Aug 26, 2019

Arcadia Biosciences names new leader

Arcadia Biosciences president and CEO Raj Ketkar, will retire effective September 1, 2019, according to a news release from the company.

Based in Davis, California, Arcadia Biosciences develops agricultural products for farmers. Projects in its pipeline include agricultural hemp varieties and production.

In line with its succession plan, the board has appointed Matthew Plavan to chief executive officer and member of the board of directors. Plavan is succeeded by Pam Haley as Arcadia’s new chief financial officer, according to the release.

Since joining the company in 2016 as chief financial officer, Plavan has played an instrumental role in shifting the company’s focus towards crop innovation and commercialization. In February, he was named president of Arcadia’s new strategic business unit devoted to hemp, Arcadia Specialty Genomics.

Plavan is an accomplished senior executive with more than 30 years of successful leadership experience in public and private companies within the ag-tech, cell-therapy and healthcare industries. Prior to joining Arcadia in 2016, he served as CEO and board member at Cesca Therapeutics. Plavan holds a Bachelor of Arts in Business Economics

“I look forward to working with this talented team to achieve large-scale commercialization of our signature nutritional ingredient, GoodWheat, and accelerate our vertically-integrated hemp seed, cultivation and extraction operations in Hawaii and other legal U.S. markets,” Plaavan said in the release.

Plavan’s successor as chief financial officer, Pam Haley, joined Arcadia as accounting manager in 2005 and has held several key positions, most recently controller. Haley brings more than 25 years of financial and accounting experience and previously worked in the telecommunications and semiconductor industries, in addition to public accounting, prior to joining Arcadia. She is a certified public accountant and a graduate of the University of Arizona where she earned a bachelor’s degree in accounting.