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Board of Directors
Noubar Afeyan
Noubar Afeyan is a Co-Founder of LS9 and Managing Partner of Flagship Ventures. He is a technologist, entrepreneur and venture capitalist. He has founded and helped build 15 successful life science and technology startups during the past two decades. In addition, he is a Senior Lecturer at MIT in both the Sloan School of Management and the Biological Engineering Department. Noubar has authored numerous scientific publications as well as patents, and earned his Ph.D. in Biochemical Engineering from MIT in 1987 where he worked on the microbial conversion of cellulosic biomass into ethanol.
In 1999 Noubar co-founded Flagship Ventures, an early stage venture capital and entrepreneurship firm. Prior to that, he participated in creating and launching six highly successful new ventures. He was the Founder, Chairman, and CEO of PerSeptive Biosystems (NASDAQ: PBIO), a leader in the bio-instrumentation field. He also served as Chairman of the Board of ChemGenics Pharmaceuticals, a pioneer in genomics-based drug discovery that was a spin-off company of PerSeptive. After PerSeptive's acquisition by Applera Corporation (NYSE: ABI), he was Senior Vice President and Chief Business Officer of Applera, where he initiated and oversaw the creation of their tracking stock subsidiary, Celera Genomics (NYSE: CRA). He has also been a founding team member, investor and active board member/advisor of Antigenics (NASDAQ: AGEN), Color Kinetics (NASDAQ: CLRK) and EXACT Sciences (NASDAQ: EXAS).
In addition to being a Co-Founder and Director of LS9, Noubar currently serves as a Director for the following Flagship portfolio companies in which he is part of the founding team: Adnexus Therapeutics, Affinnova, BG Medicine, Codon Devices, Ensemble Discovery, Genstruct, Helicos BioSciences (NASDAQ:HLCS), T2 Biosystems. He is also engaged as an advisor with Flagship portfolio companies BIND Biosciences, Epitome Biosystems, and Mascoma. In addition, he is a member of the Boston University Board of Overseers and a member of several advisory boards including the Whitehead Institute at MIT, the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology (HST), the Boston University Medical School and the Skolkovo School of Management in Moscow. He is also a founder/board member of Armenia 2020, an international economic development project focusing on the former Soviet Republic of Armenia.
Andrew Chung
Andrew is a Partner at Khosla Ventures who is interested in developing leading companies in cleantech, Internet, mobility, education, and genomics and also leads the firm's China activities. He is one of six investing partners at Khosla, and is a director on the boards of Lanzatech (biofuel), LS9 (biofuel), EcoMotors (transportation), Pellion (storage), Biodiscovery (agriculture), and a stealth company (mobile).
Andrew is a Partner at Khosla Ventures who is interested in developing leading companies in cleantech, Internet, mobility, education, and genomics and also leads the firm's China activities. He is one of six investing partners at Khosla, and is a director on the boards of Lanzatech (biofuel), LS9 (biofuel), EcoMotors (transportation), Pellion (storage), Biodiscovery (agriculture), and a stealth company (mobile).
Prior to Khosla Ventures, Andrew was at Lightspeed Venture Partners and helped build the firm's practice areas in cleantech, education, and genomics. He helped drive and manage Lightspeed's investments in Solazyme (NASDAQ: SZYM, biofuel), Stion (solar), LS9 (biofuel), Coaltek (clean coal), Leyden Energy (energy storage), Orbis Education (nursing education), and Personalis (genome interpretation).
In addition to assisting his portfolio companies, Andrew is a frequent speaker at industry events, was Founding Chair of the Cleantech Board for The Indus Entrepreneurs Group (TiE), and has been a long-time advisor to the Cleantech Open (CTO). Andrew has also advised various government officials on cleantech-related policy issues.
Prior to joining Lightspeed, Andrew was an investor at Bain Capital and TL Ventures, where he supported buyout and venture investments in healthcare, software and semiconductors. Previously, Andrew was a management consultant with Bain & Company in Greater China. Earlier in his career, Andrew co-founded UberWorks, an e-commerce platform startup incubated at Trilogy, and led the company through a successful acquisition by a public company.
Andrew is an avid musician and nearly pursued a singing career, after winning a national Chinese singing contest in the U.S. and becoming a finalist in Hong Kong's version of American Idol. He has performed as a vocalist and conductor at the Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, the Shanghai Conservatory and an off-Broadway musical theatre.
Andrew graduated Phi Beta Kappa in Applied Mathematics from Harvard and holds an MBA from Wharton.
About Khosla Ventures
Khosla Ventures manages over $2 billion in committed capital and offers venture assistance, strategic advice and capital to entrepreneurs. We actively invest out of a $1.1 billion main fund that supports early- and late-stage companies and a $300 million seed fund to develop very early-stage experiments. We focus on next-generation energy projects, new materials, mobility, Internet and silicon technology.
The firm has the industry's most active cleantech portfolio with 60+ investments to date (recent IPO's include Kior, Amyris, and Gevo) and has invested in information technology companies that include Square, ZocDoc, Aliph/Jawbone, among many others. The firm was founded in 2004 by Vinod Khosla, founder of Sun Microsystems and former general partner of Kleiner Perkins.
Charles L. Cooney
Charles L. Cooney is Robert T. Haslam (1911) Professor of Chemical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is the Faculty Director of the Deshpande Center for Technological Innovation, Co-Director of the Program on the Pharmaceutical Industry (POPI) and MIT faculty director of the Consortium on Advanced Manufacturing for Pharmaceuticals (CAMP). He serves as a consultant to a number of biotech and pharmaceutical companies, is on several editorial boards of professional journals, sits on the Boards of Directors of Genzyme, BioProcessors and Biocon, Ltd (India), and was a member of the BP Technical Advisory Council from 2001-2007. He chaired the FDA Advisory Committee for Pharmaceutical Science from 2004-2006.
Dr. Cooney's research interests span a range of topics in biochemical engineering and manufacturing strategy in the pharmaceutical, biotech and biofuels industries, as well as bioprocess design, operation and control. He has published over 300 research papers, over 30 patents and co-authored or edited 5 books including the recently published Development of Sustainable Bioprocesses: Modeling and Assessment, Wiley Press 2006. As founding faculty director of the Deshpande Center, he is interested in the process of stimulating technological innovation and translating innovation into new company creation.
Dr. Cooney received his Bachelor's degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania in 1966. His Master's and Ph.D. degrees in Biochemical Engineering are from MIT in 1967, and 1970, respectively. After a short post-doctoral time at the Squibb Institute for Medical Research in 1970, he joined the MIT faculty as an Assistant Professor in 1970 and became a full Professor in 1982. He received the 1989 Gold Medal of the Institute of Biotechnological Studies (London), the Food, Pharmaceutical and Bioengineering Award from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers and the James Van Lanen Distinguished Service Award from the American Chemical Society's Division of Microbial and Biochemical Technology and was elected to the American Institute of Medical and Biochemical Engineers.
Tjerk de Ruiter
Tjerk de Ruiter is Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of LS9. Mr. de Ruiter’s experience includes twelve years at Danisco A/S, including his last five years with the company as the CEO of Genencor, a leading industrial Biotechnology company. Prior, he held a number of leadership positions at Danisco including Chief Operating Officer Cultures, Specialities and Flavors and Senior Vice President Global Sales and Marketing. In 2004, he was named to the Danisco Executive Committee. Mr. de Ruiter started his career in the flavor and fragrance industry and held multiple positions in both Europe and North America at Quest International. Mr. de Ruiter holds a Masters of International Management from the American Graduate School of International Management, Thunderbird, and a Bachelor of Business Administration from Nijenrode University in Breukelen, Netherlands.
Edward J. Dineen
Ed Dineen was formerly CEO of LS9. Previous to that, he was Chief Operating Officer of LyondellBasell Industries, one of the world's largest polymers, petrochemical and fuels companies, where he was responsible for manufacturing, environmental, health and safety, business management and sales, research and development, supply and procurement and business finance. He previously was appointed President of the chemicals division and was responsible for the global chemicals operations, sales and business management.
Prior to the December 2007 merger of Basell and Lyondell Chemical Company, he was Senior Vice President, Chemicals and Polymers for Lyondell, and before that, Senior Vice President, Urethanes and Performance Chemicals. During his time at LyondellBasell Industries and its predecessor companies, Mr. Dineen was directly involved in growing many of the fuels and chemicals businesses into global market leading positions.
A native of New York City, Mr. Dineen received his bachelor's and master's degrees in chemical engineering from the Cooper Union and Princeton University, respectively. He also holds a Master of Science in management from Drexel University. Mr. Dineen is also a member of the board of directors of Spartech, a U.S.-based plastics company with headquarters in St. Louis, Missouri.
Peter Nieh
Peter Nieh is a founding partner of Lightspeed Venture Partners, covering the areas of cleantech, software, and the internet. He has twelve years of venture capital experience and seven years of operating experience. Mr. Nieh has led Lightspeed's investments in energy related companies such as Coaltek, Stion and Mobius Power, and software/internet companies such as Blue Nile, Doubleclick, Informatica, and Phone.com (Openwave).
Prior to Lightspeed, Mr. Nieh worked in business development and product marketing at General Magic, a startup which before the emergence of the Web pioneered the development of e-commerce and electronic media services by partnering with the world's largest telecommunications service providers and consumer electronics companies. He also managed Acer's portable PC business in North America, where he launched the company's first laptop and notebook PCs. Before Acer, Mr. Nieh was a strategy consultant at Bain & Company where he worked predominately with high-technology clients on product and sales & distribution strategies. While an undergraduate at Stanford, he worked at Apple Computer where he helped to develop the power management system for Apple's first portable computer.
Mr. Nieh holds a BS in Electrical Engineering, an AB in Economics, and an MBA from Stanford University.