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 Chief Growth Officer, Ryan Degnan leads strategy, corporate development, and digital for Pivot Bio, with a focus on expanding the company’s market opportunities, including partnerships and international expansion, and furthering its overall mission.

Ryan joined Pivot Bio in 2025 from McKinsey & Company, where he worked across the firm’s Chemicals & Agriculture, Sustainability, and Growth Marketing & Sales practices. There, he worked across the agriculture value chain to launch new ventures and drive growth in a variety of agriculture and agtech focused businesses spanning inputs, distribution, digital software, hardware, and data.

Prior to joining McKinsey, he served in the U.S. Army as a military intelligence officer, holding leadership positions across a variety of strategic and tactical units in the United States and Afghanistan.

Ryan has an MBA from Yale School of Management and a BBA from the University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business.

Pivot Bio announced the appointment of Travis Frey, Ph.D. as the company’s chief technology officer in April of 2025. Frey, a leading agricultural innovator and scientist, assumes the post following the retirement of industry veteran Ernie Sanders. In this role, Frey will lead the company’s global research and development, innovation and science teams at Pivot Bio.

Frey will serve on the company’s executive leadership team, reporting to Chris Abbott, chief executive officer of Pivot Bio, and will be based at the company’s corporate office in Wayzata, Minnesota.

“We are excited to welcome Travis to the Pivot Bio team,” said Abbott. “He has a proven track record of developing and deploying new technology in agriculture across hundreds of millions of acres. As a strategic leader known for bringing science-backed innovation to every organization he has been part of, I am confident he will bring that same spirit of innovation to Pivot Bio as we focus on our strategic road map with new and transformative products.”

Frey is adept at research, development and scientific discovery work, including at large global companies like Monsanto and growth-oriented startups like Cibus. Most recently, he served as chief technology officer at Mindful Care, a health care growth company. Before joining Mindful Care, he was the chief technology officer at Calyxt, leading the company’s groundbreaking work in gene-edited crops. In addition, he contributed to the successful reverse merger between Calyxt and Cibus. Subsequently, he assumed an executive vice president position, responsible for developing the post-merger corporate strategy and sustainable products division of Cibus. During his tenure at both companies, Frey aided in the raising of over $30 million in public market funding.

His career also includes roles such as vice president of science and innovation at WISErg Corporation and various leadership roles at Monsanto Company, where he played a key part in advancing agricultural technologies and securing multiple patents.

Frey earned a Bachelor of Science degree in horticulture from The Pennsylvania State University (University Park), and a Master of Science degree in plant breeding and plant genetics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He holds a Ph.D. in plant biology and biotechnology from the University of Delaware and Dupont/Pioneer. In addition, in 2018, Frey completed an MBA at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business. Widely published, he has received dozens of patents on seeds, plant health, and packaging, as well as developed new genetic technologies for crop yield and disease resistance.

Debra Frimerman is Chief Legal Officer at Pivot Bio.

Debra brings more than two decades of legal acumen and strategic business development experience to the role. She oversees Pivot Bio’s legal, compliance and governance functions, guiding the company through its continued scale-up in North America and global expansion efforts. This includes the critical role of protecting Pivot Bio’s portfolio of patents.

Previously Debra served as Pivot Bio’s chief business development officer, playing a notable role in driving new revenue streams, negotiating high-impact partnerships and positioning the company for long-term growth.

Prior to Pivot Bio, Debra served as general counsel, corporate secretary and chief compliance officer at Calyxt, where she led legal, licensing, intellectual property, risk and compliance. While there, she led the successful series of mergers between Calyxt and Cibus, with the combined company valued at over $650 million, and was instrumental in working with the board and public and investor markets. She also held the role of associate general counsel at Syngenta, where she was head of legal for Syngenta Seeds, its U.S. seeds business, and played a key role in global technology licensing. Debra has advised on a multitude of public and private securities offerings collectively raising over $1 billion.

Debra began her legal career as a corporate lawyer at Stoel Rives and Lindquist & Vennum. She received her JD from the University of Minnesota, magna cum laude, and earned a BA in economics from the University of California, Santa Barbara. 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.

Alvin co-founded Pivot Bio with his friend and lab mate, Karsten Temme, Ph.D. 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 B.S. in molecular and cell biology from the University of California, Berkeley and a Ph.D. at the University of California, San Francisco.

Pivot Bio announced the appointment of Laureen Thompson to the role of head of people and human resources in April of 2025. She will serve as a member of the company’s executive leadership team, reporting to Chris Abbott, chief executive officer of Pivot Bio.

“Laureen brings significant experience to this leadership role,” said Abbott. “As we have continued to grow, she has played an important role in shaping our workforce strategy, fostering a positive workplace culture and driving the engagement of our team. I look forward to her aligning human resources strategies with overall business objectives, supporting both organizational growth and team member well-being.”

In her new position, Thompson will focus on the company’s overall people and human resources strategy, working with team members who are based at four hubs in California, Missouri, Iowa and Minnesota, and an office in Brazil. She will oversee all aspects of human resources management: recruitment, talent development, team member engagement, compensation and benefits, and organizational culture.

Thompson joined Pivot Bio in 2022 as senior director of total rewards, bringing more than 25 years of strategic HR experience to the company. In addition to total rewards, Thompson recently took on responsibility for talent acquisition, HR systems and operations.

Her career began at Prudential. During her time there, she was selected to serve in its rotational leadership program. She went on to spend more than a decade at Willis Towers Watson as a consultant and 16 years at VWR/Avantor, where she served as global vice president of total rewards and played a key role in executing two IPOs.

Thompson earned a Bachelor of Arts in education from Arcadia University and an MBA from LaSalle University. She is active in the human resources field and serves on several nonprofit boards.

Karsten founded Pivot Bio in 2010 with his friend and colleague, Alvin Tamsir, Ph.D., 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 B.S. and M.S. in biomedical engineering from the University of Iowa and his Ph.D. 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.

Wendy Watkins is Chief Communications Officer for Pivot Bio and a member of the company’s executive leadership team. She leads the company’s communications, government affairs, and global impact teams, helping to advance Pivot Bio’s mission as one of the leading agtech companies in the world.

With more than 30 years of experience at some of the world’s most admired companies, Watkins has built a reputation for thoughtful leadership in corporate communications, public affairs, and stakeholder engagement. Her work has spanned the CPG, food, hospitality, sports, and agriculture sectors—earning recognition for her deep commitment to integrity, impact, and service. She has been honored by peers and industry groups for her contributions to the field and is known as a trusted advisor to CEOs, boards, and teams navigating transformation, reputation, and responsibility in an increasingly complex world.

Prior to Pivot Bio, Watkins served as Senior Vice President and Chief Communications Officer at Hormel Foods (NYSE: HRL), a Fortune 500 global branded food company with more than $12 billion in annual revenue and a presence in over 80 countries. The company’s portfolio includes iconic and innovative brands such as Planters®, SKIPPY®, SPAM®, Applegate®, Justin’s®, Wholly®, and Columbus®. Hormel Foods is widely recognized for its commitment to corporate responsibility, sustainability, and community engagement.

As the company’s first CCO, she reported to the chairman and CEO and led all facets of corporate communications, global impact, consumer engagement, public affairs, and philanthropy for its worldwide operations. Under her leadership, the company received consistent recognition for reputation and corporate citizenship, including honors from Fortune, Newsweek, and 3BL Media. Watkins also chaired the Hormel Foods Charitable Trust Foundation and launched several signature initiatives, including Inspired Pathways, a first-of-its-kind program offering free college tuition to the children of all U.S. employees.

A firm believer in the role communications plays in building strong and vibrant corporate cultures, Watkins created Impact!, Hormel Foods’ first employee resource group focused on social responsibility and corporate purpose. She also served as executive sponsor of the company’s Women’s Insight Network and Women’s Leadership Group. A longtime advocate for food security, she helped establish the Hometown Food Security Project, a community-focused initiative aimed at reducing hunger and improving access to nutritious food in the company’s hometown and key markets. She also founded and led the Small Change, Big Impact conference at Harvard University, convening leaders to explore the power of the food industry in advancing global wellbeing.

Watkins previously spent 15 years as Global Vice President of Corporate Communications at Delaware North, one of the largest privately held companies in the world and a global leader in hospitality and foodservice. She served as a corporate officer and member of the leadership team, overseeing enterprise communications for the company’s 60,000 employees operating across five continents. Watkins was also a key advisor to Chairman and CEO Jeremy Jacobs and the Jacobs family—supporting corporate positioning, enterprise reputation, and communications strategy during a period of significant global expansion and brand evolution. Delaware North’s seven subsidiaries span travel hospitality, parks and resorts, sports venues, gaming, and premium dining.

Jacobs, one of the most notable sports owners and industry leaders, serves as chairman of the NHL Board of Governors and is the owner of the Boston Bruins, TD Garden, and the surrounding real estate development in Boston. Watkins also played a role in supporting his leadership across the sports and entertainment landscape, contributing to positioning and strategic communications aligned with his influential presence in both the sports and business worlds.

Before Delaware North, Watkins held communications leadership roles at Marriott and Host Marriott, ultimately leading the global corporate communications team for Host Marriott Services (NYSE: HMS), a global hospitality and foodservice company with more than 60,000 employees worldwide.

She began her career in corporate communications at Empire of America, one of the largest thrift institutions in the United States at the time, with a substantial real estate portfolio and billions in assets under management. There, she led communications for the company’s real estate holding division, gaining early experience in financial services and property marketing.

Throughout her career, Watkins has been active in public policy, especially on issues related to food and travel. Her contributions include serving as a participant in the White House’s Chefs Move to Schools initiative and as an advisor and staff representative to the U.S. Department of Commerce Travel and Tourism Advisory Board and U.S. Travel CEO Roundtable. She was appointed by the Governor of New York to two terms on the New York State Health Research Science Board, contributing to state policy decisions on health and research.

An advocate for the communications and public affairs profession, Watkins was inducted into the PRWeek Hall of Femme and honored as a Changemaker in the Top Women in PR Awards. She was named a Woman of Influence by Business First for her community leadership while at Delaware North.

Her board service includes the National Merit Scholarship Corporation, where she serves on the executive committee; the Cancer Nutrition Consortium, where she served as president and helped shape the organization’s vision and partnerships with major cancer institutions; and Find the Cause, a national breast cancer research foundation. Watkins was honored by the same organization for her advocacy and stewardship at its annual gala. She also served on the boards of Hormel Health Labs and CytoSport, the parent company of Muscle Milk prior to its acquisition by PepsiCo.

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

An internationally recognized expert in symbiotic nitrogen fixation, Dr. Ané has dedicated his career to unlocking nature’s solution to synthetic fertilizer dependence. His research revealing how plants and microbes communicate to form beneficial partnerships—and his vision for engineering these associations in non-legume crops—provides critical scientific guidance for Pivot Bio’s platform. From studying nitrogen-fixing maize in Mexico to developing tools for crop-microbe interactions, his work bridges fundamental discovery with agricultural transformation.

A legendary figure in modern agronomy, Dr. Below’s frameworks—such as the “Six Secrets of Soybean Success” and the “Seven Wonders of the Corn Yield World”—have reshaped how growers optimize yield. His practical, field-based insights will be instrumental as Pivot Bio scales adoption and maximizes agronomic performance across diverse geographies.

A global authority in digital agriculture and environmental modeling, Dr. Basso leads multiple national and international initiatives advancing next-generation agricultural modeling and digital technologies to enhance decision-making—from smallholder farmers in the developing world to large-scale producers and policymakers operating at local, national, and global scales. His work will strengthen Pivot Bio’s modeling, sustainability measurement, and impact validation capabilities.

A trailblazer in plant systems biology who decoded how plants sense and utilize nitrogen, Dr. Coruzzi has fundamentally transformed our understanding of nitrogen use efficiency through pioneering time-based gene network analysis. Her lab’s development of predictive network models and their functional validation in plants—combined with 10 patents on nitrogen-responsive gene networks—provides the scientific blueprint for creating crops that require less fertilizer. Recipient of the ASPB Stephen Hales Prize and author of over 200 papers, her work bridges molecular discovery to field applications in rice and maize.

The scientist who first proved nitrogen fixation could be engineered by transferring nif genes between bacteria, Dr. Dixon has spent 50 years unraveling how microbes sense and respond to environmental signals to control this vital process. From his 1972 breakthrough creating the first engineered diazotroph to current work defining minimal genetic requirements for eukaryotic nitrogen fixation, his research established the molecular blueprint for biological nitrogen fixation. His deep understanding of regulatory networks—particularly how oxygen, nitrogen status, and metal availability control gene expression—provides essential guidance for engineering robust nitrogen-fixing systems.

A visionary who revolutionized plant science by pioneering the application of medical imaging technology to agriculture, Dr. Ferrieri developed the world’s first radiolabeled plant hormone for PET imaging, enabling real-time visualization of plant stress responses and resource allocation. His groundbreaking radiochemical tools reveal the hidden mechanisms of plant-microbe interactions and nutrient utilization—providing unprecedented insights into how crops optimize nitrogen and carbon under stress. His expertise in visualizing complex root-soil-microbe dynamics helps advance Pivot Bio’s understanding of engineered microbe performance in real-world field conditions.

An influential voice at the intersection of agriculture, environment, and policy, Dr. Kanter transforms how governments and industries manage nitrogen’s dual nature as essential nutrient and major pollutant. His research on technology-forcing policies and whole-system approaches to nutrient management—recognized by the EPA and integrated into the EU’s Farm to Fork Strategy—provides crucial frameworks for companies like Pivot Bio operating at the frontier of sustainable nitrogen solutions. His unique background spanning chemistry, law, and environmental policy brings essential perspective to complex agricultural challenges.

A leading voice in global soil health and climate resilience, Dr. Rice was a co-recipient of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for his contributions to the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. His expertise in microbial science and environmental outcomes will further ground Pivot Bio’s platform in robust, real-world impact.

A world authority on nitrogenase biochemistry and engineering, Dr. Rubio leads the ambitious quest to transfer nitrogen-fixing capabilities directly into cereal crops. His pioneering achievements—including the first complete synthesis of the nitrogenase FeMo-cofactor and the first expression of an active nitrogenase component in a eukaryotic organism—have laid the foundation for engineering self-fertilizing crops. As recipient of an ERC Starting Grant and leader of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s BNF-Cereals project, his work bridges fundamental metallobiochemistry to practical solutions for global food security.

A pioneering force in plant-microbe interactions for over four decades, Dr. Stacey fundamentally changed our understanding of how plants recognize and respond to nitrogen-fixing bacteria. His groundbreaking discovery that non-legume plants like corn and tomatoes can perceive rhizobial signals—overturning decades of scientific dogma—opened new possibilities for engineering nitrogen fixation beyond legumes. With 300+ publications (h-index 101), multiple patents supporting commercial rhizobial inoculants, and a research program spanning from molecular signaling to field applications, his work provides the scientific foundation for next-generation biological nitrogen solutions.

A pioneering microbiologist who has transformed our understanding of microbial communities across human health and agriculture, Dr. Triplett leads groundbreaking research connecting gut microbiome disruptions to autoimmune diseases like type 1 diabetes and celiac disease using samples from a variety of human cohorts. His innovative work spans from developing the first model system for citrus greening disease to discovering bacterial associations with premature birth and neurodevelopmental conditions establishing him as a master of microbial ecology across diverse environments. With expertise in nitrogen fixation, antimicrobial resistance in agricultural systems, and the complex interactions between plants and their microbial partners, his research provides essential insights into how beneficial microbes can be harnessed to improve both crop health and human wellness.

A transformational leader who built one of the world’s premier plant sciences programs, Dr. van Kessel pioneered research in nitrogen fixation and sustainable cropping systems that has fundamentally shaped modern agricultural science. As the founding chair of UC Davis’s Department of Plant Sciences—created through the merger of four departments into one of the largest on campus—he established a legacy of interdisciplinary excellence spanning basic research to field application. His groundbreaking work on nitrogen cycling, soil fertility, and nutrient use efficiency has generated over 15,000 citations and provided the scientific foundation for developing more sustainable and productive agricultural systems. With expertise bridging agronomy, soil science, and plant-microbe interactions, his research directly informed strategies for reducing synthetic fertilizer dependence while maintaining high crop yields—core principles that continue to guide innovations in biological nitrogen fixation and sustainable agriculture.

In retirement, Dr. van Kessel continues to inspire, recently launching a 10,000-kilometer cycling challenge in his native Netherlands to raise funds for childhood cancer research in honor of his nephew and survivor, Tijn. Donations are still welcome! Pivot Bio has deep gratitude for Dr. van Kessel, for his leadership, mentorship, and enduring example.

A visionary in synthetic biology who bridges computation and life sciences, Dr. Voigt co-directs MIT’s Synthetic Biology Center where he develops genetic circuits that program cells like computers. His pioneering work refactoring nitrogen fixation genes and creating the Cello software platform—which allows scientists to program living cells using principles from electronic design—provided the foundational technology for Pivot Bio. As the former founding Editor-in-Chief of ACS Synthetic Biology and mentor to founders of companies like Fieldstone Bio, Asimov Bio, and Robigo, his influence extends across the entire bioengineering landscape.