Geoffrey Duyk - Partner, Managing Director of TPG Biotech
Prior to joining TPG in 2004, Dr. Duyk served on the Board of Directors and was President of Research & Development at Exelixis where he led a 550+ person group focused on the discovery and development of small molecule therapeutics. Prior to Exelixis, he was one of the founding scientific staff at Millennium Pharmaceuticals. As Vice President of Genomics at Millennium, Geoff was responsible for building and leading the informatics, automation, DNA sequencing and genotyping groups as well as the mouse and human genetics group. Prior to his tenure at Millennium, Dr. Duyk was an Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School (HMS) in the Department of Genetics and Assistant Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI). While at HMS, Dr. Duyk was a Co-Principal Investigator in the National Institutes of Health (NIH) funded Cooperative Human Linkage Center. Dr. Duyk has been and continues to be a member of numerous NIH panels and oversight committees focused on the planning and execution of the Human Genome Project.
Dr. Duyk holds a Ph.D. and M.D. from Case Western Reserve University and completed his medical and fellowship training at University of California, San Francisco. While at UCSF, Dr. Duyk was a fellow of the Lucille P. Markey Foundation and was also awarded a post-doctoral fellowship from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
Dr. Duyk serves on the Board of Directors of Replidyne, Macrogenics, Aerie, FoldRx, Amyris, Galleon, Moksha8, ShangPharma, Agria, Elevance and JCR.
Dr. Duyk is a council member of the National Human Genome Research Institute at the National Institutes of Health. He also serves on the Scientific Advisory Boards of the NHGRI DNA Sequencing Advisory Panel, Chair of the KOMP (Global Mouse TKO project), ESC (Expressed Sequenced Consortium), Co-Chair Advisory Panel Cancer Genome Anatomy Project, Program in Genomics Applications (NHBLI); the Bioethics Advisory Group at Case Western Reserve University; the Spinal Muscular Atrophy Foundation; WIL Laboratories; VLST; and FoldRx.
Dr. Duyk is a former member of the Board of Directors of Avidia, recently sold to Amgen.
Michael Giardello - President, CEO & CTO of Materia, Inc.
Dr. Michael A. Giardello is a founder of Materia, and serves as President, CEO & CTO. Materia provides catalyst technologies that enable, enhance and streamline the discovery, development, and manufacture of new pharmaceuticals, chemicals, and polymeric materials. Dr. Giardello was born and raised in Boston, Massachusetts. He earned his B.A. at Grinnell College in 1988 and received his Ph.D. in Inorganic Chemistry in 1993 with Professor Tobin J. Marks at Northwestern University. From 1993 - 1995, Dr. Giardello was a post-doctoral fellow with Professor Robert H. Grubbs at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). He then founded a consulting firm serving technology companies and venture capitalists to manage all aspects of technology and start-up corporate development. From 1995 through 1997, Dr. Giardello was a visiting associate at Caltech and maintained a laboratory which facilitated the commercialization of Professor GrubbsŐ catalyst technology. In October 1997, Dr. Giardello co-founded Materia and served as Executive V.P. and CTO from January 1998 until February 1999 when he became President, CEO & CTO. Dr. Giardello serves on the Boards of Materia and Elevance, its newly formed joint venture with Cargill. Dr. Giardello is also involved with three non-profit organizations in the Los Angeles area. Since 1993, he has been a Board member of the Caltech Student Investment Fund. This endowment fund was founded to teach Caltech students about the many aspects of the public investment markets. Dr. Giardello also serves on the Advisory Council to the Pasadena Bioscience Collaborative (www.pasadenabiosci.com), a Pasadena-based non-profit organization serving Biotech entrepreneurs in the greater Pasadena area. Lastly, Dr. Giardello is the Chairman of Entretech, a Los Angeles based non-profit organization dedicated to the advancement of entrepreneurship and putting Los Angeles on the national technology map. Dr. Giardello has authored numerous publications and patents in the areas of catalysis and materials science.
K' Lynne Johnson - CEO of Elevance Renewable Sciences, Inc.
K' Lynne has worked within the oil and petrochemicals industry over the past 17 years for Amoco, BP and Innovene. During this time she has worked in a variety of roles covering general business management, e-commerce, supply chain optimization, HR management, strategy development, leadership development and organizational design and effectiveness. Prior to her current role as CEO of Elevance, K' Lynne was the Senior Vice President of the Global Derivatives operating company within Innovene. K' Lynne' s SVP role included P&L accountability for multiple global commodity and specialty chemicals businesses with revenues of $3 billion and 1100 employees across North America, Europe and Asia. The Global Derivatives business was one of three operating companies within Innovene, one of world' s largest global petrochemical and refining companies with 2005 revenues of $26 billion and 8200 employees. K' Lynne' s background includes a Masters degree in Organizational Behavior from Brigham Young University' s Marriott School of Management and a BS in organizational psychology.
John March - formerly of Cargill
John March graduated from Dartmouth College in 1969 and got his MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in 1971. John worked for Cargill 37 years beginning on April 1, 1971 and retired officially on April 1, 2008. John held various positions throughout his career with most of his time spent in oilseeds and food ingredients, with two stints overseas (Geneva and London). John was named president of Cargill's World Wide Oilseeds Processing Group in 1998 and was elected Corporate Vice President in January of 2000. John was a past Chairman of the National Oilseeds Processors Association.
Patrick McCroskey - Principal of TPG Biotech
Prior to joining TPG Biotech in October 2007, Dr. McCroskey was Chief Financial Officer of Ceres, Inc., a privately-held plant biotechnology company utilizing cutting-edge genomics technologies to deliver sustainable solutions in energy production and agriculture. Prior to Ceres, Dr. McCroskey held various positions at Diversa, Intarsia Corporation, a joint venture between the Dow Chemical Company and Flextronics International, while also spending 10 years at The Dow Chemical Company.
Dr. McCroskey received his B.S. from West Virginia University (1984) and his M.S. (1985) and Ph.D. (1988), in Chemical Engineering, from Carnegie Mellon University.
Vivek Paul - Partner of TPG
Vivek Paul is a Partner at the Texas Pacific Group, one of the world's leading investment firms. Prior to joining TPG in 2005, he was Vice Chairman of Wipro and CEO of its global information technology, product engineering, and business process services segments. Mr. Paul grew this business from under $150 million in revenue to over $1.4 billion with 50,000 employees, and led its listing on the New York Stock Exchange.
Prior to this role, Mr. Paul was employed at GE for 10 years, where he ran GE's Global CT (Computerized Tomography) business, reporting directly to the current Chairman of GE. Mr. Paul also served as the CEO of GE's medical equipment joint venture in India, recognized by the Economist as the best joint venture in Asia.
Prior to working at GE, Mr. Paul worked at Bain & Co. and at PepsiCo. Mr. Paul received an MBA from the University of Massachusetts and a Bachelor of Engineering degree from B.I.T.S., Pilani.
Mr. Paul has been ranked among the best managers in the world by BusinessWeek, among the top global business influentials by Time magazine and among the top 30 most respected global CEOs by Barron's.
Mr. Paul currently serves on the Board of Electronic Arts, the world's leading game publisher, and Renewable Chemicals, a leader in developing chemicals from renewable sources, as well as on the Advisory Council of the Federal Reserve of San Francisco. He is an Advisor to FPT Corporation, Vietnam's leading ICT company, to Amyris Biotechnologies, a leader in biofuels using synthetic biology, and to the Radiology and Molecular Imaging Department of Stanford University.
Mark Tomkins - formerly of Innovene USA LLC
Mark Tomkins has served as the senior financial officer at several large companies. He was Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Innovene, a petroleum refining and chemical polymer business and a subsidiary of British Petroleum, from May 2005 to January 2006, when Innovene was sold to a strategic buyer. From 2001 to May 2005 he was Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Vulcan Materials Company, a publicly traded construction materials and chemicals company. From August 1998 to January 2001, Mr. Tomkins was Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Chemtura Corporation (formerly Great Lakes Chemical Corporation), a publicly traded specialty chemicals company. From 1996 to 1998 he was Vice President of Finance and Business Development for the polymers division and Vice President of Finance and Business Development for the electronic materials division of Honeywell Corporation. From 1990 to 1996 Mr. Tomkins worked at Monsanto Company in various management level finance and accounting positions, including Chief Financial Officer of the growth enterprises division.
Mr. Tomkins received a B.S. in business degree, with majors in finance and management and an M.B.A. from Eastern Illinois University and is a C.P.A. Mr. Tomkins is a director of W.R. Grace & Co. and CVR Energy, Inc.