Fargro is delighted to announce the appointment of our new Chairman, Dr Trevor Nicholls.
Trevor has over 40 years’ experience building international businesses in the life science industry around translational research and the commercialisation of breakthrough technologies in the academic, biotech, pharmaceutical and agrotech sectors.
He began his career with Unilever followed by increasingly senior roles with Amersham International (now part of Danaher), and a spell in consulting at McKinsey before taking on the role of Founder CEO of Oxagen, a spin-out from the University of Oxford. Between 2002 and 2005 he worked in the San Francisco Bay area as Chief Commercial Officer for Affymetrix (now part of Thermofisher)
From 2005 until his retirement at the end of 2020, Trevor was Chief Executive of CABI, a not-for-profit inter-governmental organisation, owned by 50 member countries. The organisation has a strategic focus on providing knowledge to enable farmers around the world to grow more, raise quality and increase income. Under Trevor’s leadership, CABI established itself as a leader in digital publishing and in developing global capacity for the use of integrated pest management and biopesticides to solve problems in agriculture and the environment.
He holds a DPhil and BA in Biochemistry from the University of York as well as diplomas from the Chartered Institute of Marketing and the UK Institute of Directors. In addition to Fargro, Trevor is also a non-executive director at one AIM-listed biotech company and three early-stage biotech spin-outs.
Richard Hopkins, Fargro’s Managing Director says: “I would like to thank outgoing Chairman Jacqui Green for her steady leadership throughout 2021 and 2022 and welcome Dr Nicholls to the team as we enter our next phase of investing in people and technology in order to make horticulture thrive now and into the future.”
On his appointment as Chairman, Dr Trevor Nicholls commented: “I am delighted to take on the role as Chairman at Fargro. Horticulture faces a very challenging environment at present with increasing fuel costs and climate change. In this situation it is vital that losses of produce to pests and diseases are reduced to increase the efficiency of input usage. It’s an exciting time to join Fargro and I look forward to meeting the wider team over the coming months."