Meeting Speaker for Tuesday, July 29, 2014

Pamela G. Marrone, PhD

CEO and Founder, Marrone Bio Innovations

Dr. Marrone is currently CEO/Founder of Marrone Bio Innovations (MBI), a company with over 150 employees she started in 2006 to discover and develop bio-based products for pest management and plant health.  On August 2, 2013, MBI listed its stock as MBII on NASDAQ, raising net proceeds of $56.4 million. The company’s award winning Regalia® Biofungicide and award winning Grandevo® Bioinsecticide are rapidly being adopted in the fruit, nut, vegetable and row crop markets in the U.S. and internationally. MBI has also launched Zequanox® for invasive zebra and quagga mussels. Recently, Venerate™ Bioinsecticide, was approved by the EPA in February 2014 and will be initially launched into the U.S. fruit and vegetable markets.

In December 2013, Dr. Marrone was named the Sacramento, CA region's Cleantech Innovator of the Year and the Sacramento Business Person of the Year by the Sacramento Business Journal.  In 2011, she was awarded the NRDC’s Growing Green Award in its “Business Leader” category, to recognize new pioneers in sustainable farming and food. Marrone Bio Innovations, Inc. received a California Department of Pesticide Regulation IPM Innovator award in 2009 and the California Governor’s Environmental and Economic Leadership Award in 2008. Dr. Marrone founded AgraQuest in 1995 and served as its CEO, Chairman and President until March 2006. At AgraQuest, she commercialized several biopesticide products that became the biological standards for their categories. Before AgraQuest, she was founding president and business unit head for Entotech, Inc. in Davis (CA), a biopesticide subsidiary of Denmark-based Novo Nordisk. Prior to Entotech, she led Monsanto’s Insect Biology group, which was seeking alternative ways to control insect pests. 

Dr. Marrone is past president of the Association of Applied IPM Ecologists, is on the Board of the Association of Applied IPM Ecologists Foundation and is a Board member-Treasurer of the Organic Farming Research Foundation. She is the founder of the Biopesticide Industry Alliance (BPIA), a trade association of more than 70 biopesticide and related companies. Pam is also heavily involved in local California agriculture as a member of the UC Davis Ag and Environmental Sciences Dean's Advisory Council and the UC President’s Board on Science and Innovation. In addition, she is a member of CAL-DPR’s Pest Management Advisory Committee and Non-fumigant alternatives task force.

Her peers have elected Dr. Marrone as a Fellow of AAAS (American Assoc. for the Advancement of Science). She has a B.S. in entomology with Honors and Distinction from Cornell University and a Ph.D. in entomology from North Carolina State University.