Shara Ticku

In her 20s, Shara Ticku was headed toward the partner track at Goldman Sachs, until a quarter-life crisis made her think more deeply about what she wanted. While at Harvard Business School sharpening her skills, she bonded with David Heller and Harry McNamara over the potential they saw in the burgeoning field of synthetic biology. They identified a very specific challenge: palm oil, a wonderfully versatile natural product, is used in nearly 50% of products on supermarket shelves, from lotions and soaps, to chocolates and cheeses. The problem? The process to grow and harvest palm oil is a major driver of tropical deforestation.

Together, Ticku and her partners founded C16 Biosciences, the company behind Palmless™, a high-performance palm oil alternative made from yeast rather than trees. Palmless™ gives consumer goods manufacturers a new ingredient option, one that doesn’t require forests to be destroyed for palm plantations — a process that releases greenhouse gas emissions on par with the entire aviation sector. Ticku and her team hope to biomanufacture even more next-generation ingredients to address climate change, food security, and other global challenges.