Flagship Pioneering and Invaio Sciences announced that Amy O'Shea has joined Flagship Pioneering as CEO-partner and Invaio as chief executive officer and board director.
O'Shea has more than 20 years experience across the agriculture, food and pharmaceutical industries. She previously served as president and CEO of Certis Biologicals, a division of Mitsui & Co. Prior to Certis, O'Shea held multiple leadership positions at FMC Corporation, including vice president and business director of the Agricultural Solutions Division for North America, global director of marketing, strategy and innovation for FMC's Health & Nutrition Division, and FMC's global director of sales. Earlier in her career with FMC, Amy served as country manager,Latin America.
O’Shea graduated summa cum laude with an MBA from Drexel University and holds a Bachelor of Arts in Classical Civilizations from Boston University. ●
Chris Turner has been appointed chief commercial officer of Pivot Bio. He will lead the company’s global growth agenda and commercial sales organization.
Turner joins Pivot Bio from Bayer Corporation, where he served as head of the U.S. Crop Science division; he also served as senior vice president of U.S. commercial operations. Before joining Bayer, Turner was with Monsanto Company for more than 20 years, serving as a business leader. Prior to joining Monsanto, he was a district sales leader for FMC Corporation.
Raised on a farm in Northeast Missouri, Turner earned a Bachelor of Science degree in agriculture from the University of Missouri. ●
David Barton has joined Prospero & Partners as senior consultant. In this role, Barton will contribute to the secretariat for the European Biostimulants Industry Council (EBIC), with his role centeredaround shaping the regulatory landscape for plant biostimulants, enhancing sustainable agricultural practices, and supporting EBIC's strategic initiatives.
With over 13 years of domain experience in the biostimulants industry, Barton has served in several roles including chief technology officer and chief business officer at Brandon Bioscience. His experience hasbeen centered on the development, registration, and commercialization of biostimulants, with a keen focus on educating stakeholders and expanding market access within regulatory frameworks.
Barton holds a Bachelor of Science in food technology from the University of Reading, UK, and a Master’s in business from the University of Limerick, Ireland. ●
FMC Corporation announced Darren Dillenbeck, president, FMC U.S.A., has been elected vice president and president of FMC North America.
Dillenbeck joined FMC in 2018 and led the company's Canadian business until being named president of FMC U.S.A. in 2022.He has more than 25 years of experience in the agricultural industry, including commercial leadership roles of increasing responsibility at Dow AgroSciences.
Dillenbeck earned his Bachelor of Science in forestry from the University of New Brunswick.
The company also announced that Renato Guimarães will join FMC as vice president and president ofFMC Latin America.
Guimarães brings more than three decades of agribusiness experience to his new role leading FMC's Latin America region. He most recently served as CEO of one a crop protection retailer in Brazil. He held sales and marketing leadership roles of increasing responsibility and scope for more than two decades at Sandoz/Novartis/Syngenta in Brazil.
Guimarães graduated as an agronomist from the School of Agriculture of Lavras (ESAL) inBrazil and earned his MBA from Fundação Dom Cabral. ●
Darren Dillenbeck
Renato Guimarães
Franz Prieschl has joined Agri Sciences Biologicals as executive vice president, Europe.
With 15 years of expertise in the fertilizer and plant nutrition industry, he held several past roles in multinational companies, including BASF, K+S, Eurochem, and ICL.
Prieschl’s goal is to drive innovation with biological solutions that meet
the evolving needs of thecompany’s farming partners,reduce environmental impacts,and support sustainableagricultural. ●
Staphyt has appointed Guillaume Vigneau as its new director of operations for Europe.
Initially trained as an agronomist, Vigneau has previous experiences in agricultural cooperatives and his last responsibilities as research operation manager in charge of research stations for an international seed breeding company.
He will be in charge of Staphyt’s European operations, including agrosciences and laboratory activities. ●
Phospholutions has appointed James Ortízas chief commercial officer; in this role, he will lead the expansion of the RhizoSorb fertilizer technology platform on a global scale.
Ortíz will partner with globalnutrient producers to delivervalue to the phosphate commodity market. His initial priority willinvolve spearheading commercial initiatives within the emerging South American market and across the European Union.
Ortíz will divide his time between London, England and the company's commercial office in St. Petersburg, Florida. The company has committed to expanding throughout South America and Europe after already conducting trials in Indiaand Africa. ●
CropLife America (CLA) announced that Jeff Blackwood has been selected as vice president of government relations.
Blackwood is the co-chair of the government affairs committee for the U.S.-based Biological Products Industry Alliance (BPIA).
He joins CLA after more than a decade as the policy lead for the agricultural solutions business of BASF Corporation. Prior to BASF, Blackwood spent time working in government relations with associations and as a staffer for two senators and a member of Congress. ●
UPL Ltd. and DECCO WW, part of the UPL Group of companies, announce the appointment of Manish Sirohi as the chief executive officer of DECCO WW.
Sirohi joined UPL in 2004 and has held various positions across different markets, most recently serving as global commercial head of DECCO WW. In this role, he was instrumental in unleashing new
business value and driving double-digit top-line and bottom-line growth in 2023. ●
Elicit Plant, an agri-biotech company, announces the appointment of Slavica Djonovic, Ph.D. as chief scientific officer (CSO). She will be tasked with amplifying Elicit Plant's scientific influence and accelerating the development of the company’s EliTerra Technological platform.
Djonovic is one of the founding scientists of Indigo Ag and served as director of product science. At Joyn Bio, a synthetic biology agtech company, she served as senior director by establishing the disease control program and initiating the regulatory science approach.
Djonovic holds a Master of Science from Colorado State University, a Ph.D. from Texas A&M University, and she has completed her postdoctoral training at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. ●
Custom Agronomics, a provider of private-label liquid plant nutrition and other specialty products for the agriculture, turf and ornamental markets, announced that Tom Snipes has been appointed CEO.
Snipes most recently served as CEO of Plant Response Inc., a plant biotechnology company. Plant Response was acquired by The Mosaic Company in 2022 and is now part of Mosaic Biosciences. Snipes previously worked in leadership roles at Pinnacle Agricultural Holdings andKoch Industries.
Snipes is a graduate of the University of South Carolina and has completed executive education programs at the University of Michigan and Texas A&M University. ●
