Jacqueline Heard

Biography

  Jacqueline is a Venture Partner in the Boston office. She has 20 years of experience in entrepreneurship, executive management and venture investing in the food and agriculture sector.   Jacqueline’s career has centered around the support of innovation in the sector by identifying and commercializing new technology, both as an entrepreneur at start-ups like CiBO Technologies and Mendel Biotechnology, and as a leader of global R&D, strategic alliances and investor at Monsanto, Flagship and Two Blades Foundation. She was a Partner at Flagship and an Investment Director at Monsanto Growth Ventures, starting up the corporate venture arm of the world’s leading agritech firm. Jacqueline has served as an active Board member for her portfolio companies, and forged new open innovation structures for the industry by creating new companies like Nimbus Ceres Discovery and Preceres to develop novel Fungicide and RNA formulation assets using capital efficient, semi-virtual models.   Jacqueline’s work has resulted in more than 60 peer-reviewed publications and patents. She currently serves on the Board of Directors and Scientific Advisory Board of the Boyce Thompson Institute at Cornell University and on the Scientific Advisory Board of Keystone Symposia. Jacqueline has technical degrees in Biology and Biochemistry with a PhD from Boston College, Post-doc at Harvard MGH and a degree in management from Sloan at MIT.  

Research Interest