Michele Rubino is an accomplished executive with deep experience in business and corporate development, fundraising, and deal-making. Michele’s expertise lies at the intersection of biotechnology and clean technology. His passion is to bring new and disruptive technologies to fruition. He originally joined Viridos in 2008, leading the efforts to leverage the company’s synthetic biology innovations in industrial biotechnology applications. Over the years, he has overseen the company’s efforts across renewable fuels, chemicals, food, and pharma applications. More recently, he has focused on bringing Viridos’ algae-based biofuels technology to market in partnership with ExxonMobil.

Previously, he was Chief Operating Officer and Board Member of Beta Renewables, a joint venture between M.G. Chemicals, global biotech leader Novozymes, and private equity firm TPG, focused on commercializing a technology for the conversion of lignocellulosic non-food biomass to low carbon intensity, petroleum replacements such as biofuels and bio-based chemicals. Prior to that, he was involved in a variety of biofuels ventures as an entrepreneur and in large corporations.

He holds an M.S. in Industrial Engineering from the Polytechnic Institute of Milan, Italy, and an MBA from the Sloan School of Management at MIT.