BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Graham Beesley, born in Northampton England, is a joint UK and Swiss citizen. He holds a Master of Arts in Chemical Engineering from the University of Cambridge. He has over 35 years’ experience in the chemical industry. Graham worked for 24 years for Procter and Gamble Chemicals, a leading operator in the oleochemical industry in a variety of worldwide commercial roles, based initially in the UK and subsequently in Switzerland, the USA and the Middle East. Graham was also a member of the management board of P&G Chemicals. He subsequently moved to the petrochemical sector, holding the role of CEO of INEOS Oxide for 6 years until 2021, during which the business grew substantially via organic growth and a series of acquisitions.
Graham has been a board advisor to several companies, primarily operating in the cleantech and renewables space, and has consulted for several players in the private equity space in M&A activity. Graham also serves as a board member of a Charitable Foundation, My Carbon Zero, a group dedicated to CO2 reduction projects principally in the agronomy and forestry sectors, aligning with corporate partners seeking to balance CO2 impact.
Lawrence R. Samuels is a Partner at McGuire Woods and currently heads the firm’s Corporate Securities practice in the Chicago office. He is a member of the firm’s Securities & Corporate Finance, Mergers & Acquisitions, Corporate Governance, International Transaction and Business & Securities Litigation practice areas.
Mr Samuels’ focus areas include advising businesses with regards to intellectual property matters, corporate finance transactions, corporate compliance and representing hedge funds and other investment entities with regards to capital raising and investment activities.
He is admitted to practice in New York and Illinois and also the US Supreme Court, US Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, US Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit, US District Court for the Southern District of New York, US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois (Trial Bar) and the US District Court for the Central District of Illinois.
Mr Samuels received is B.A. from the University of Chicago in 1968 and his J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1971.
Mr Samuels also sits on the Board of the National Chamber Foundation, US Chamber of Commerce.
Mark McGrath currently holds the position of Senior Advisor at Gleacher & Company. Prior to his current position, Mark was a Senior Advisor to Gleacher Partners and spent 27 years with McKinsey & Company where he worked with more than half of the 50 largest consumer goods companies and retailers in North America, assisting them with questions on business development, strategy and operational improvement.
Mark has held of a number of senior level positions during his career including leading McKinsey’s Americas Consumer Goods practice from 1997 to 2003.
Mark is a Director of GATX Corporation, Aware Inc and Lincoln Park Zoo and serves on the Advisory Councils of the University of Chicago’s Graduate School of Business, Notre Dame’s Kroc International Peace Studies Institute and Notre Dame’s Kellogg International Studies Institute which he chairs. He is also a member of the Supervisory Board of Royal Ahold of the Netherlands.
Mark holds a BBA degree from the University of Notre Dame, and MBA from the University of Chicago and an MSc (Econ) degree from the London School of Economics.
Irwin Heller is a member of Mintz Levin’s corporate practice in Boston, Massachusetts and served on the firm’s Executive Committee for many years. He was the firm’s Managing Partner for six years, through March 2003. Irwin’s practice includes a diversified clientele ranging from start-up to publicly traded entities.
Irwin devotes a significant portion of his practice to representing early-stage companies and individuals with new products or concepts, both high tech and low tech, that require strategic partners or need money. He also provides wide-ranging assistance to growing companies of all sizes, including involvement in mergers and acquisitions and public and private financings. In addition, Irwin often is involved with joint ventures, product development and marketing agreements designed to advance the interests of multiple parties. For example, a significant portion of his career has involved project financings, including leveraged lease transitions which require integrating and satisfying multiple parties. These financings, totaling billions of dollars, financed waste and other alternative fuels to energy plants, among other assets, on behalf of Fortune 500 companies and banks. Irwin’s clients often utilize his business experience and judgment, in addition to his legal skills, and appreciate his high level of commitment to client service.
Irwin is admitted to practice in Massachusetts and is a member of the American, Massachusetts and Boston Bar Associations. He received his B.A. from Tufts University (1967) and his J.D., cum laude, from Columbia University Law School (1970).
Irwin is an Alumni Trustee of Tufts University and a trustee of the Boston Tufts Alliance, a Board member and former President of Temple Beth Elohim of Wellesley, and a member of the Board of Trustees of the Wang Center.
Rod Vautier has led BiOWiSH Technologies’ global expansion since founding it in 2008. Under his leadership, BiOWiSH Technologies has conducted extensive research and development, expanding the ways their core technology can be used. This has led to the commercialization of BiOWiSH® and the development of applications in agriculture, environmental management, and aquaculture. Before forming BiOWiSH Technologies, Rod was a Founder and Managing Director of The Australian Plasterboard Company which grew rapidly to more than $30 million in turnover within two years against large corporate incumbents. Prior to this, Rod was General Manager of Sales and Marketing at James Hardie Australia.
Charles Funai is President of Barga, LLC, a private investment firm in Dallas, Texas. Charles previously served as the Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Cummins Southern Plains, LLC and its predecessors from 1991 until 2015 during their evolution from private ownership to a joint venture to finally a subsidiary of Cummins Inc. all of which involved sales and service of diesel and natural gas engines and power generation equipment in Oklahoma and Texas.
Prior to his affiliation with Cummins, Inc., Charles held financial roles with public and privately owned firms in the oil and gas, engineering and construction, and computer industries including D. H. Miller Investments, Inc., Williams Brothers Engineering Company (part of Ashland Oil, Inc.), Adams Affiliates, Inc., and Datapoint Corporation. He previously was a member of the board of directors of Coda Energy, Inc., a NASDAQ-listed oil and gas exploration and production firm.
Charles serves on the Advisory Board for the Collins School of Management at The University of Tulsa and is a member of the Jim Lehrer Roundtable of supporters for public radio station KERA serving the north Texas area.
Charles holds a BSBA degree from The University of Tulsa and a Master of Management degree from Northwestern University. He also is a Certified Public Accountant.
Geoff Rosenhain is Founder and CEO of Jado Investments, which focuses on equity investments in seed and early stage companies with innovative business ideas and significant growth potential.
Jado partners with entrepreneurs to build market-leading companies, complementing management teams with a wide range of strategic, human and financial resources.
Prior to forming Jado Investments, Geoff was Founder/CEO of Gator Group and Operating Officer of Creata.
Jeffrey McCormick founded Saturn Partners in 1994 to finance early-stage growth companies. He spearheads Saturn’s investigation into new areas of investment and is active in managing its portfolio companies. Working closely with entrepreneurs, he helps forge strategic relationships, build management teams, and develop marketing and distribution strategies to enable significant growth.Jeff’s experience as an investment banker, entrepreneur and venture capitalist dates back to the early ’90s. Prior to founding Saturn, he was as an analyst and investment banker with Bariston Associates, a Boston firm that originates and manages private investments for individual and institutional clients.
Jeff is involved with the Sean McDonough Charitable Foundation, Citi Performing Arts Center, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and Trinity Church Boston. A Syracuse University alumnus, he also serves on the Dean’s Advisory Committee of the Whitman School of Management.
Former CEO of BiOWiSH, Ian Edwards has a wealth of experience in developing and managing a wide range of partnerships, joint ventures and business relationships on a global scale. He co-founded “Big I” Investments, a Boston based early-stage venture capital company. He was also the CEO of TRT-Holdings (formerly known as Twin Rivers Technologies). Before this role, Ian had a successful career at the Procter and Gamble Company where he spent 36 years on assignments across Europe and North America. His last assignment there was Vice President, General Manager of P&G Chemicals, where he grew the business from $450 million to $1.3 billion. In December 2022, Ian announced his retirement from his role of CEO at BiOWiSH, where he led for almost 10 years. In that time, Ian steered the company to its current point of having a unique technology that adds significant value to one of the world’s largest industries. Ian created a home for BiOWiSH in Cincinnati and established our R&D capability that has underpinned the development of our differentiated technology. He is recognized as a world-renowned expert in the natural ingredients/ bio-fuels and oleo-chemical industries. Ian completed an honors degree in Chemistry and a year’s postgraduate research at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth.
Dr. Nabil Y. Sakkab is a 1970 graduate of the American University of Beirut with a Bachelor’s Degree in Chemistry. In 1974, he joined Procter & Gamble in Cincinnati, Ohio, following a doctorate in chemistry from the Illinois Institute of Technology in 1973 and post doctorate studies at Texas A&M.
Nabil retired from P&G in 2007 as Senior Vice President, Corporate Research and Development following several assignments in Cincinnati, Brussels, Belgium and Kobe, Japan on a variety of businesses, including OTC Health Care and Household Products. He served on P&G’s Leadership Council and the Innovation Committee of P&G’s Board of Directors.
He is a thought leader and worldwide speaker in the Open Innovation movement, the author of several scientific and Innovation Management publications, and co-inventor on more than 27 patents. Nabil was awarded the 2007 IRI Medal for Leadership in R&D Management and the 2007 Holland award for best article in Innovation Management.
Nabil served on the Boards of IRI, CEFIC, CEFIC Research & Science and Greenearth Company while working for P&G and is an Advisory Professor for Tsinghua University in Beijing. Nabil served on the Givaudan Board from 2008-2014, Deinove from 2008-2015, and PharNext from 20012 to 2019. Currently, he serves on the Board of Altria, BiOWiSH Technologies as Chair, and Celltex.
Stepan Braginskiy is a Senior Associate with SABIC Ventures. He has invested in Circular Economy, Advanced Materials, and Ag Tech start-ups in Europe, the USA, and China and supported portfolio companies with value enhancement and fundraising activities.
Stepan has over 15 years of cross-industry experience in finance and strategic planning. He combines knowledge of “what good looks like” from having worked across larger organizations with the entrepreneurial acumen required to succeed in a smaller environment. Before entering venture capital, Stepan was a CFO of a scale-up, co-leading geographical expansion, which resulted in a 3x growth against large incumbents. Prior to this, Stepan held senior roles in financial services with Ernst & Young.
Stepan has an MBA from IMD in Lausanne and a Bachelor of Economics degree from Novosibirsk State University.
Bill Diederich, recently named Chief Executive Officer, has been with BiOWiSH Technologies for 15 years. He spearheaded the development and commercialization of BiOWiSH’s agronomy program. Before this appointment, he served as the company’s Chief Innovation Officer. Bill has approximately 30 years of management experience in emerging businesses. Prior to his appointment at BiOWiSH, Bill was the Chief Operating Officer of a manufacturer of biological products that supplies agriculture, horticulture, animal feeding operations, industry and municipalities. He also worked for 10 years in a supervisory role for Midwest Laboratories, now the largest agricultural testing laboratory in the United States.
He holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Nebraska and has completed the University of Tennessee’s Comprehensive Nutrient Management Program.
Stephen Kent is an experienced non-executive Director and Chairman. He has over 35 years of experience in operational, business development, management, investment and exit roles across various industries. Stephen started his career in energy with large corporations working internationally in various roles for more than 20 years. Stephen then moved on to start up, build and exits and this was followed by co-founding a Private Equity fund based in London that specialised in early-stage technologies. Since then, Stephen has served on various Boards striving to add value to shareholders with his experience and positive challenge.
Doug Cameron is a former head of biotechnology at Cargill and has extensive experience with venture capital chemical companies. He led the U.S. sector of the US-China Green Fund (USCGF) and was a professor in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at the University of Wisconsin. Of particular value is Cameron’s deep understanding in some future research areas such as genetics and synthetic biology.