Marrone Bio Innovations in Davis has hired Donald J. Glidewell, CPA, as chief financial officer.

Glidewell comes to MBI from Valent USA Corp., a wholly owned subsidiary of Sumitomo Chemical Co. Ltd., which develops and markets agricultural, professional and consumer pest management products. As senior director of finance, he was responsible for corporate finance including consolidation of subsidiaries in multiple countries, providing shared services to the consolidated group and financial analysis to support acquisitions and divestitures.

“I’m thrilled to be part of the MBI team and to be working with Pam Marrone again,” Glidewell said in a news release. “You don’t refer to biopesticides without thinking of Pam Marrone.”

While CFO of AgraQuest Inc., and with then-CEO and founder Marrone, he raised $60 million in venture financing and negotiated, purchased and led the operational startup of the company’s fermentation facility in Tlaxcala, Mexico. He was with the company from pre-revenue stage through its bid to go public, which was thwarted by the terrorist events of Sept. 11, 2001, the news release said.

Prior to this, as its CFO, Glidewell completed the sale of Bio-Trends International to Intervet Inc., an Akzo-Nobel Co. Glidewell has an active California Certified Public Accountant license and a bachelor’s degree in business administration/accounting from Arizona State University.

“I am delighted to be working once again with Don,” Marrone said in the release. “We experienced all stages of a start-up together and it’s great to have his deep financial and manufacturing operations background as MBI enters an expansion stage.”

Julie Morris, MBI’s founding CFO, is moving to a new position within the company after spending five years building the company’s finance and operations infrastructure. She is the company’s first employee, as well as a founding investor. With Marrone, she led three rounds of venture capital and debt financing. Now, as vice president of corporate development and operations, she will lead MBI’s operations function, and guide a number of strategic initiatives to fruition.

To further support MBI’s sales and product portfolio expansion, the company recently hired Kent Sproat as vice president of manufacturing. Sproat brings proven leadership from multiple biotechnology facilities, as well as technology transfer experience from R&D to commercialization, process development and optimization of plants and processes, including ex-U.S. operations, the news release said. He has served in a number of executive manufacturing positions at companies such as Dyadic International Inc. and Genencor International Inc. Sproat has a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from Purdue University.

Marrone Bio Innovations discovers, develops and markets effective and environmentally responsible natural products that fill unmet needs for weed, plant disease and pest management. For more information, go to www.marronebio.com.

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