Elaine Darby

Co-founder & Director

Elaine brings to Rumin8 her diverse experience in science, communications and law. Her previous roles included a lawyer with top tier corporate law firm Clayton Utz, Media and Communications Officer for an Australian Federal Member of Parliament and Managing Director and Senior Winemaker of Aquila Estate Winery. She was an award winning wine-maker and was also involved in international business development and marketing in Singapore, Japan, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States.

More recently, Elaine was an investment director of Biologica Ventures Pty Ltd and founding CEO of cannabinoid pharmaceutical company AusCann Group Ltd (ASX:AC8). She currently serves as Director of Goldwood Investments and Managing Director of Aquila Black Limited, a technology company developing innovative solutions for the food and beverage sector.

Elaine has overseen the development of various novel IP delivery systems of volatile plant derived compounds for stable, scalable pharmaceutical, food and beverage products.

David Messina

Co-founder & CEO

David is a successful international executive with proven entrepreneurial skills and track record in developing and managing businesses in agriculture, energy and biotech, holding positions at the board and in executive management with both start-ups and mature businesses.

Previously, David was the CEO of Seed Grain Biotechnology Australia, Planttech Pty Ltd, Central EU Biofuels Ltd, Hutton Energy and most recently Whitebark Energy. He is currently the Chairman of Cadogan Estates Australia, owner of large farming properties in WA.

David was born and raised on a family farm in WA and has an excellent understanding of both the challenges and opportunities facing Australian farmers and producers. David is uniquely placed to realise the commercial development of the Rumin8 technology.

Dr Stewart Washer

Co-founder & Chairman

Stewart has 25 years of CEO and ASX Board experience in medical technology and biotech companies. He is currently the Chairman of Emyria Ltd (ASX:EMD), a real world evidence and digital health company with Australian Clinics, Chairman of Orthocell Ltd (ASX:OCC), a regenerative medicine company dedicated to providing innovative treatments for people suffering from nerve and tendon injuries with products approved in Australia, Europe and US, Founding Chairman and current Director of Cynata Therapeutics Ltd (ASX:CYP) who are developing stem cell therapies in Australia and the UK. He was also a Co-Founder of Zelira Therapeutics Ltd (ASX:ZLD) who are developing medical cannabis products.

Stewart was previously the CEO of Calzada Ltd (ASX:PNV), the founding CEO of Phylogica Ltd (ASX:PYC) and before this, he was CEO of Celentis and managed the commercialisation of research from AgResearch in New Zealand with 650 Scientists and $130m revenues. This included a number of nutraceutical products. He was also a founder of a NZ$120m New Zealand based life science fund and Venture Partner with the Swiss based Inventages Nestlé Fund. He was an Investment Director with Bioscience Managers.

Stewart has held a number of Board positions in the past including Founding Chairman of Hatchtech Pty Ltd that sold in 2015 for A$279m, Director of iCeutica Pty Ltd that sold for over $60m to a US Pharma and a Director of AusBiotech Ltd, the Federal industry body. He was also a Senator with Murdoch University.

Kevin Hart

Company Secretary

Kevin is a Chartered Accountant with more than 35 years’ experience in the accounting, management, and administration of publicly listed and private entities.

He is currently a Director of Endeavour Corporate, a corporate advisory firm which specializes in the provision of the company secretarial, accounting, and administrative services to ASX listed and private entities.

Kevin holds a Bachelor of Commerce Degree in Accounting and Business Management from the University of Western Australia and is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Australia.

Dr Martin Auldist

Animal Scientist

Martin graduated from Latrobe University in Melbourne, Australia, in 1988 with a Bachelors degree in Agricultural Science (with Honours). He subsequently was awarded a PhD from the same institution in 1995 for his research into on-farm factors affecting the composition and suitability of milk for manufacturing.

Since then, Martin has amassed a further 25 years experience in applied dairy research, leading or overseeing dozens of experiments focusing on dairy cattle physiology and nutrition, and dairy farm management systems. He worked mostly as a Senior Research Scientist with the State Government at Ellinbank in Victoria, Australia, but has international experience having spent seven years at a dairy research centre in Hamilton, New Zealand (DairyNZ), and a further six months at Fermoy, Ireland (Teagasc Moorepark).

He has authored or co-authored 108 peer-reviewed papers in scientific journals (source: Scopus), two book chapters and many conference papers. Martin has supervised seven PhD students, a Masters student and two Honours students, and has in the last decade been appointed Honorary Principal Fellow at the University of Melbourne with the title of Associate Professor.

Dr Pablo Alvarez Hess

Senior Scientist

Pablo is a veterinarian and a scientist with experience in livestock systems and research, through work in large animal practice, aquaculture, teaching university undergraduates and government research.

Pablo’s research has been focused on evaluating strategies for decreasing enteric methane emissions from ruminants. He has worked with a range of feed additives and dietary strategies and is experienced in the SF6 technique, respiration chambers, in vitro systems, green feeds and life cycle analysis. He holds an honorary research fellow position at the University of Melbourne, where he supervises master and PhD students and lectures on greenhouse gas emissions from livestock systems.

Most recently, Pablo was a Senior Research Scientist with Agriculture Victoria leading the methane mitigation research.

Pablo holds a degree in Veterinary Medicine from Universidad Austral de Chile, a Master of Animal Science and a PhD in Agricultural Science, both from the University of Melbourne. He currently lives in Melbourne, Australia with his wife and daughter.

Dr Bill Bosch

Formulations Consultant

Dr Bill Bosch is an accomplished pharmaceutical scientist with more than thirty years’ experience in research and development.

He is a Board Director of Botanix Pty Ltd and previously served as Chief Scientific Officer for iCeutica, Churchill Pharma, and Botanix.

Dr Bosch received a Ph.D. degree in Chemistry from the University of Pennsylvania.

Matt Callahan

Co-founder & Counsel

Matt is an experienced life sciences and health tech executive based in Philadelphia, USA. He has been the founding CEO or founding Executive Director of several companies including iCeutica Inc (sold to private equity), Churchill Pharmaceuticals Inc (sold to Sun Pharmaceuticals), Dimerix Biosciences Ltd (ASX:DMX), Respirion Pharmaceuticals Pty Ltd, Botanix Pharmaceuticals Ltd (ASX:BOT), Emyria Ltd (ASX:EMD) and Orthocell Ltd (ASX:OCC). He has raised more than $200M in private and public capital for his companies and has advised on numerous fund raisings, mergers and acquisitions and other asset transactions.

He has led the development of five products that have received FDA approval and been successfully launched in the US and international markets, and has more than 25 years legal, IP and investment management experience. Mr Callahan has worked as an investment director for two venture capital firms investing in life sciences, technology and other sectors, and was the general manager of Australian listed technology and licensing company that created Nearmap (ASX:NMP).

Mark Heath

Chief Operating Officer

Mark Heath is an accomplished startup executive with a history of leading high-growth and high-scale ventures across logistics, operations and on-demand sectors. As the Co-Founder and Co-CEO of VOLY, he raised Australia’s largest seed round at the time and rapidly expanded the online grocery delivery business across Sydney and Melbourne. Prior to VOLY, Mark served as the Launcher and Country Manager for Cloud Kitchens in Australia, where he built a market-leading business from the ground up.

Before his success in the startup ecosystem, Mark held various positions at Uber Australia, where he played a crucial role in launching Uber’s Shared Rides product in multiple cities and led the centralised global-focused team. His experience also includes a strong background in investment banking, with roles at Goldman Sachs and Lazard, where he focused on mergers and acquisitions, equity issuance, and debt financing within the infrastructure, natural resources, and energy sectors.

Mark holds a Bachelor of Commerce and a Bachelor of Economics from the University of Western Australia, with majors in Corporate Finance, Investment Finance, International Economics, and Money & Banking. He also studied abroad at the Copenhagen Business School on scholarship.

Dr Caroline Heller

Animal Health Strategy & Business Development

Caroline is a former clinical veterinarian and animal health strategy and marketing expert with over fifteen years’ experience working in the corporate animal health and nutrition sectors in the US, Europe and globally.

She spent ten years at Zoetis where she served as Vice President of Commercial Development & Lifecycle Management, EMEA Group Director of Marketing & Technical Services, and Director of Strategic Planning. She led Global Marketing for Cargill Animal Nutrition and Health for three years, where she managed the integration of the Diamond V and Delacon marketing teams. She has five years’ experience as an independent consultant serving as a sector expert and advisor for various start-ups, venture capital groups and hedge funds in the animal health and nutrition space.

Caroline earned her MBA from Columbia University, her MA in International Relations from Johns Hopkins University and her DVM from Tufts University.

Darren Hunt

Chief Financial Officer

Darren is a Certified Practicing Accountant with over 20 years of experience as a finance leader. He has extensive experience in the pharmaceutical and agricultural industries, working with start-ups and companies acquired through M&A.

Most recently Darren was the CFO of Cell Therapies Pty Ltd. He was part of the start-up company at Celgene ANZ, building out the Finance, IT and Operations infrastructure. He spent two years in the US at Celgene Headquarters based in New Jersey, which involved leading integration teams on M&A projects. Darren was in charge of Celgene APAC Finance for five years. Prior to Celgene, Darren oversaw Finance at PlantTech Pty Ltd.

Darren holds a Bachelor of Business Degree in Accounting from Deakin University.

Dr Silke Jacques

Principal Scientist

Dr Silke Jacques has over 10 years of global work experience in research, project management and personnel management in Belgium, Korea and Australia.

She began her research career at Ghent University (Belgium) completing a PhD in Biochemistry and Biotechnology in 2014. As a Junior Professor, she then joined and established the start-up of a Belgian university branch campus together with three American Universities in Songdo, South-Korea. Dr Jacques lectured Virology, set-up the practical courses in Microbiology and established a functional research lab focusing on marine bioactives from seaweed to stimulate plant growth.

More recently, she spent the last 5 years in Australia, focusing on agricultural research both at government institutions (CSIRO) and universities (Curtin University) mainly focusing on crop protection. In her role with Rumin8, Silke combines her scientific, communication and project management skills, built through collaboration with government, industry and universities, with her passion for innovative entrepreneurship.

Rafaella Mazza

Commercialization Associate

Rafaella has agriculture in her blood, having grown up in Brazil in a family of smallholder farmers and ranchers. Her career spans the agribusiness industry, having worked for organizations such as early-stage regenerative agriculture startups (Rizoma Agro and Vayda), global agriculture corporations (Monsanto and John Deere), and financial institutions (EY, BlackRock, and Atlantico VC) in operational, business development, and strategic roles.

Across her career, Rafaella has explored the intersection of agricultural products and climate impact, including building commercial partnerships, interacting with carbon markets, and developing optimal sustainable systems for farmers. Rafaella currently works in the commercialization team at Rumin8 and her focus is on helping stakeholders across the global beef and dairy industry transition to a climate-optimal future, one cow at a time.

Rafaella holds a Bachelor of Agronomic Engineering from Universidade de São Paulo and an MBA from Harvard Business School. She also studied Bioeconomy at Universität Hohenheim on a study abroad scholarship and has a certificate in New Ventures Leadership from MIT.

Jeff Osowski

Head of Market Intelligence

Jeff is a global strategy and operations leader. He combines strategy consulting experience with execution skills forged in dynamic startup environments.

He has built out Sales, Commercial, BizOps and RevOps teams while influencing GTM strategy to systematically achieve growth targets efficiently.

Previously, Jeff built go-to-market operations teams at WM Technology and Metamap that delivered aggressive revenue growth. Prior to those experiences, he consulted at Bain and Company across Retail, Private Equity, Oil & Gas, and Social Impact. He was also a founding member of Interior Define. Jeff has an MBA from London Business School and BBA in Finance and Psychology from the University of Notre Dame.

Jeff grew up in Southwest Michigan. He currently lives in Long Beach California with his wife, daughter, and Bernedoodle.

Richard Quinlan

 Technology Partnerships and Innovation Lead

Richard Quinlan has over 30 years’ experience conducting trials and disseminating research findings to farming businesses in Western Australia.

He grew up in Mackay in Queensland and studied Agricultural Science at the University of Queensland, Brisbane.

He began his career at the Department of Agriculture in Western Australia. He then moved into an agronomy role in broadacre agriculture with the merchandise business Elders for 8 years. In this role he gained a deep understanding of how some of the largest companies in the world (Bayer, Syngenta, BASF, FMC, etc) develop and market agricultural products through the various supply chains.

Following this he created his own business in partnership with Planfarm PTY LTD which is the largest independent consulting firm in Western Australia. He has been a major shareholder and board member with Planfarm PTY LTD for the last 15 years and worked with some of Western Australia’s largest farming enterprises. More recently he has worked with sovereign states to improve the food security of their broadacre agricultural assets based in Australia.

Dr Edward J. Robb, DVM, MS, DACVIM (Nutrition)

Chief Scientific Adviser

Ed received his B.S. in Animal Science and DVM from Cornell. He practiced medicine in northern New York, then completed a residency in Veterinary Nutrition and an M.S. in epidemiology at the University of Pennsylvania. He is Board Certified in Veterinary Internal Medicine (Nutrition).

Following clinical practice, he moved to product development at American Cyanamid and then The Upjohn Company, serving as Director and Senior Director Clinical Research and Product Development with similar roles at Pharmacia.

He held various research and development leadership roles including Executive Director within Pfizer RD. Later he was Vice President, Research Development, at Boehringer Ingelheim.

He founded BioPharmaPotentials LLC which specializes in animal health product development providing consulting and exquisite execution of development strategies to assure full potential of new chemical/ biologic entities.