Pam Marrone, PhD

Dr. Marrone spent her 30+ year career focused on leading the way to a more sustainable agriculture through discovery and commercialization of biological products for pest management and plant health. She is currently Executive Chair of Primary BioAg Innovations and Global BioAg Linkages, founded to help agtech/bioag innovators scale and succeed in market adoption. She started Davis-based Marrone Bio Innovations in 2006 and was recently named “Most Admired CEO, Distinguished Career Award” by the Sacramento Business Journal. On August 2, 2013, MBI listed its stock as MBII on NASDAQ. On August 2nd 2020, she retired as CEO and continues to serve on the Board and as an advisor. Before Marrone Bio, she started and led the bioprotection company AgraQuest, Inc. Before AgraQuest, she was founding president and business unit head for Entotech, Inc. She started her career after graduate school at Monsanto, where she led the Insect Biology group. In June 2020, she completed her 4-year term as an alumni-elected Trustee of Cornell University. She is Treasurer of the Association for Women in Science, board member of the Foundation for Food and Ag Research and is on the UC Davis Ag and Environmental Sciences Dean’s Advisory Council. She mentors and advises a number of agbio and agtech startups, five founded and led by women. She holds more than 60 US and 400 foreign patents and is a Fellow of Association for the Advancement of Science. She has a B.S. in entomology with Honors and Distinction from Cornell and a Ph.D. in entomology from NCSU.