Pivot Bio Leadership

As Pivot Bio’s Chief Executive Officer, Chris is focused on increasing farmer profitability and resiliency, as well as driving a dramatic improvement of the agriculture supply chain’s environmental sustainability by replacing synthetic fertilizers with new crop nutrition technologies.

Chris has invested in and helped build companies across the ag and food value chain from on-farm biological and digital solutions to midstream processing and logistics, down to the food ingredient and brand manufacturers. With a distinct focus on agriculture, fertilizer efficiency and agtech, deep industry relationships, and capital market expertise, Chris has served as an investor and advisor to dozens of sustainable technology companies.

Prior to joining Pivot Bio in 2023, Chris was Co-Head of Continental Grain’s Conti Ventures, where he helped build the company’s portfolio as a diversified global investor in food and agribusiness. Chris launched his career in agriculture on Wall Street at Piper Jaffray & Co., EcoAlpha Asset Management and Craig-Hallum Capital Group. As an advocate for creating programs to support youth, Chris serves on the board of InnerCity Tennis. Chris holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Minnesota.

As Pivot Bio’s Chief Business Development Officer, Debra is focused on identifying new revenue streams, licensing opportunities, and strategic partnerships to support and fuel the company’s growth and success.

She brings a proven track record of evaluating, negotiating, and completing significant and complex business transactions in agriculture and sustainability.

Debra most recently was general counsel, corporate secretary, and chief compliance officer at Calyxt, where she led legal, licensing, intellectual property, risk, and compliance.

Previously she was associate general counsel for Syngenta and served as head of legal for its U.S. seeds business.

Debra started her career as a corporate attorney at law firms Stoel Rives and Lindquist & Vennum.

Debra has a J.D. from the University of Minnesota Law School and a bachelor’s in economics from the University of California Santa Barbara.

As Chief Financial Officer for Pivot Bio, Robert (Bob) Houghton oversees corporate finance, treasury, financial planning and analysis, tax, accounting, investor relations, capital markets, procurement, internal audit, ESG, facilities, risk management and corporate strategy. Houghton joined Pivot Bio in 2024, following the previous CFO’s retirement.

Houghton brings to the company a well-earned reputation and proven ability to drive strong financial results for large global companies. He has a long track record of delivering improved sales, profitability and cash flow, and strengthening balance sheets through his expertise in financial operations, strategic planning, forecasting and capital markets.

Houghton has built a 30-year career as a financial leader and most recently held the position of executive vice president and chief financial officer of Life Time Group Holdings (NYSE: LTH). Prior to Life Time Group Holdings, Houghton served in finance leadership roles at United Natural Foods, C.H. Robinson and Sherwin-Williams. In addition, he spent 15 years at General Mills in various finance roles, including director of investor relations, and began his career in finance at International Paper.

Houghton holds a Master of Business Administration degree in finance from the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management and a bachelor’s degree from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. He is based at the company’s Wayzata, Minnesota, office.

Ernie directs the design, development and launch strategy of new Pivot Bio products. This includes overseeing field trials, analyzing performance data to better understand product efficacy and how Pivot products interact with the environment. He partners closely with growers to make data-backed product use recommendations.

Prior to joining Pivot Bio in 2018, Ernie spent 37-years at Monsanto, holding positions in research, technology direction, and corporate strategy, and his final role as Head of Global Launch and Product Expansions for Seed Applied Solutions. In 2017 Ernie received the Queeny Award, Monsanto’s highest scientific honor for launching the Intacta RR2 PRO™ soybean technology in South America.

Ernie earned a BS in agricultural science from the University of Tennessee and his MS in Chemistry from the University of Memphis.

Devang Shah joined Pivot Bio in March 2023, as General Counsel. In this role, he leverages his experience achieving successful public offerings for two previous companies and oversees all legal affairs.

Devang has successfully managed IPOs, M&A, IP development, litigation, government affairs, and compliance issues. His leadership is instrumental in navigating the issues facing high-growth businesses and providing stewardship to high performing, multinational teams.

Devang began his career as an attorney at Skadden Arps, working in both Palo Alto and NYC. He holds a B.S. in civil and environmental engineering from Cornell University, an M.S. in civil engineering from Stanford University and a J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley School of Law.

Alvin co-founded Pivot Bio with his friend and lab mate, Karsten Temme, in 2010. It was during his graduate studies that Alvin first applied cutting-edge engineering principles to biology, exploring to amplify naturally occurring processes at the microbial level. As CSO, Alvin leads the development of Pivot Bio’s microbial strains and manages the interdisciplinary research teams, supervising specialists in synthetic biology, computational biology, analytical chemistry, and plant biology.

Alvin’s scientific writing can be found in several publications, including Nature, Contributions to Microbiology, and Nature Chemical Biology. He earned a BS in molecular and cell biology from the University of California, Berkeley and a PhD at the University of California, San Francisco.

Karsten founded Pivot Bio in 2010 with his friend and colleague, Alvin Tamsir, driven by a desire to create meaningful change and solve one of the planet’s biggest challenges. After completing his graduate research on enhancing the nitrogen-fixing potential of soil-borne microbes, he and Alvin focused on creating a microbial nitrogen to replace synthetic nitrogen, at scale.

He earned his BS and MS in biomedical engineering from the University of Iowa and his PhD from the University of California, Berkeley.

Chris Turner is a member of the Pivot Bio Executive Leadership Team and is the company’s Chief Commercial Officer, a role that allows him to draw on his nearly 30-year career driving operational and sales success in agriculture. A longtime, well-respected member of the agriculture industry, Turner is driving Pivot Bio’s ambitious global growth agenda and further strengthening its commercial sales organization.

Turner has led extensive global commercial, strategic and operational teams throughout his professional life, including senior roles at Monsanto Company and Bayer Corporation, his most recent employer. Before joining the Pivot Bio team in 2024, he served as head of the Bayer U.S. Crop Science division and was a member of the North America leadership team, overseeing a team responsible for the company’s commercial operations nationwide. As such, Turner managed the field sales teams and developed go-to-market strategies while delivering on business goals for crop protection, branded seed and Bayer’s Climate FieldView. Prior to that role, he was senior vice president of U.S. commercial operations.

Before joining Bayer, Turner was with Monsanto for more than 20 years. A proven leader, he rose to the level of global business leader, developing and executing go-to-market strategies, and developing strategic partnerships.

He is passionate about agriculture and understands firsthand how important it is to put growers at the center of his work. Turner was raised on a farm in Northeast Missouri, and he continues to participate in his farm operation in his free time. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in agriculture from the University of Missouri.

Balaji joined Pivot Bio in 2023 to lead the company’s in-house and third-party manufacturing, supply chain, and procurement functions. In this role, he is responsible for ensuring Pivot Bio’s industry-leading products are produced and delivered to farmers at the right time and with best-in-class quality.

Balaji oversees Pivot Bio’s relationships with contract manufactures, the company’s St. Louis facility, which is focused on formulation and freeze-drying for the on-seed product, and packaging and distribution centers located in Chicago and Omaha. He is the company’s first Senior Vice President of Manufacturing and Supply Chain and reports to Pivot Bio’s President and COO.

Balaji brings decades of expertise as a global operations leader transforming supply chains, working with his teams to deliver operational excellence, and optimizing processes to improve safety and profitability. Most recently he served as Vice President of Global Operations at Corteva Agriscience. Prior to that, he held a variety of manufacturing leadership roles across Dow companies including the Agriculture Division of DowDuPont and Dow Chemical in the U.S. and India.

John leads information and data strategy at Pivot Bio. He is responsible for optimizing and scaling Pivot Bio’s data and information technologies to deliver transformative digital solutions and accelerate the company’s business growth.

Prior to joining Pivot Bio, John held several IT leadership roles at Archer Daniels Midland Company, most recently serving as Senior Vice President, Chief Information Officer with ADM Investor Services where he led the Global IT function and the FX Clearing and Execution group. He also worked for Iowa Grain Company.

John holds a BS in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Wendy Watkins joins Pivot Bio as the Chief Communications Officer, bringing more than 25 years of experience in global strategic communications, public affairs, marketing and corporate responsibility. Prior to joining Pivot Bio, Watkins served as Senior Vice President and Chief Communications Officer at Hormel Foods.

She began her career in corporate communications and marketing in the banking and real estate industry, before becoming active in the food and travel industries.

Watkins has been an active leader in the communications industry and was inducted into the PRWeek Hall of Femme in 2021. She was also honored as a change-maker in the 2021 Top Women in PR Awards program. She is a member of the Forbes Communications Council, the Arthur Page Society, the Vice Presidents Forum and the CCO Council.

Wendy brings more than 25 years of experience in global strategic communications, public affairs, marketing and corporate responsibility.

Watkins is a member of the board of directors for National Merit Scholarship Corporation and president of the board of directors of the Cancer Nutrition Consortium. She serves on the board of directors for Find the Cause breast cancer research foundation, a board she joined after being honored by the organization in 2014 for her advocacy work. She was named a Woman of Influence by Business First of Buffalo, and participates in numerous other charitable and community organizations.

Watkins received her bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Missouri-Columbia.