Jim Flatt

Jim Flatt is the co-founder and CEO of Brightseed, a company that focuses on developing sustainable food ingredients. Prior to Brightseed, Jim was the Chief of R&D at Hampton Creek from January 2015 to June 2017. In this role, they led all aspects of research and development, including sustainable food ingredient discovery and development, new food product development, process development and intellectual property. Jim also recruited and led the team that developed the Blackbird System, a high-throughput screening system for the discovery of new functional food ingredients.

Previously, Jim was the President of Genovia Bio, a division of Synthetic Genomics, from May 2010 to August 2015. In this role, they were responsible for the formation of Genovia Bio and the development of its algal products pipeline, which included algal-based nutritional lipids, proteins and biofuel. Jim also rapidly developed competitively-advantaged microalgal cell lines and processes for each major product line. In addition, they established and renewed commercial and research partnerships with major strategic partners for each major product line.

Jim Flatt received their Doctor of Philosophy in Chemical and Biochemical Engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Jim also has a Master of Science in Chemical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley and a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Some individuals on their team include Stephanie Wright - Chief People Officer, Sofia Elizondo - Co-Founder and COO, and Lee Chae - Co-Founder and CTO.