Leadership
Kathy L. Fortmann
Chief Executive Officer
Kathy L. Fortmann was appointed Chief Executive Officer in May 2024. Ms. Fortmann brings almost 35 years of global business experience across a range of industries including specialty chemicals and ingredients. She most recently served as Chief Executive Officer of ACOMO N.V., a Dutch publicly-listed company focused on conventional and organic niche food products and ingredients for the food and beverage industry from 2021 to 2023. Prior to that, Ms. Fortmann held various roles at International Flavors & Fragrances Inc. (“IFF”) from 2020 until 2021, including Division President of Nourish, Division Chief Executive Officer, Taste, and Head, Taste Strategy and Cross Fertilization. Prior to IFF, she was a senior executive at FrieslandCampina, a dairy cooperative in Europe from 2017 to 2019, serving as Business Group President, Ingredients and a member of the Executive Committee. From 2005 until 2017, Ms. Fortmann held various leadership positions at Cargill, Incorporated, a leading world provider of food ingredients and agricultural services and products. Prior to Cargill, she held positions of increasing responsibility at E.I. DuPont de Nemours, Inc. from 1989 until 2005. Ms. Fortmann currently serves as a director on the boards of FMC Corporation (NYSE: FMC), a global agricultural sciences company, and PPG (NYSE: PPG), a global supplier of paints, coatings and specialty materials. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Tulsa, as well as an Executive MBA from Washington University.
Adam Blaziak
Chief Manufacturing & Supply Chain Officer
Adam Blaziak joined Amyris in June 2024 as Chief Manufacturing & Supply Chain Officer. Mr. Blaziak has a Bachelor’s degree in Transportation and Logistics Management from the American Military University (AMU) and is a seasoned manufacturing and operations leader, having lived and operated in multiple countries. He started his career leading logistics and supply for the US Army while serving in various US and worldwide duty assignments including Kosovo and Iraq. Throughout his career, he had multiple roles at MWV and he spent last 10 years at Givaudan, leading Manufacturing and Supply Chain Operations in Brazil and Australia, and most recently, end-to-end operations in Latin America.
Doris Choi
General Counsel & Secretary
Doris Choi joined Amyris in December 2020 as Vice President, Senior Corporate Counsel and was appointed General Counsel and Secretary in December 2022. Prior to that, Ms. Choi served as Senior Corporate Counsel at Jazz Pharmaceuticals, a Nasdaq-listed global biopharmaceutical company. Before that, she served as Associate General Counsel and Assistant Secretary at QuinStreet, a Nasdaq-listed performance marketing technology company. Ms. Choi started her career in private practice as an associate at Latham & Watkins LLP focused on corporate and finance transactions. Ms. Choi holds a B.A. from Northwestern University, an M.A. from University of Chicago and a J.D. from Columbia University.
Patricia East
Senior Vice President, Human Resources
Patricia East joined Amyris in March 2018, and was appointed Senior Vice President, Human Resources in March 2024. Ms. East is a seasoned global Human Resources leader with over two decades of experience in talent management, organizational development, business partnership, and leadership development. Prior to Amyris, Ms. East held HR leadership roles in private and publicly traded companies across various industries in the US and Brazil, including Glu Mobile, Barracuda Networks, and Blue Tree Hotels. Ms. East is a certified Evidence-Based Coach and holds a degree in Psychology, postgraduate degree in Business Administration, and Master’s in Organizational Development and Leadership.
Paul Hill
Senior Vice President, Process Development & Engineering
Paul Hill has contributed to finding scalable bioprocess solutions for over 30 years. Prior to joining Amyris in 2007, Mr. Hill earned a Masters of Biochemical Engineering from the Thayer School of Engineering (Dartmouth), and then helped develop high-productivity fermentation and cell culture processes and efficient product isolation steps as a fermentation and recovery scientist at Chiron and R.W.J Pharmaceutical Research Institute. As Senior Vice-President of Process Development and Engineering at Amyris, Mr. Hill oversees the creation and implementation of unit operations that maximize the potential of the robust Amyris organisms to cost-efficiently produce, isolate, and purify novel products. For the past seventeen years, Mr. Hill has led or contributed the development and transfer of novel fermentation and recovery processes operations for the different gaseous, liquid, or solid products to multiple facilities on three continents.
Michael Leavell
Senior Vice President, Research and Development
As SVP of R&D, Michael Leavell leads Amyris’ strain engineering and development pipeline which engineers millions of microorganisms per year, optimizing those that meet product requirements. Previous to leading R&D, he led the Screening and Analytical Science department which assesses the performance of the millions of engineered strains produced and identifies areas for improvement. Starting in 2015, Dr. Leavell also led the development of Amyris’ zero-calorie sweetener, RebM, from project inception to first commercial production. Michael has been an employee of Amyris since 2006. He has more than 30 published scientific papers and patents. Prior to joining Amyris in 2006, Dr. Leavell received his Ph.D. in Chemistry from University of California, Berkeley, and his B.S. in Chemistry from University of Colorado, Denver.
Lisa Roessler
Chief Commercial Officer
Lisa Roessler was appointed Chief Commercial Officer in May 2024. Ms. Roessler has over 35 years of experience in global leadership roles overseeing commercial growth strategies and building winning global teams. She most recently served as Global Vice President, Product Line Agro and Functional Specialties, of Evonik, an international special chemicals company. Prior to Evonik, Ms. Roessler served for nearly 30 years at DuPont in sales and marketing roles of increasing responsibility, including as Global Growth Leader of a $3 billion business. She received her Master’s in chemical engineering from Carnegie Mellon University and her Bachelor’s in chemical engineering from the University of Pittsburgh.
Annie Tsong
Chief Strategy Officer & Product & Ingredients
Annie Tsong was appointed Chief Strategy and Product Officer in 2021 and is responsible for developing Amyris’ extensive pipeline of products and ingredients. She maintains the strategic portfolio by identifying the intersection between market needs and areas where Amyris’ technology offers new value.
A long-time Amyris veteran, Dr. Tsong joined Amyris in 2008 in the Research and Development division, where she was central in establishing the company’s foundational microbial production platform. Subsequently, she established a Program Management Office which brought Amyris’ highest priority molecules to market by integrating activity across capabilities from upstream R&D to commercialization. Most recently, Dr. Tsong turned her attention to Product Innovation, where her team established an ingredient development pipeline focused on fast-to-market opportunities that support Amyris’ strategic objectives. Dr. Tsong has authored multiple landmark scientific publications in the fields of metabolic engineering and evolution of transcriptional regulation. She is an inventor on many key patents in Amyris’ IP portfolio, and a frequent speaker at international scientific conferences.
Dr. Tsong holds an AB in Biochemical Sciences from Harvard University, a Ph.D. in genetics from University of California, San Francisco, and was a Miller Fellow at University of California, Berkeley.
John Doerr
John Doerr is Chairman at Kleiner Perkins, a venture capital firm, since 1980. Mr. Doerr currently serves on the board of directors of Alphabet and DoorDash. He previously served as a director of Amazon, Bloom Energy, Coursera, Quantumscape and Zynga Inc. Mr. Doerr holds a Bachelor of Science and a Master of Science in Electrical Engineering degrees from Rice University and a Master of Business Administration degree from Harvard University.
Kathy L. Fortman
Kathy L. Fortmann was appointed Chief Executive Officer of Amyris in May 2024. Ms. Fortmann brings almost 35 years of global business experience across a range of industries including specialty chemicals and ingredients. She most recently served as Chief Executive Officer of ACOMO N.V., a Dutch publicly-listed company focused on conventional and organic niche food products and ingredients for the food and beverage industry from 2021 to 2023. Prior to that, Ms. Fortmann held various roles at International Flavors & Fragrances Inc. (“IFF”) from 2020 until 2021, including Division President of Nourish, Division Chief Executive Officer, Taste, and Head, Taste Strategy and Cross Fertilization. Prior to IFF, she was a senior executive at FrieslandCampina, a dairy cooperative in Europe from 2017 to 2019, serving as Business Group President, Ingredients and a member of the Executive Committee. From 2005 until 2017, Ms. Fortmann held various leadership positions at Cargill, Incorporated, a leading world provider of food ingredients and agricultural services and products. Prior to Cargill, she held positions of increasing responsibility at E.I. DuPont de Nemours, Inc. from 1989 until 2005. Ms. Fortmann currently serves as a director on the boards of FMC Corporation (NYSE: FMC), a global agricultural sciences company, and PPG (NYSE: PPG), a global supplier of paints, coatings and specialty materials. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Tulsa, as well as an Executive MBA from Washington University.
Ryan Panchadsaram
Ryan Panchadsaram is a partner at Foris Ventures and serves as an advisor to the Chairman at Kleiner Perkins. He has been in the role since 2016 and invests in bold founders and disruptive technologies that are tackling the climate crisis, fixing our healthcare system, and improving the way we live and work. Prior to Kleiner Perkins, Mr. Panchadsaram worked at the White House and served as the deputy chief technology officer for the United States. He helped shape how an $80 billion IT budget could be used by federal agencies to deliver on their missions in a more effective, user-centric, and datadriven way. In 2015, he served as a delegate to the United Nations to launch the Solutions Summit, a grassroots effort to spotlight the work of exceptional innovators around the world tackling the Sustainable Development Goals. In 2013, he was part of the crisis response team that rescued HealthCare.gov.
This was a multi-month effort that ultimately led to the Affordable Care Act providing healthcare to 31 million people. Prior to government service, he was a health technology entrepreneur and worked at Microsoft and Salesforce.com. Mr. Panchadsaram holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research from U.C. Berkeley.
Scott White
Mr. White is currently President and Chief Executive Officer of Edsal Manufacturing, a leading designer, manufacturer and distributor of high-quality steel shelving and cabinets, where he has served since 2019. Mr. White has over 30 years of experience in global finance, marketing and general management roles. Prior to joining Edsal, from 2016 to 2019, Mr. White served as CEO of New Avon, a leading provider of cosmetics and beauty products. Prior to that, from 2005 to 2016, he held multiple senior management roles over 10 years at Abbott Laboratories, including President of Abbott Nutrition International. Mr. White began his career at Procter & Gamble where he served for 15 years. Mr. White currently serves as a member of the board of directors of Edsal, a privately held company. Mr. White holds an M.B.A. from Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management and a B.S. in Finance from Miami University.