Alan Shaw

Alan Shaw, Ph.D., is President, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Calysta, and a member of the Board of Directors. He joined in 2012. Dr. Shaw is a veteran biotechnology entrepreneur and chemical industry executive, with more than 25 years experience building and leading technology companies. Before joining Calysta, he was a Founder of Codexis, and served for ten years as President, Chief Executive Officer and a director. Codexis is a developer of cost-advantaged processes for production of biobased chemicals and pharmaceuticals. During his tenure, Codexis completed an IPO and expanded from a startup to a global industrial biotechnology company with operations in the United States, Europe and Asia.

In 2010, Dr. Shaw received the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur® of the Year Award in the life sciences category for Northern California. He is a member of the Board of Directors of BIO and the Governing Board of the BIO Industrial and Environmental Section. He also serves as a biotechnology advisor to the governments of the United Kingdom and Malaysia, and is a frequent speaker at leading business and industry conferences.

Prior to Codexis, Dr. Shaw held senior operating and business development positions in the United Kingdom for Chiroscience Group plc and for the chemical and biopharmaceutical units of Clariant and BTP plc from 1994-99. For the previous 15 years, he held management and scientific leadership positions for Imperial Chemical Industries plc (ICI)/Zeneca, including Business Head, Fine Chemicals and Marketing Manager, European Sales. He holds a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Teesside University and a Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Durham, England. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry and a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing.