Gerald Coward Joins AgBiome as CFO

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C., July 21, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- AgBiome^®, a leader in developing innovative products from the Earth's microbial communities, announced Gerald Coward has joined the company as its Chief Financial Officer. Gerald will lead the finance team from the company's headquarters in Research Triangle Park, NC, effective immediately.

Gerald has nearly three decades of experience, holding various finance and strategic leadership roles at companies operating within the food, agriculture, and consumer goods industries. His focus has been on business transformation and capability building in high growth companies. Prior to joining AgBiome, Gerald was CFO at the Fresh Food Group, a provider of fresh-cut fruits, vegetables, and home meal replacement solutions in the US and Canada. Gerald has also served as the Business Unit CFO at Driscoll's of the Americas, led the build of corporate planning and analysis capability at Blue Diamond Growers, and held several finance leadership, strategy, and M&A integration roles at General Mills in the US and internationally. Gerald is a graduate of the Buckinghamshire Chilterns University College.

"Gerald brings the financial expertise we are looking for to continue AgBiome's accelerated growth," says Scott Uknes, Co-CEO of AgBiome. "With Gerald on the team, we look forward to advancing our strategic financial path forward to grow our company, expand our product line, and continue to execute on AgBiome's mission to feed the world responsibly."

"I have always been drawn to the food and agriculture industries, and how to effectively finance and scale operations that provide our world with sustainable foods," says Coward. "I was attracted to AgBiome's unique, collaborative corporate structure that has enabled a company built on science to innovate and grow at a fast clip. I look forward to being part of a strong team that helps to define the future of agtech."

AgBiome is leading the way in the next agricultural revolution with the most innovative use of the plant microbiome for identifying and developing genetic traits and biological pesticides. AgBiome recently launched their first proprietary product, Howler^® fungicide, a highly efficacious disease control solution.  The company has also forged significant partnerships, including:

• AgBiome formed a strategic partnership with Genective to accelerate commercialization of coleopteran and lepidopteran resistant transgenic traits with unique modes of action.
• AgBiome announced new global R&D collaboration with Elanco Animal Health Incorporated (NYSE: ELAN), to develop nutritional health products for swine.

About AgBiome
AgBiome^® partners with the microbial world to improve our planet. AgBiome discovers and develops innovative biological and trait products for crop protection. The proprietary GENESIS™ discovery platform efficiently captures diverse, unique microbes for agriculturally relevant applications, and screens them with industry-best assays for insect, disease, and nematode control. Through its commercial subsidiary, AgBiome develops and sells proprietary crop protection solutions. The first of these, Howler^®, is a revolutionary fungicide for disease control in a broad variety of crops. AgBiome and Genective recently formed a strategic partnership to establish a new leader in insect traits, a market with over $5 billion in annual opportunities. AgBiome has a global R&D collaboration with Elanco Animal Health Incorporated (NYSE: ELAN), to develop nutritional health products for swine. AgBiome's LifeEDIT™ subsidiary deploys proprietary genome editing systems to address human genetic diseases and high-value crop traits. For more information, visit http://agbiome.com.

SOURCE AgBiome

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