How innovation can tackle the food crisis: A biotech leader explains

Linda Lacina, Meet The Leader: Welcome to Meet the Leader, a podcast where top leaders share how they're tackling the world's toughest challenges. Today we talk to the CEO of seed design company Inari, all about innovation and the power of a simple seed to make big progress across big global problems.

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Ponsi Trivisvavet, Inari: How do we solve the problem of the food system as fast as we can?

Linda Lacina, Meet The Leader: The world has a number of big global challenges it's facing right now: war, climate change, political instability. And each one of those challenges is worsening an existing global food crisis. But what if I told you that something as simple as a seed could make a difference across all of that?

In Davos this year, I talked to Ponsi Trivisvavet. She is the CEO of Inari, a seed design company that's using technologies like predictive design and multiplexed gene editing to ensure that seeds require less land, less water and less fertiliser.

Gene editing works with the seeds' existing genetic makeup. So this is very different from gene modification, which adds DNA to a genome. More importantly, the potential for gene editing means that there's a potential to strengthen food security, to reduce waste, and also to conserve water, protect local economies, and also to prevent instability.

Of course, Ponsi will talk to us a little bit about how she got into gene editing, what motivates her, why it's so key that the innovation behind this work is driven by a range of voices and disciplines — people from biology and chemistry and physics.

But most critically, she will talk to us about the potential that she sees for innovation and the agriculture space. She'll talk about all of that, but first I'll have her take us back to basics and what one seed can do.

Ponsi Trivisvavet, Inari: Seeds can impact a lot of things that in fact, if you think about the food chain, the very beginning of the food chain is genetics, is seeds. So, seeds, determine how much water that the crop needs, how much fertiliser, and then even the nutrients, what's the nutrient. So, think about it as everything that is for food starts with the potential of the seeds and the rest of the things is about protecting the potential.

Linda Lacina, Meet The Leader: Let's talk a little bit about the food crisis. What are some of the vulnerabilities we have right now in the food system and give us a sense of what's happening.

Ponsi Trivisvavet, Inari: The definition of food system crisis is, one, there's a food security challenge. Second, is the resources that we use. And the third, is the profitability of the farmers. So when we say crisis here, we shouldn't debate whether it's one or two or three [elements]. All these three things should coexist.

And let me give you an example. We all know about the food scarcity, about population growth. Let me talk about the second one when we talk about the sustainability here. 70% of the fresh water in the world actually goes to agriculture in food. So that's the amount of the resources that are consuming and majority of the nitrogen that is released into the atmosphere is actually coming from agriculture. So the question becomes: how do we reduce the resources and at the same time increase the food production and still take care of the farmers who grow this, still make their livelihood be profitable, still help with the rural community?

Linda Lacina, Meet The Leader: And what is gene editing for those who aren't familiar?

Ponsi Trivisvavet, Inari: They're new breeding technologies whereby you unlock the true natural genes within the crop genome itself. The reality is the genome of the plants are actually much more complex than us. So, think about this. The genome of wheat is five times more complex than the human genome. Therefore, if we want to solve the problem of the crops to take less water and less fertiliser, we actually have to deal with a lot of genes. And when gene editing comes in, then you have to work with multiple natural genes.

Technology wise is quite advanced in terms of what we could use. The disadvantage of it is actually distilled understanding of what gene editing is. The regulator in certain countries are still actually looking at this technology.

Linda Lacina, Meet The Leader: And how can Inari's work be scaled? What would it need?

Ponsi Trivisvavet, Inari: How we think about scale is how do we solve the problem of the food system as fast as we can? We actually think about the scale through the go-to market model. We don't go directly to farmers as a growth company. Our customers are seed companies. Scaling to the expertise that they have already in marketing and sales and the direction that they have with the farmers so we can actually expand it really fast. So that's how we think about the scale of the whole system.

Linda Lacina, Meet The Leader: If we were able to make certain changes with seeds, the ones that you think would really sort of help tackle the food crisis, but also help with sustainability and the climate crisis and protect water, what would the world look like in, say, 25 years?

Ponsi Trivisvavet, Inari: I would say the world would look like — rather than agriculture contributing to 20% of the [Green House Gas emissions] today, I hope that 25 years from now, agriculture would contribute to 80% positive creation of the nature positive outcome. So from -20% to plus 80%.

Linda Lacina, Meet The Leader: Are there certain seeds that would be key to sort of tinker with?

Ponsi Trivisvavet, Inari: So for us, in our view, we focus on the first wave in three crops: soybeans, corn and wheat, which is pretty much 70% of the acres and pretty the much majority of the challenge with the sustainability, whether it's GHG, whether it's nitrogen usage, whether it's water usage. So that's why we it's really critical to focus on those crops to address the sustainability.

Linda Lacina, Meet The Leader: Tell me a little bit about how you got to where you are right now leading a seed design company? Tell me a little bit about that journey.

Ponsi Trivisvavet, Inari: The journey for me. I actually started off not as a biologist, in fact, but I started off as an electrical engineer, got a chance to actually get into and explore other industries after that. And as soon as I got into the exploration of agriculture, which would have been, I want to say 27 years ago, that's when I fell in love with it.

Linda Lacina, Meet The Leader: And what draws you to it? What's so compelling about agriculture and about the space here?

Ponsi Trivisvavet, Inari: For me personally, what drives me every day is actually when you look into the eyes of farmers and look into how much you can use technology to change their lives. And you can see it. You can see it within four months from the planting to harvesting. That personally happened to me back more than ten years ago when I was able to actually bring the technology to a farmer in the middle of nowhere in Indonesia. And if you look into the eyes of their families, and you can have that impact. You wouldn't do anything else. And I have pledged myself to be in agriculture since then.

Linda Lacina, Meet The Leader: You're in the tech space, and tech is about big bets and plans, but also sometimes, you know, hitting a wall. Can you tell me about a time that you hit a wall? You weren't sure for a moment how you were going to get through it, but you do? How did you push through?

Ponsi Trivisvavet, Inari: It is okay to ask for help. Yeah, it is okay to ask the team, "here is the roadblock. How do we solve it together?" That's the team.

Linda Lacina, Meet The Leader: Were there moments where, you know, maybe you were reluctant to go reach out to others and you thought, "You know what? I can solve it. I won't bother them. It's my responsibility."? Any of those things? Is there a time where you were reluctant to go to others?

Ponsi Trivisvavet, Inari: There were times like that, especially in the beginning part of my five-year journey at Inari. Because you're not quite sure how people will look at this, will I make my team lose confidence if I pose the question to them? But of course you learn it along the way. And once you do it one time, it turns out to be the other way around. It becomes a strength when you ask for help.

Linda Lacina, Meet The Leader: How have you changed as a leader, maybe even from the time that you started at Inari to now?

Ponsi Trivisvavet, Inari: I've changed a lot. I would say that it feels more than five years. And the biggest change is -- learn how to learn more, learn how to appreciate more, be optimistic and at the same time be curious and be pessimistic at the same time. So pessimistic and optimistic. It's not about being in the middle, but depending on the situation, how do you actually perform, yourself? [How can you] be visionary but detail oriented at the same time? So, that change in terms of myself being at a growth company, being in an audacious goal company, that has changed that. I used to be more sort of a leader in the middle, sort of flying the middle ground and you beat average. I've changed a lot. That it's actually better to go into the ability to go to the extreme on both sides. That's how you get into the new discoveries.

Linda Lacina, Meet The Leader: And what impact has that had?

Ponsi Trivisvavet, Inari: The team appreciates it a lot. They want direction some times, in detail. But sometimes they want full freedom. So you get to see this as situational leadership. The impact there is you get the team to actually see that and they themselves perform the same way. It's about [encouraging] situational leadership further down into the organisation.

Linda Lacina, Meet The Leader: There are a lot of challenges that we are facing: What do you think resilient leaders should be prioritising?

Ponsi Trivisvavet, Inari: The first one is yourself in terms of health. And health here I mean mental health, physical health. The resilience for me is actually not resiilience if you face the problems. Resilience is when you fall down, how long would it take you to get up? That is really critical. If it takes days, that's a wrong thing. How do you practice to actually get up within minutes or hours? That's the piece that I would say that is really critical.

Linda Lacina, Meet The Leader: How can leaders be making sure that they're keeping the long term in mind despite all of these short term crises?

Ponsi Trivisvavet, Inari: I would suggest that, I myself, I have one image in my mind all the time when I face the challenge in a short-term situation. So you would go back to that image. And that image is your purpose, is your vision. And I would suggest that a lot of time you use your brain, but sometimes you have to go back to your heart to bring you back to the vision.

Linda Lacina, Meet The Leader: You work in the innovation space. How do you create an environment where your team is both thinking big but is grounded on things that can be developed and that are executable?

Ponsi Trivisvavet, Inari: In our values, innovation is part of those. And your question is, how do you actually make it executable? For us, we even go to the practical piece that we have the milestones there whereby every time we hit the milestones together, we celebrate it together. It's even like a simple ringing the bell every time we hit that as the whole company. We don't to to the point where you have only the endgame. You have the milestones along the way that encourage people along the journey.

Linda Lacina, Meet The Leader: Are there other practices that your company has that are sort of unique?

Ponsi Trivisvavet, Inari: We use 'all hands' a lot. So we meet pretty often for the whole company and actually update everyone on where we are as the whole company in terms of our milestones.

Linda Lacina, Meet The Leader: And how does that help?

Ponsi Trivisvavet, Inari: People are on the same page. And collaboration becomes critical for us. We don't have the silo at all between commercial and do research. So research, development and commercial are actually in one goal if you go back to how you work together. And that's quite nice. At the end of the day we go back to our vision which is about renewed Earth. And the mission, which is about bring back the genetic diversity into the seeds. So it helps get people to have one common goal.

Linda Lacina, Meet The Leader: The commercial and sort of the R&D side of it. Do they have other touch points, other practical meetings, outside of the all hands?

Ponsi Trivisvavet, Inari: My CSO, Chief Scientific Officer, and Chief Product Officer, CPO, and then the head of commercial, in fact, they talk quite often. So we call them triangle. Actually, in fact, we added another person as well recently: our Chief Data and Information Officer. The four of them are actually meeting on a bi-weekly basis as formal. But informal, I'll give you example: the chief product development and the head of commercial actually talk at the minimum every other day, which never happened in my previous career, never. So you know exactly what the farmers, the growers and the seed companies want, and that's the beauty of it.

Linda Lacina, Meet The Leader: And what do you think the difference is? Why do you think that that's happening in your company where maybe it's not happening in other organisations?

Ponsi Trivisvavet, Inari: I think part of it is -- it is a younger company, it's a smaller company and part of it is the audacious goal that we have together. And people that joined Inari have one common goal, one thing where we are all the same, which is sharing the goal of how do we actually make a better world via food systems. So once you have one common goal, I think it just solves everything.

Linda Lacina, Meet The Leader: There an element that from the way that your teams work together, that if you took away that element, you guys wouldn't be as effective innovators.

Ponsi Trivisvavet, Inari: Collaboration.

Linda Lacina, Meet The Leader: And do you think that your collaboration, you get sort of that momentum because you've got this mix of disciplines and expertise?

Ponsi Trivisvavet, Inari: Diversity. And for us, diversity means diversity of thought. I'll give you example that in our scientist group — and you would imagine that as a seed design company, you would have thought that, "okay, the majority of them would come from agriculture." And the answer is no. Only one third come from the industry. One third from academia. And then one third actually from other industries. Whether that would be pharmaceutical industry, whether they are — actually some of them are experts in physics, which has nothing to do with biology, and some of them are actually chemists. So that's when you get into the new innovation. You get into the breakthrough. And interestingly, a lot of breakthroughs came from the second and the third category. So that's how we think about diversity of thought.

In terms of the product -- commercial, we have different thinking, that, "no, don't drop that product. It's actually highly valuable to the seed companies," for example.

So out of our 270 people, we have 50/50 in terms of gender. Male, female. We have 29 nationalities in terms of the whole company, and the thinking in terms of the background, very, very varied, in terms of background.

Linda Lacina, Meet The Leader: Do you think that there's any particular trends, especially with tech and tech jobs that are going to be maybe shaping the year? What do you see, especially in the food space?

Ponsi Trivisvavet, Inari: If you ask about the trend of the technology itself, we're going to see a lot of AI. How do you how do you use AI in the world of agriculture more? And for us, we get into that already and we started quite a lot because genetics are complex. How do we use the data, the artificial intelligence, to understand the complexity of the genomes? And you're going to see across the whole industry that how AI plays into the role of the food systems.

Linda Lacina, Meet The Leader: And your last question, what is a piece of advice that you've always been grateful for?

Ponsi Trivisvavet, Inari: Pay it forward.

Linda Lacina, Meet The Leader: And how so?

Ponsi Trivisvavet, Inari: The reality of the life — I don't know how you feel about it — but when you feel like things are self fulfilling is actually when you help others. That stays beyond just yourself. So it's personal motivation that you can make others be better that's actually long lasting. If you start to practice it, it's hard to explain, but it is something that stays with you, and I get motivated by that. I get energy by that. I would recommend that just do it and it's fulfilling.

Linda Lacina, Meet The Leader: That was Ponsi Trivisvavet.

Thanks so much to her. And thanks so much to you for listening. A transcript of this episode and my colleagues' episodes, Radio Davos and the Book Club, podcast is available at Wef.ch/podcasts.

This episode of Meet the Leader was presented and produced by me with Juan Toran as studio engineer in Davos and Gareth Nolan driving studio production.

That's it for now. I'm Linda Lacina with the World Economic Forum. Have a great day.