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.

Sunil Chandran

Chief Technology Officer

Sunil Chandran is a veteran industrial biotechnology leader and the Chief Technology Officer at Amyris. Prior to Amyris, Dr. Chandran was the Chief Science Officer at Impossible Foods where he lead their R&D and PD departments, spearheading efforts to introduce new products, improve their existing products, invest in new innovations, and accelerating the scale-up of technology from lab to commercial scale.

Prior to Impossible, Dr. Chandran was the Chief Science Officer and Head of R&D at Amyris Inc., where he spent more than 17 years bringing new fermentation-derived ingredients to market. While at Amyris, he oversaw multiple research programs focused on commercializing various molecules and was the primary architect of the world-class Automated Strain Engineering (ASE) platform. Notably in 2015, Dr. Chandran led an ambitious project that earned Amyris a $35 million Technology Investment Agreement from the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

Prior to joining Amyris, Dr. Chandran was a scientist at Kosan Biosciences, where he studied the ability of polyketide synthases to make novel pharmaceutical drug candidates. Dr. Chandran has more than 20 published scientific papers, book chapters and patents, and has been an invited speaker at numerous international conferences on biotechnology. He holds a BS in chemistry from the University of Mumbai, an MS in chemistry from the Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai, and a Ph.D. in chemistry from Michigan State University. Dr. Chandran also completed a post-doctoral fellowship in chemistry and biochemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

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.

Brian Edquist

Senior Vice President, Portfolio Management & Computing
Brian Edquist brings over 20 years of experience in the Life Sciences to Amyris, with a career spanning biotech, biopharma, and medical device innovation. As Senior Vice President of Portfolio Management & Computing, Mr. Edquist leads our PMO driving new product development and strategic projects, as well as our Computing team which encompasses software engineering, data science, IT, and our financial applications.

Before joining Amyris, Mr. Edquist served as Vice President of Development Operations at ESCAPE Bio, where he oversaw CMC and product development focused on rare neurodegenerative diseases. Prior to that, he was Vice President of Strategy and Project Management at Chrono Therapeutics, driving forward development of addiction treatment that integrated digital therapeutics with novel wearable drug delivery systems. His earlier career includes engineering and leadership roles in the biopharma and medical device sectors, at the Medicines Company, Boston Scientific, MedImmune, and St. Jude Medical.

Mr. Edquist holds a Bachelor of Science in Biology and Portuguese from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and an MBA from the Carlson School of Management.

Claudia Nohara

Vice President, Global Finance
Claudia Nohara is a seasoned finance executive with over 25 years of experience leading business transformation, mergers and acquisitions, strategic initiatives, and risk management across diverse industries including pharmaceuticals, medical devices, airlines, consumer goods, and mining. Ms. Nohara has held senior positions at Eurofarma, Johnson & Johnson, and LATAM, and her leadership roles include serving on administrative and consulting boards in both pharmaceutical and multinational food industry. She holds a degree in Business Administration and advanced qualifications from FGV–EAESP.

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

Senior Vice President, Product Development & Corporate Affairs

Annie Tsong oversees product development and innovation strategy, guiding the creation of high-impact ingredients that align with market needs and Amyris’ technology strengths. She also leads corporate affairs, where she drives strategic communications and stakeholder engagement.

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. 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. In 2022, she was awarded the Rosalind Franklin Award by the Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO), which recognizes a leader who is driving current advancements in food systems, agriculture, sustainable energy, and bio-based manufacturing.

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.