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 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.

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), 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.