BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Walter De Logi, Chairman of the Board
Member of the Audit Committee
Member of the Compensation Committee
Dr. De Logi is a founder of Ceres, and has served as a director since the company's inception. In addition, he served as Ceres' President and Chief Executive Officer from the founding of the company until September 2002. From 1986 to 1996, he was the Chief Executive Officer of Plant Genetic Systems, an eminent first-generation plant biotechnology company that was acquired in 1996 by Hoechst Schering AgrEvo, GmbH, now part of Bayer AG. He holds an MBA from Harvard University and a Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology.
Pascal Brandys, Director
Member of the Compensation Committee
Mr. Brandys is the President of Biobank Technology Ventures, LLC, an early-stage life sciences investment company 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 CEO from 1989 to 2000. Currently a director of Ilog S.A. as well as several private companies, Mr. Brandys has served as a director of Ceres since December, 1997. He holds an M.S. in Economic Systems from Stanford University and is a graduate of the Ecole Polytechnique of Paris.
Raymond Debbane, Director
Mr. Debbane is President and CEO of The Invus Group, LLC, a New York based multi-billion dollar private equity 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 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 is a director of Artal Group S.A., and the Chairman of the Board of Directors of GoldenSource Corporation and Weight Watchers International. Mr. Debbane has served as a director of Ceres since March 1998.
Ruth Devenyns, Director
Ruth Devenyns is an Investment Director at KBC Private Equity NV, where she manages KBC’s VC-investments in life sciences. She began her career with KBC in the bank’s Economic Research department in 1986, where she covered several industries including the chemical & pharmaceutical industry, and published numerous articles in the bank’s economic magazine. In 1992, she transferred to the KBC’s Corporate Finance department, where she was, among others, a member of the team that advised the Belgian government on its privatization program. In 1995, she was asked to start up KBC Securities' equity research team where she gradually specialized in biotechnology. In 2001, she co-launched KBC Private Equity Fund Biotech (‘Biotech’), a Euronext-listed dedicated private equity fund focused on life sciences, and subsequently moved to the buy side. Ms. Devenyns is a director of FlandersBio, an organization representing the Flemish life sciences cluster. She has a Masters Degree in Applied Economics from Ghent University.
Richard Flavell, Chief Scientific Officer and Director
Dick Flavell joined Ceres in 1998, and has been a board member since 2009. From 1987 to 1998, he 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. His research group in the United Kingdom was among the very first worldwide to successfully clone plant DNA, isolate and sequence plant genes, and produce transgenic plants. Dr. Flavell is an expert in cereal plant genomics, having produced the first molecular maps of plant chromosomes to reveal the constituent sequences. He has been a leader in European plant biotechnology, initiating and guiding a pan-European organization to manage large EU plant biotechnology research programs more effectively. 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 EMBO and of The Royal Society of London. He is currently an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology at the University of California at Los Angeles.
Robert Goldberg, Director
Member of the Compensation Committee
Dr. Goldberg is a Distinguished Professor of Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology at the University of California, Los Angeles and a founder of Ceres. 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 March 1996.
Richard Hamilton, President, Chief Executive Officer and Director
Mr. Hamilton joined Ceres in 1998. He served as the Chief Financial Officer until September 2002, at which time he was appointed President and Chief Executive Officer and subsequently elected to the Ceres Board of Directors. In addition to his leadership role at Ceres, he currently sits on the U.S. Dept. of Energy’s Biomass R&D Technical Advisory Committee, the Keck Graduate Institute Advisory Council and is a founding member of the Council for Sustainable Biomass Production. He has also been active in the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO), where he has served as Vice Chairman of the organization and has chaired its Food and Agriculture Governing Board, where continues to serve as a governing board member. Earlier in his career, Mr. 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. Mr. Hamilton holds a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from Vanderbilt University.
Chansoo Joung, Director
Mr. Chansoo Joung is a Managing Director at Warburg Pincus. He focuses on the private equity firm’s investment activities in the energy sector. Prior to joining Warburg Pincus in 2005, Mr. Joung was head of the Americas Natural Resources Group in the investment banking division of Goldman Sachs. He also held positions in the Corporate Finance and Mergers & Acquisitions departments, and also founded and led the European Energy Group. Mr. Joung attended Dartmouth College where he received an A.B. in physics and an M.B.A. with High Distinction from the Amos Tuck School of Business, where he was an Edward Tuck Scholar. He joined the Ceres Board of Directors in 2007. He is also a director of Broad Oak Energy, Floridian Gas Storage and Targa Resources.
Thomas Kiley, Director
Member of the Audit Committee
Mr. Kiley is an attorney and a director of Geron, Inc., three private pharmaceutical companies and a private functional food company. He was the first general counsel of Genentech, and later served as that company's vice president for corporate development. Mr. Kiley previously practiced intellectual property trial law as a partner of Lyon & Lyon. 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 has served as a director of Ceres since May 2003.
Edmund Olivier, Director
Member of the Audit Committee
Member of the Compensation Committee
Mr. Olivier is a founding general partner of Oxford Bioscience Partners, one of the founders of Ceres. He has invested in 29 Life Science companies in the U.S., Europe, India and Japan and been on the Board of 22. He received an MBA from Harvard University and a BS 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 has served as a director of Ceres since March 1996.
Gerard Van Acker, Director
From 1980 to 2000, Gerard Van Acker was CEO and Chairman of the Executive Committee of GIMV, Belgium’s leading private equity house with a presence in a number of European countries. He has also held director positions in a number of leading Belgian companies including Barco, Telenet Group, Besix Group, Kinepolis Group and Carestel. In the life sciences sector, he was one of the founders and vice chairman of PGS International, chairman of Biotech Fonds Vlaanderen and a board member of Corvas, Inc. He is currently a member of the board of two research institutes in Belgium: VIB (Flanders Institute of Biotechnology) and Imec, a research center in the field of nanotechnology and microelectronics. Mr. Van Acker holds a Doctorate in Law and a Master’s Degree in Political and Administrative Sciences, and has taken up important functions within governmental organizations.