Matti Tiainen brings more than a decade of executive leadership and international sales, marketing and information technology experience with high-growth start-ups to Marrone Bio.
Mr. Tiainen joined Marrone Bio Innovations through the acquisition of Pro Farm Technologies in the fall of 2019 where he served as CEO. Based in Helsinki, Finland, Matti co-founded Pro Farm Technologies in April 2014 to bring 30 years of international space station agriculture research back to earth and used on farm fields throughout the world.
Throughout the seven years Tiainen lead Pro Farm Technologies, he not only created proprietary nutrient-based product that performs at the molecular level, but he partnered with some of the world’s largest agriculture distributors to grow Pro Farm into one of the leading biological suppliers of crop nutrients in the world.
Before co-founding Pro Farm, Tiainen was the CEO and President of Central Europe for a large European precious metals company.
Tiainen’s professional passion lies in the ability to make large-scale impact through the use of sound science and collaboration of great people.
A 28-plus-year agricultural industry veteran, Kevin Helash became CEO of Marrone Bio Innovations in August 2020 after serving as CEO for Agrinos AS, a global-scale biological crop input provider specializing in biofertilizers and biostimulant products, for three years. Prior to joining Agrinos, Helash was a vice president and corporate officer with Agrium (now Nutrien Ltd.), one of the world’s largest agricultural product distributors.
During his 26-year tenure with Agrium, Helash held senior management roles leading global sales, marketing, logistics and supply chain strategies. Helash also served in international leadership positions for Agrium spanning the Americas and Europe where he interfaced directly with growers, retail and wholesale distributors, and investors. As head of the company’s Canadian retail operations, Helash grew the organization to a multi-billion-dollar revenue entity and led the successful acquisition and integration of Viterra’s retail agribusiness to create the largest agricultural retail organization in Canada.
Helash has served on the Board of the International Plant Nutrition Institute (IPNI) as well as CropLife Canada and received his Bachelor of Science in Agriculture from the University of Manitoba.
Dr. Timothy Johnson currently serves as Vice President of Field Development and Technical Services after having several management roles since joining Marrone Bio Innovations in 2008. A published researcher and lecturer, .Dr. Johnson has 30 years of experience in the development and market support of biopesticides for use in agricultural pest management.
As a senior and contributing author, Dr. Johnson has lectured at national and regional meetings of the Entomological Society of America, Society for Invertebrate Pathology, American Mosquito Association, International Entomological Congress, the First International Conference on Bacillus thuringiensis and the Beltwide Cotton Conferences.
Johnson holds two US patents and his research has been published in the Journal of Economic Entomology, Canadian Entomologist, Florida Entomologist, Applied and Environmental Microbiology, the Journal of Bacteria and Entomophaga. He is a contributing author in C. Gawron-Burke and T. B. Johnson. 1994. Developments of Bacillus thuringiensis-based pesticides for the control of potato insect pests. In Advances in Potato Pest Biology and Management APS Press, and in J. A. Baum, T. B. Johnson and B. C. Carlton. Bacillus thuringiensis. Natural and Recombinant Products. From: Methods in Biotechnology, vol. 5: Biopesticides: Use and Delivery. Humana Press Inc.
Mr. Johnson holds a Ph.D. in Entomology from Purdue University.
Keith Pitts has served in numerous senior legislative, administrative, regulatory and public policy roles for more than two decades, and has been actively involved in shaping domestic and international policies regarding pesticides, organic agriculture, agricultural biotechnology, invasive species, climate change, specialty crops and food safety. He joined MBI in 2008, after working at the U.S. Department of Agriculture as a special assistant to deputy secretary Richard Rominger, and to Secretary Dan Glickman.
Pitts led several key agricultural, environmental and food safety initiatives for the USDA and the Clinton Administration. His career work has focused on issues such as the president’s Initiative to Ensure the Safety of Imported and Domestic Fruits and Vegetables, the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Montreal Protocol and phase-out of methyl bromide, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, major reform of U.S. pesticide policy and agricultural biotechnology policy, the WTO and NAFTA, and several U.S. farm bills. He was also the USDA leader on developing and implementing the president’s Executive Order on Invasive Species and the president’s National Invasive Species Management Plan.
Most recently, Pitts was public policy director for the Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology, a nonpartisan research and policy organization based in Washington, DC, where he led all of the organization’s policy-related activities.
Pitts is on the Research Advisory Council for the Farmland Trust and is also a member of the National Academies of Science Board on Agriculture and Natural Resources (The National Research Council) headquartered in Washington, DC.
Pitts holds a B.A. in chemistry from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Dr. Vasavada has 30 years of experience in industrial bioproducts, fermentation R&D and manufacturing, process engineering, and technology transfer. His broad commercial background includes positions with General Atomics, Vical Inc., Diversa Corporation, Monsanto (CP Kelco), and Chiron Corp. Dr. Vasavada is a co-inventor on three patents and is a frequent invited speaker at professional scientific society meetings. He earned his Ph.D. in Applied Microbiology at the University of California, Davis.
Mr. Engvall has nearly 30 years of management and entrepreneurial experience in the areas of technology, manufacturing and operations and personnel management.
Most recently, Engvall and Tiainen, co-founded Pro Farm Technologies, a subsidiary of Marrone Bio Innovations in 2013. There he worked in various back-office functions throughout the company, crystalizing into a combined European operational lead for regulatory affairs and supply chain. His diligence resulted in securing EU Commission working group acceptance, allowing Pro Farm to successfully launch multiple, single dossier, pan-European nutritional seed treatments.
Prior to starting Pro Farm, Engvall worked in several dot.com or tech-service companies working in a variety of roles from finance and technical operations to new business development and personnel management.
Engvall has a passion for start-ups and was part of several new business concepts. As Chief Operations Officer for Dynamic5, he secured a Tekes (The Finnish Funding Agency for Innovation) grant for developing a mobile switch control app.
Linda Moore joined Marrone Bio Innovations as general counsel in 2014. She has brought a wide range of corporate legal experience, both domestic and international, to the newly created position. Linda has served as General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer for a number of technology companies including Merix Corp., Phoenix Technologies, and Jabil Circuit, in addition to being co-founder and principal of The Moore Group. Her extensive legal background in the areas of intellectual property, securities regulations and compliance, corporate governance, labor relations, and litigation management lends critical support to MBI business operations. Linda’s experience in international tax, labor, and facilities issues through expatriate and extended assignments in Europe, Asia and Latin America is key in helping to manage the company’s continuing overseas expansion.
Linda is generous with lending her legal skills to several organizations and social causes. She has served as an Executive Mentor to Astia (formerly Women’s Technology Cluster), sat on the Advisory Board for Remedy Interactive and Opportunity Works, and has done pro bono work for the Hospice of San Mateo County.
She earned her J.D. at Michigan State University School of Law and has been an adjunct professor at the University of Detroit Mercy and Santa Clara University.