Executive Officers & Leadership Team
Kevin Hammill
Amit Vasavada , Ph.D.
Keith Pitts
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. Hammill brings over 25 years of leadership experience and broad commercial success in the crop protection, plant nutrition, animal feed and biotechnology industries.
Most recently, Mr. Hammill was Chief Operating Officer at Pivot Bio, a startup company focused on providing a renewable biological alternative to fertilizer. Prior to Pivot Bio, Hammill was V.P. Ag Operations and Strategy at Valent USA, a division of Sumitomo Chemical, where he oversaw the U.S. Marketing Group, seed treatment business unit and Canadian business operations. Over his 12 years at Valent, Hammill created and directed new growth platforms, commercial alliances, licensing agreements, strategic initiatives and technology adoption that resulted in significant incremental growth and margin to the company.
Before Valent, Mr. Hammill had multiple sales and marketing management positions over the course of 12 years at BASF and American Cyanamid (acquired by BASF in 2000).
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.
Jim Boyd joined Marrone Bio Innovations in 2014; he is President and Chief Financial Officer. He brings over thirty years of financial management experience spanning a variety of industries and companies ranging from Fortune 100 firms to start-ups and covering all aspects of the financial function including SEC reporting, GAAP compliance, SOX and internal controls, planning and budgeting as well as broad experience in debt, equity and M&A transactions.
His background includes over 12 years as a public company CFO including seven years as the CFO of ESS Technology, a $300 million manufacturer of DVD and image sensor devices, and three years as the CFO of Silicon Storage Technology, a $400 million manufacturer of memory and non-memory chips. Boyd has also been the CFO of several start-ups including Link-A-Media Devices.
Boyd earned a MBA in finance from the University of Wisconsin and a J.D. from Golden Gate University.
Dr. Pamela Marrone, CEO and founder of Marrone Bio Innovations (MBI), started the company in 2006 to discover and develop effective and environmentally-responsible, biologically-based products for pest management and plant health. In August 2013, she led the company to be listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange, raising net proceeds of $56.4 million.
Prior to establishing MBI, Dr. Marrone founded AgraQuest (1995-2006) where she served as its CEO, Chairman and President. Before AgraQuest, she was founding president of Entotech, Inc. (1990-1995), a biopesticide subsidiary of Novo Nordisk. Pam started her career in biopesticides by leading the Insect Biology group at Monsanto (1983-1990), which was involved in pioneering projects based on natural products and plant biotechnology.
In February 2019, she was awarded Lifetime Achievement Award for contributions in biopesticides by BioAg World. In January 2019, she was awarded the “Sustie” award by the Ecological Farming Association for her decades-long leadership in sustainable agriculture. In October 2014, Dr. Marrone was awarded Agrow’s “Best Manager with Strategic Vision” for her career-long leadership in biopesticides. Dr. Marrone received the NRDC’s Growing Green Award in “Business Leader” category, to recognize new pioneers in sustainable farming and food. She is an alumni-elected trustee of Cornell University, Treasurer of the Association for Women in Science, Board member of the Foundation for Food and Ag Research and is past-Treasurer of the Organic Farming Research Foundation. She is Founding Chair of the Bio Products Industry Alliance (BPIA), a trade association of more than 100 biopesticide and related companies. She is on the UC Davis Ag and Environmental Sciences Dean’s Advisory Council and served for many years on the Cornell University College of Ag and Life Sciences Dean’s Advisory Council. She holds several hundred patents and is in high demand to deliver keynote addresses on the future and potential of biologicals for pest management, innovation and entrepreneurship. She was elected by her peers as a Fellow of AAAS (American Assoc. for the Advancement of Science). Dr. Marrone has a B.S. in entomology with Honors and Distinction from Cornell University and a Ph.D. in entomology from North Carolina State University. She is a Fellow of the AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science).