Calysta bolsters senior team and board with the appointment of new CFO and board member

World-leading alternative protein producer Calysta has bolstered its strategic leadership.

Keysha Bailey becomes CFO while Rabobank veteran Jacqueline Pieters-Zetsma joins the Board of Directors as an independent non-exec board member.

Keysha Bailey brings over 20 years of strategic financial and operational leadership with results in scaling enterprises as well as established complex organizations, in both the public and private sectors. She has over a decade of investment and capital markets experience with J.P. Morgan and Prudential, and was most recently CFO at Rocketship Education in California.

As part of the Executive team, Keysha will play an integral role in the company’s global growth and commercialization, ahead of the delivery of the world’s first commercial scale FeedKind® production facility being developed in China by Calysseo, Calysta’s 50/50 joint venture with Adisseo.

Based in The Netherlands, Jacqueline Pieters-Zetsma joins Calysta’s Board of Directors alongside representatives from Adisseo, bp ventures and Aqua Spark. Jacqueline brings an in-depth knowledge of global food and agriculture financing and sustainability-oriented banking.

Welcoming Keysha and Jacqueline to Calysta, the company’s President, CEO and Founder, Alan Shaw, said: “Keysha and Jacqueline join us at a very exciting time in our development, with the Calysseo facility in China expected to start operation next year.

“Keysha will be an invaluable asset to Calysta as it gears up the commercial launch of FeedKind, and we’ll no doubt benefit hugely from Jacqueline’s extensive experience in the sustainable food and agriculture sector.”

Keysha commented: “I’m delighted to be joining Calysta as the company begins a significant new chapter in its history. I’m looking forward to working as part of the senior team to steer the organization as it plans to enter the Asian market and works to address the very real challenge of making our global food system more sustainable.”

Jacqueline said: “One of the biggest challenges we face is finding a way to feed our growing population in a more sustainable way, and I’m passionate about food and agriculture businesses which aid global food security while protecting mother nature. I believe FeedKind protein has an important part to play in enabling us to feed more people using less of our precious natural resources, and I look forward to working with Calysta to help it achieve its vision.”

News of the appointments comes days after Calysta announced completion of a $39 million equity financing round, led by bp ventures, to support commercial production of Calysta’s FeedKind® protein. Joining bp ventures in the round were Adisseo and AquaSpark, as well as other existing Calysta investors.

FeedKind® protein is a family of natural, sustainable, and traceable feed ingredients for fish, livestock and pets, produced by fermenting natural gas with a naturally occurring bacteria. It uses no arable land and almost no water in its production, supporting global food security and helping feed an increasing population in a sustainable way.

Calysta’s 50/50 JV with Adisseo, Calysseo, is in the process of building the world’s first FeedKind® commercial production facility in Chongqing, China, with 20,000 tonnes expected to come onto the market in 2022 and 60,000 tonnes shortly thereafter.

Investors in Calysta include bp, Adisseo, Temasek, AquaSpark, Mitsui and Cargill. For more information about Calysta, visit www.calysta.com. Join the newsletter at www.feedkind.com.