Our Team
We’re on a mission…
We all know that biodiversity is vital for our planet. Especially because it ensures the survival of the essential pollinators that enable us to grow the food and feed crops that we humans need to survive too.
So we’re on a mission to educate the world about the importance of adopting bio-safe and sustainable crop protection solutions – and why they’re better for everyone, everywhere. Growers, consumers, big businesses, national governments and individual insect species alike.
Food security and the wider availability of safer food for all is also a key driver behind what we do.
No-one should have to eat food produced from crops tainted with toxic sprays. And now there’s no reason they need to – no rational argument, no efficacy argument, no cost-based argument.
Now, there’s a better way forward…
Meet the team
Passion with a purpose
We’re a pioneering team of bright sparks, innovative thinkers and world-class scientists, who care deeply about the pressing issues of environmental sustainability and global food security.
Chief Executive Officer
Professor Shireen Davies, PhD FRSE
is a co-founder of SOLASTA Bio Ltd and recent Professor at University of Glasgow. Shireen has demonstrated leadership in research-led innovation, achieved via cross-sector settings and funded industry collaborations and has led SOLASTA’s successful funding rounds to date. She was a UKRI BBSRC Royal Society of Edinburgh Enterprise Fellow (2019-21), winner of Scotland Knowledge Exchange Multiparty award 2020 and joint winner of Glasgow Entrepreneur of the Year 2020. She has world leading expertise in insect neuroendocrinology and a strong grant track record. She was Chair of the Executive Board and programme coordinator of award-winning €7m EU nEUROSTRESSPEP and Scottish Enterprise High Growth Spinout Programmes; and was recipient of UKRI BBSRC personal FLIP award for a 2-year interchange programme with Ag Corp.
Chair
Rob Wylie, PhD
is an entrepreneur and investor, presently focused on setting up and running investment firms and businesses in agri- and food tech innovation. He is Chair of several impact investment companies including Five Seasons; co-founder and Chair of Cambridge Agritech, WHEB, Alpina Partners and Weedingtech; and on the Advisory Board of Chi Impact Capital. Rob is also an Investor Director in Aquaspy.
Chief Scientific Officer
Professor Julian Dow, PhD Sc.D. FRSE FRES
Julian Dow is Professor of Molecular and Integrative Physiology at the University of Glasgow and co-founder of SOLASTA Bio. He is a world-leading expert in insect ‘omics, epithelial and renal function with more than 200 papers, and 16,000 citations. Julian pioneered Drosophila functional genomics, integrative physiology and metabolomics, extending this to multiple insect species. He developed the globally-accessed FlyAtlas.org and FlyAtlas2.org transcriptomics resources, the recent metabolomics FlyMet.org platform and was the ‘Omics lead on the nEUROSTRESSPEP project, covering multi-omics of several insect species. He has served as Chair of UKRI BBSRC ENNW Strategic Advisory Panel and the RSE Fellowship Organismal Biology Panel; Vice Chair for the UK REF 2021, UoA5 panel; and was an Editor of Journal of Experimental Biology.
Chief Financial Officer
David Armour
An experienced Chartered Accountant, CFO and Corporate Financier with nearly 30 years’ commercial experience in investment and financial management. David was a founding partner of Pentech Ventures, the UK’s leading software Venture Capital firm, and works across a broad spectrum of business issues. He is also an active executive within several companies, responsible for diverse operational issues and Commercial Contractor with the High Growth Start-Up Unit at Scottish Enterprise.
Chief Business Officer
Daphne Preuss, PhD
Dr Daphne Preuss is an entrepreneur focused on driving the growth of early-stage food and agriculture companies, transitioning innovative research through commercial development and partnerships. She was previously the CEO of Chromatin, a leading sorghum genetics innovator. She serves as a board member and advisor for several food and ag startups, including CarbonBook, Verdant Robotics, Sabanto, and New West Genetics, and was previously an HHMI Professor at the University of Chicago.
Chief Strategy Officer
Paula Pinto
A chemical engineer by training (Sao Paulo University), Paula is recognised as a Global Leader and Non-Executive Director with five years of board experience amidst a 25-year international career in P&L, marketing and operational roles for multi-billion dollar enterprises in specialty chemicals and agricultural solutions industries. Paula built R&D Arysta’s business, strategic alliances and UPL’s Open Ag Innovation Centre. Paula has delivered sustainable shareholder value, built powerful brands, directed grame-changing transformation. Paula also empowers multi-disciplinary, international teams, building capabilities and fostering cultures of accountability, collaboration and continuous improvement.
Advisor
Paul Bernasconi PhD
Paul Bernasconi is a co-founder of SOLASTA Bio and Consultant in the Agribusiness space working with privately funded start-ups in green biotechnology. Paul is a former Ag industry Executive and Director for molecular and insect biology with contributions to the commercialisation of 2 herbicides, dicamba tolerant soybean and omega-3 enhanced canola. Paul has a significant track record in white and green biotechnology, negotiation of commercial licences, high throughput screening programs in herbicide, insecticide and fungicide research and led a Department of 120 scientists in five locations across the US, Canada and Europe. He holds 12 patents in insect control, agrochemicals, microbiome engineering and genome editing.
Board of directors
Expert insights
Responsible for strategic direction and corporate governance, our board of directors brings to the table extensive experience and expertise in innovation, technology transfer, the agtech sector, commercial strategy and venture capital.
Chair
Rob Wylie, PhD
is an entrepreneur and investor, presently focused on setting up and running investment firms and businesses in agri- and food tech innovation. He is Chair of several impact investment companies including Five Seasons; co-founder and Chair of Cambridge Agritech, WHEB, Alpina Partners and Weedingtech; and on the Advisory Board of Chi Impact Capital. Rob is also an Investor Director in Aquaspy.
Chief Executive Officer
Professor Shireen Davies, PhD FRSE
is a co-founder of SOLASTA Bio Ltd, leading its successful funding rounds. She was a UKRI BBSRC Royal Society of Edinburgh Enterprise Fellow (2019-21) with demonstrated leadership in research-led innovation, achieved via cross-sector settings and funded industry collaborations. She was winner of Scotland Knowledge Exchange Multiparty award 2020 and joint winner of Glasgow Entrepreneur of the year 2020. She has world leading expertise in insect neuroendocrinology, cell signaling and environmental stress tolerance and a strong grant track record. She was Chair of the Executive Board and programme coordinator of award-winning €7m EU nEUROSTRESSPEP and Scottish Enterprise High Growth Spinout Programmes; and was recipient of BBSRC personal FLIP award for a 2-year interchange programme with Ag Corp.
Investor Director
John Carrigan, PhD
John is the Investment Director at Yield Lab Europe. He is a scientist with over ten years of experience in life sciences, business, and tech transfer. He also serves as an expert advisor to the European Innovation Council.
Non-Executive Director
Nicky Deasy
is a Co-Founder and former Managing Partner at The Yield Lab Europe, a €55m venture capital fund focused on seed stage European companies with technologies to improve the environmental footprint of the ag and food industry. It is the largest seed stage agrifood tech fund in Europe. Nicky sits on the Board / advises several sustainable agtech startups, including SOLASTA Bio, and she sits on the Investment Advisory Committee of EIT Food’s Impact Fund, and Biotope by VIB’s seed stage fund for sustainable agrifood companies. She is also an adviser to the BioInnovation Institute in Copenhagen. She is a chartered accountant and worked as a Director of Corporate Finance with EY and KPMG, before moving into venture capital.
Non-Executive Director
Sherri Brown
With more than 30 years of experience in innovation in the agricultural industry and plant science, Dr. Sherri Brown serves as advisor of organizations seeking to advance innovative technologies from product development through commercial launch to address the needs of global food security and sustaining the environment. She is currently on the Board of Directors for Solasta Bio as well as several other agricultural biotechnology companies based in the US, UK, and Europe. She served as a managing director for the North American division of the Yield Lab, a global group investing in Food and Agriculture. During her 25-year career at Monsanto, Dr. Brown brought strong science and leadership to develop and launch multiple commercial technologies. As part of the first biotechnology team, Dr. Brown played a key role in the development and commercialization of herbicide tolerance and insect protected crop products. Dr. Brown has held a variety of global V.P. roles leading Science Strategy, Product Development, Corn, Oilseeds, Chemistry, and Animal Agriculture.
By invitation, Chief Financial Officer
David Armour
An experienced Chartered Accountant, CFO and Corporate Financier with nearly 30 years’ commercial experience in investment and financial management. David was a founding partner of Pentech Ventures, the UK’s leading software Venture Capital firm, and works across a broad spectrum of business issues. He is also an active executive within several companies, responsible for diverse operational issues and Commercial Contractor with the High Growth Start-Up Unit at Scottish Enterprise.
Our investors
Realising the vision
Our investors help us to make a difference every day. They share our vision for a better way forward. We’re grateful for their support, seed funding, venture capital and ongoing investment.
Portfolio membership
We are portfolio companies of:
