Management Team

Kirk Haney

President & Chief Executive Officer

Kirk Haney is President and Chief Executive Officer of SG Biofuels, Inc. Mr. Haney has a successful track record developing sustainable, for profit projects, and extensive experience in both established and start-up companies.

As President of Green Millennium, he raised over $100M in private equity and successfully built and scaled a sustainable forestry company from start-up to over 100 employees. His role consisted of managing all aspects of the business including strategy, operations and finance. Green Millennium's mission is to initiate and manage precious wood reforestation programs in Central America. Thousands of hectares of land that were devastated by years of deforestation have been reclaimed by Green Millennium and returned to their original forested state.

Mr. Haney has held senior and executive management positions for 3Com Corporation, ArrowPoint Communications (acquired by Cisco Systems), Cisco Systems and Green Millennium, Ltd. At ArrowPoint, he held general management responsibility for the Western area. In this role, he built and led an organization that grew revenue from $0 to an $80 million run-rate. This was critical for ArrowPoint's ability to go public in March of 2000 and Cisco's $5.9 billion acquisition. In addition to leading several of Cisco's enterprise and advanced technology organizations, he was instrumental in creating Cisco's global security sales strategy, which resulted in Cisco surpassing $1 billion in security sales. He was also an advisor to Cisco's Corporate Business Development team on various investment and acquisition candidates.

Mr. Haney serves on the board of SG Biofuels, is Chairman of the Board of Cloud Break Advisors, Inc., a Latin American investment firm and he is Chairman of the Board of Green Millennium, Ltd., a sustainable forestry company. He is a member of the board of advisors for the Inter-American Dialogue and serves on the Dean's Leadership Council for the Division of Biological Sciences at the University of California, San Diego. He was named one of the Top 50 People in Bioenergy by Biofuels Digest and is a member of the Young Presidents Organization (YPO).

Miguel Motta

Vice President, Marketing & Strategy

Miguel Motta has more than 15 years experience directing marketing and business strategy programs for some of the largest agribusiness and seed companies in the world. Motta joins SG Biofuels following a distinguished career at Monsanto Company, most recently serving as marketing director for Europe, Middle East and Africa. As marketing director at Monsanto, a Fortune 500 provider of agricultural products, Motta developed and implemented commercial business plans, including product portfolio strategy, pricing and volume targets, distribution and brand strategy and marketing programs covering operations in more than 30 countries. Prior to Monsanto, Motta served in a variety of executive roles for Seminis, the largest global developer, grower and marketer of vegetable and fruit seeds with sales in more than 150 countries. Motta holds a Masters in Business Administration from the Rotterdam School of Management in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, and a Bachelors Degree in Engineering from the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education in Monterrey, Mexico. He is fluent in English and Spanish.

Robert Schmidt, Ph.D.

Chief Scientist

Dr. Robert Schmidt has more than 25 years of research in plant molecular genetics, specializing in developmental genetics of seeds, flowers and inflorescence and whole plant architecture. He holds a B.A in Biology from Harvard, a Ph.D. in Cell and Molecular Biology/Botany from Duke University. He is a Professor of Biological Sciences at UCSD, where he has taught and conducted research for 21 years. Dr. Schmidt has produced contributions to corn genome projects and has been published in over 60 peer reviewed publications.

Eric Mathur

Vice President, Chief Technologist

Eric Mathur previously served as Vice President, Agricultural Solutions at Synthetic Genomics, Inc. (SGI), where he was responsible for the creation of SGI's first laboratory in La Jolla, Calif. He assembled and managed the plant biotechnology, environmental microbiology, and bioinformatics research teams. Prior to SGI, he spent twelve years as a founding scientist at Diversa Corporation (now Verenium Corporation; NASDAQ: VRNM), most recently serving as Vice President of Scientific Affairs. At Diversa, he was responsible for scientific management of Syngenta and DOW Chemical Corporation collaborations and had oversight of Diversa's Biodiversity Access Program involving relationships with more than 15 countries and 25 institutions. He is named inventor on 52 patents, has over 100 patent applications pending worldwide and has published extensively. Mathur sits on the Scientific Advisory Boards of the DOE Joint Genome Institute, UC Riverside College of Natural & Agricultural Sciences, the Monterrey Biotechnology Institute and the Thermal Biology Institute at Montana State University. He earned his Bachelor of Sciences degree from the University of California, Riverside in 1977.

Shawn Swaney

Vice President, Finance

Shawn Swaney has more than 15 years of experience in finance and accounting, previously serving as vice president and controller at DivX, Inc., a public digital media software company. With DivX, Swaney oversaw global corporate accounting, SEC reporting, purchasing, payroll and internal audit. Divx was sold in 2010 for approximately $340 million. Prior to DivX, Swaney served as vice president, accounting and controller at Novatel Wireless, a leading provider of wireless broadband access solutions, during a period of significant revenue growth from approximately $100 million in 2004 to over $400 million in 2007. He has held management positions at Isis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and Gateway, Inc. and served as an audit manager at KPMG. A certified public accountant, he holds a bachelor of science degree in accounting from San Diego State University.

Brian Brokowski

Vice President, Communications

Brian Brokowski has more than 15 years experience in communications and marketing working with corporate, consumer, government and non-profit organizations. Mr. Brokowski specializes in brand and reputation development, media relations, issues management and crisis communications. He most recently consulted with Sempra Energy where he managed media efforts surrounding several high profile renewable energy projects. He spent ten years with Fleishman-Hillard, one of the largest public relations agencies in the world, where he led programs for some of the nation's most recognized brands, as well as emerging companies. Mr. Brokowski graduated magna cum laude from the University of San Diego with a degree in communications and political science.