S. in chemical engineering from The Pennsylvania State University and his J.D. from The George Washington University School of Law. Mr. Kiley brings extensive experience as an intellectual property attorney and director of other public companies to our board of directors.
David B. Krieger, Director
Mr. Krieger has served as a director of Ceres since February 2011. Mr. Krieger is a managing director at Warburg Pincus LLC (which through its affiliates is a shareholder of Ceres), and has been with Warburg Pincus since 2000. Prior to joining Warburg Pincus, he worked at McKinsey & Company in Atlanta and Europe. He is currently a board member of Black Swan Energy Ltd., Canbriam Energy Inc., Fairfield Energy Limited, Kosmos Energy Ltd., MEG Energy Corp. and Osum Oil Sands Corp. He received a B.S. in Economics from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, an M.S. from the Georgia Institute of Technology and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School. Mr. Krieger was nominated to serve on our board of directors by Warburg Pincus and brings extensive experience in business and finance and the energy industry to our board of directors.
Cheryl P. Morley, Director
Ms. Morley has served on our board of directors since August 2011. She was Senior Vice President of Corporate Strategy with Monsanto Company from 2003 to 2009 and held a number of leadership positions at Monsanto and its subsidiaries from 1983 to 2003. Ms. Morley was a Senior Auditor at Ernst & Young from 1976 to 1979. Ms. Morley has served as a board member of Fleming Pharmaceuticals since March 2010, Mercy Health Systems since June 2011, and the Missouri Botanical Gardens since June 2006. In addition, since January 2010 she has served as chairman of the strategic advisory board to Joule Biotechnologies, Inc., and since November 2010 as a member of the business development advisory board of Essentient, Inc. She previously served as a director of Mercy Health Plans from March 2009 to September 2010. Ms. Morley was chairman of the board and a member of the audit and compensation committees of the Nidus Center for Scientific Enterprise from September 2003 to October 2010. She was presiding director, chairman of the nominating and governance committee and a member of the audit committee for Indevus Pharmaceuticals from June 2002 to March 2009. She holds a B.S. degree from the University of Arizona and is a Certified Public Accountant. Ms. Morley brings extensive experience in finance, service on numerous boards and an understanding of the seed business to our board of directors.
Edmund Olivier, Director
Member of the Audit Committee
Member of the Compensation Committee
Mr. Olivier has served on our board of directors since our inception in 1996. Mr. Olivier is a founding general partner of Oxford Bioscience Partners, one of the founders of Ceres. He has overseen investments in numerous life science companies in the United States, Europe, India and Japan. He has also served on the board of directors of a number of Oxford Bioscience's portfolio companies. Mr. Olivier received an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School and a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Rice University. He is a Life Fellow and member of the International Council of the Salk Institute and a Regent of Harris Manchester College, Oxford University. Mr. Olivier was nominated to serve on our board of directors by entities affiliated with Oxford Bioscience Partners and brings extensive experience in business and finance, as well as an understanding of the life sciences industry, to our board of directors.