Micropep Technologies establishes its first Board of Directors and appoints Kevin P. Smith as Non-Executive Chairman

Micropep Technologies, a deep tech startup specialized in plant biotechnologies, announces today the appointment of Kevin Smith as non-executive Chairman of its newly created Board of Directors. He will serve on the Board alongside 3 additional former CEOs from well-known plant biotechnology companies: Alain Godard, Eric Rey and Luc Mathis. Following the capital investment of 4 million euros by Sofinnova Partners and Irdi Soridec Gestion in March 2018, Micropep strengthened by 4 international experts has created the best possible conditions for success.
Kevin Smith, a 30 year veteran in international business, is nominated as Chairman of the Board

Created in 2016, Micropep Technologies is a deep tech plant biotechnology startup developing a new generation of crop stimulation and crop protection solutions based on a disruptive technology: “miPEP”, natural plant peptides transiently regulating gene expression.
The company today announces the appointment of Kevin Smith as non-executive Chairman of its newly formed Board of Directors. Kevin is a hands-on multicultural leader with a proven and strong track record in building highly profitable businesses by developing, communicating and aligning multicultural teams around a vision and executing profitable customer solutions growth strategies. Between 2008 and 2014, he led Arysta Lifescience European and EAM businesses as regional CEO, where he doubled profits while building Arysta’s global biologicals solutions portfolio. He is currently Senior Vice President at Houghton International, world number 1 in metalworking fluids. As a world-renowned expert with more than 30 years of experience in management and coaching of executive teams, his role is to fast-track the development of Micropep Technologies.
Kevin says: ‘I am thrilled to join Micropep’s new Board of Directors as non-executive chairman. My ambition is to help this highly innovative and ambitious startup to transform its disruptive and groundbreaking technology into a competitive portfolio of efficient solutions for agriculture. I am proud to offer my experience and leadership skills to support this unique company which lies at the crossroads between plant genetics and crop stimulation and protection solutions.’
Alain Godard, Eric Rey and Luc Mathis join Micropep’s first Board of Directors as independent members

Alongside Kevin’s nomination, the company appointed three other independent board members with incomparable hands-on experience in the Agricultural Biotechnology sector: Alain Godard, former CEO of Aventis CropScience (acquired by Bayer in 2002), Eric Rey, former CEO of Arcadia Bioscience (NASDAQ:RKDA) - a leading company of agricultural traits for heathier products -, and Luc Mathis, former CEO of Calyxt (NASDAQ:CLXT) – a leading company in gene editing for agriculture. Their complementary skills and experience in both plant genetics and crop protection as well as their significative international track-record will support Micropep’s ambition to quickly emerge as a global leading biotechnology company in the agricultural sector.

Micropep’s Board of Directors is further composed of Thomas Laurent, co-founder and CEO, and of the representatives of Sofinnova Partners (Denis Lucquin) and Irdi Soridec (Jean-Michel Petit), the two main investors.
“I am really excited by the broad and unique experience brought to Micropep by each of our board member. I feel lucky to be able to work with 4 former CEOs, each bringing their own set of expertise and skills to help us address all the challenges lying ahead of us. We are working hard on developing an ambitious and truly disruptive technology to help address one of the biggest challenges of the 21st century: to develop a both productive and environmentally friendly agriculture, and I am convinced that our board members’ experience will help us progress faster towards this goal” comments Thomas Laurent, CEO of Micropep Technologies.

Biographies

Kevin Smith has over 30 years of experience as managing director of several international companies and as independent consultant in agriculture and specialty chemicals. Formerly CEO of Arysta Lifescience in Europe, Africa and the Middle East, he is today Senior Vice President Houghton International and President EMEA Houghton.
Alain GODARD graduated from the Ecole Nationale Agronomique de Toulouse. He joined Rhône-Poulenc in 1975 where he held various management positions in France and other countries before becoming Managing in 1991, and finally CEO of Aventis CropScience which he left before its acquisition by Bayer in 2001.

Eric REY is the co-founder and former CEO of Arcadia Bioscience, an American company specialized in plant biotechnology, that he managed for 13 years until its IPO onto NASDAQ. Before that, Eric worked as VP of operation at Calgene (acquired by Monsanto) and then as a Partner at Rockridge Group. He brings over 35 years of experience in agricultural biotechnologies.
Luc MATHIS, is the former CEO of Calyxt, a company specialised in plant gene editing based in Minneapolis (US). Luc successfully ran the company for 5 years until 2016, preparing it for a successful IPO on the Nasdaq in 2017. He is, since 2017, Chief Business Officer of Global Bioenergies (Alternext - ALGBE), an industrial biotechnology company developing bio-based alternatives to petro-chemicals, through fermentation.

About Micropep Technologies

Created in 2016, Micropep Technologies develops a disruptive technology based on the discovery of a specific family of natural plant proteins that can transiently regulate gene expression in plant and improve all major plant development processes. Micropep’s ambition is to develop a new generation of crop stimulation and crop protection solution based on this technology to offer farmers a tangible alternative to agrochemicals.

For more information, go to: https://micro-pep.com/
Contacts OXYGEN - Aurélie Mauries / Aurélie Vérin - Tel : +33 (0)5 32 11 07 31 - aurelie@oxygen-rp.com - @aureliemauries