Corporate Governance

Ethan Brown is the founder of Beyond Meat and has served as our President and Chief Executive Officer and as a member of our board of directors since our inception in 2009. He also served as our Secretary since our inception to September 2018. Mr. Brown began his career with a focus on clean energy and the environment, serving as an energy analyst for the National Governors’ Center for Best Practices. He then joined Ballard Power Systems (NASDAQ: BLDP), a hydrogen fuel-cell company where he worked for several years, being promoted from an entry-level manager to reporting directly to the Chief Executive Officer before leaving to found Beyond Meat. Mr. Brown also created and opened a center for fuel reformation and has held several industry positions, including Vice Chairman of the Board at The National Hydrogen Association and Secretary of the United States Fuel Cell Council. He is a Henry Crown Fellow at the Aspen Institute and, along with Beyond Meat, is the recipient of the United Nation’s highest environmental accolade, Champion of the Earth (2018). Mr. Brown holds an MBA from Columbia University and an MPP with a focus on Environment from the University of Maryland. We believe Mr. Brown’s strategic vision for the company and his expertise in technology and business operations makes him qualified to serve on our board of directors.

Seth Goldman joined Beyond Meat as a member of our board of directors in February 2013. Mr. Goldman served as Executive Chair of Beyond Meat from February 2013 through February 2020. Mr. Goldman has served as Founder of PLNT Burger, a quick-serve restaurant concept, since March 2020. Mr. Goldman was the TeaEO Emeritus and Innovation Catalyst for The Coca-Cola Company’s Venturing & Emerging Brands, a part-time position he held from November 2015 through December 2019. Mr. Goldman co-founded Honest Tea Inc., a bottled organic tea company, in February 1998, which was later sold to The Coca-Cola Company, and previously served as Honest Tea’s President and TeaEO until 2015. In 2015, Mr. Goldman was named the #1 Disruptor by Beverage World and Beverage Executive of the Year by Beverage Industry magazine. He has also been recognized as an Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year and by the Washington DC Business Hall of Fame. In 2018, Partnership for a Healthier America recognized Mr. Goldman with its Visionary CEO award. Mr. Goldman serves on the advisory boards of Ripple Foods, a dairy-free plant-based milk company (November 2015 to present), the Yale School of Management (July 2013 to present), the American Beverage Association (April 2010 to present), and Bethesda Green, a local sustainability non-profit he co-founded (January 2008 to present). He has a BA degree in Government from Harvard College and a Masters of Private & Public Management degree from Yale School of Management and is a Henry Crown Fellow of the Aspen Institute. We believe that Mr. Goldman is qualified to serve on our board of directors due to his extensive experience working at fast-growing brands in the food and beverage industry, his experience founding and building an entrepreneurial company and his knowledge of sustainable business practices.

Diane Carhart has served as a member of our board of directors since January 2016. Ms. Carhart joined Stonyfield Farm, Inc., an organic yogurt maker, as Chief Financial Officer in April 1992, and also began serving as Chief Operating Officer in August 2006. Ms. Carhart has a BS degree in Accounting from the University of Connecticut and an MBA degree with a finance concentration from Boston University. We believe that Ms. Carhart is qualified to serve on our board of directors because she has more than 40 years in accounting, finance and operations management with 26 years in the food industry.

Bernhard van Lengerich, Ph.D., has served as a member of our board of directors since November 2016. Dr. van Lengerich joined General Mills, Inc. (NYSE: GIS), a multinational manufacturer and marketer of branded consumer food, in 1994 and was the Chief Scientific Officer and Vice President for Technology Strategy from 2007 until his retirement from General Mills in March 2015. Dr. van Lengerich is the founder of Seeding the Future Foundation, a 501c(3) organization focusing on food security in sub-Saharan Africa. He also founded Food System Strategies, LLC in 2015, pursuant to which he provides strategic advisory services to companies along the food value chain. Dr. van Lengerich served as our interim Chief Technical Officer and head of Research, Development and Innovation from February 2016 to February 2017 and provided advisory services to us pursuant to an advisor agreement with Food System Strategies, LLC from October 2015 through December 2019. At General Mills, he led the development of key enabling capabilities resulting in both, new product innovations driving top line growth and major productivity benefits for General Mills’ Holistic Margin Management program. He also led a new Game Changer program and created a novel “Cashless Venturing” initiative, enabling faster and more disruptive innovations. Dr. van Lengerich is inventor/co-inventor of over 150 national and international patents and patent applications and he is an IFT Fellow. He has MS and Ph.D. degrees in Food and Biotechnology from the Technical University of Berlin, which awarded him an Honorarium Professorship and where he also teaches Extrusion Processing. We believe that Dr. van Lengerich is qualified to serve on our board of directors due to his experience in the food industry and strong food science and technology background.

Christopher Isaac “Biz” Stone has served as a member of our board of directors since January 2012. Mr. Stone is a Co-founder of Twitter, Inc. (NYSE: TWTR) where he has served as Creative Director since 2006 with a hiatus as Advisor between 2012 and 2017. Mr. Stone was the Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer at Jelly Industries, Inc. from January 2013 to March 2017. Mr. Stone served as Special Advisor to the founders of Pinterest from March 2017 to March 2018, has been a Visiting Fellow at Oxford University since August 2015, has served as an advisor to The Global AI Council since August 2018 and is an active angel investor in companies such as Slack, Square, and Intercom. In addition to Twitter, Inc., Mr. Stone co-founded A Medium Corporation in January 2012, which provides an online publishing platform and has served as a member of its Board of Directors since January 2012 and as Creative Director from February 2012 to April 2013. Mr. Stone was also Chairman of the Board of Polaroid Swing, Inc. from July 2016 to November 2017 and was an independent director of Workpop, Inc. from September 2014 until May 2017. His honors include Inc. magazine’s Entrepreneur of the Decade, TIME magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the World, GQ magazine’s Nerd of the Year and The Economist’s “Innovation Award.” We believe that Mr. Stone is qualified to serve on our board of directors due to his extensive experience in working with entrepreneurial companies.

Donald Thompson has served as a member of our board of directors since October 2015. Mr. Thompson is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Cleveland Avenue, LLC, which he founded in 2015. Mr. Thompson served as Chief Executive Officer and President of McDonald’s Corp. (NYSE: MCD) from July 2012 to March 2015 and as Chief Operating Officer of McDonald’s Corp. from January 2010 to June 2012. Mr. Thompson has been a member of the board of directors of Northern Trust Corporation (NASDAQ: NTRS), a financial services company, since March 2015 and has been a member of the board of directors of Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. (NYSE: RCL), a global cruise company, since May 2015. Mr. Thompson has been a member of the Advisory Board of DocuSign, Inc. (NASDAQ: DOCU), an electronic signature technology company, since February 2016. He serves on the Board of Trustees of Northwestern Memorial Hospital, Cleveland Avenue Foundation for Education and Purdue University (July 2009 to present). Mr. Thompson served as a member of the board of directors of McDonald’s Corp. from January 2011 to March 2015 and as a member of the board of directors of Exelon Corporation (NYSE: EXC), an energy company, from May 2007 to April 2013. Mr. Thompson has a BS degree in Electrical Engineering from Purdue University and a Doctor of Science degree from Excelsior College in Albany, New York. We believe that Mr. Thompson is qualified to serve on our board of directors due to his experience in the food industry and his experience on other public company boards of directors.

Kathy N. Waller has served as a member of our board of directors since November 2018. Ms. Waller retired from The Coca-Cola Company (NYSE: KO) in March 2019 after more than 30 years of service, most recently as Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and President, Enabling Services prior to her retirement. Ms. Waller joined The Coca-Cola Company in 1987 as a senior accountant in the Accounting Research Department and served in a number of accounting and finance roles of increasing responsibility. From July 2004 to August 2009, Ms. Waller served as Chief of Internal Audit. In December 2005, she was elected Vice President of The Coca-Cola Company, and in August 2009, she was elected Controller. In August 2013, she became Vice President, Finance and Controller, assuming additional responsibilities for corporate treasury, corporate tax and finance capabilities, and served in that position until April 2014, when she was appointed Chief Financial Officer and elected Executive Vice President. Ms. Waller assumed expanded responsibility for The Coca-Cola Company’s strategic governance areas when she was also appointed to serve as President, Enabling Services, on May 1, 2017. Ms. Waller joined the board of directors of CGI Group Inc. (NYSE: GIB) in December 2018 and serves on its Audit and Risk Management Committee. She received a BA degree from the University of Rochester in New York and an MBA from the William E. Simon School of Business Administration at the University of Rochester. We believe that Ms. Waller is qualified to serve on our board of directors because she has more than 30 years of experience in accounting and finance at a major public company.

Raymond J. Lane has served as a member of our board of directors since February 2015. Mr. Lane has been a Managing Partner at GreatPoint Ventures, a venture capital firm since March 2015. Mr. Lane has served as a Partner Emeritus and Advisor of Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers LLC, a venture capital firm, since April 2013 and was a Managing Partner of Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers LLC from September 2000 to April 2013. Mr. Lane has served on the board of directors of Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company (NYSE: HPE) from November 2015 to the present. In addition, Mr. Lane previously served as a member of the board of directors of HP Inc. (NYSE: HPQ) from September 2010 to November 2015, where he also was the executive Chairman of the Board from September 2011 to April 2013 and the non-executive Chairman of the Board from November 2010 to September 2011. Prior to joining Kleiner Perkins, Mr. Lane was President and Chief Operating Officer and a director of Oracle Corporation, a software company. Mr. Lane also served as Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Carnegie Mellon University from July 2009 to July 2015. Mr. Lane holds a BS degree in Mathematics and honorary Ph.D. Science from West Virginia University. We believe that Mr. Lane is qualified to serve on our board of directors due to his experience in working with entrepreneurial companies and his experience on other public company boards of directors.

Ned Segal has served as a member of our board of directors since November 2018. Mr. Segal has served as the Chief Financial Officer of Twitter, Inc. (NYSE: TWTR) since August 2017. From January 2015 to August 2017, Mr. Segal served as Senior Vice President of Finance of Intuit Inc. (NASDAQ: INTU), a small business and financial software company. From April 2013 to January 2015, Mr. Segal served as Chief Financial Officer of RPX Corporation, a former publicly traded company that provides patent risk management and discovery services. From 1996 to April 2013, Mr. Segal held various positions at The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (NYSE: GS), most recently as Head of Global Software Investment Banking. Mr. Segal holds a BS degree in Spanish from Georgetown University. We believe that Mr. Segal is qualified to serve on our board of directors because of his experience in finance at a number of major public companies.