The Appointments
Switch Bioworks, the Stanford-founded agricultural biologicals company targeting the $100 billion-plus nitrogen fertilizer market, has named Gordana M. Djordjevic, Ph.D., as Chief Scientific Officer and added Eric Bartels, Ph.D., to its Board of Advisors. Both moves come as the company runs its first USDA- and EPA-authorized field trials of an engineered microbial fertilizer on corn across multiple Midwest sites — a milestone that sets the commercial clock ticking for a technology that could meaningfully disrupt how crop inputs reach growers.
Djordjevic arrives from Arsenale Bioyards, where she co-founded the company and built its R&D infrastructure, IP strategy, and early commercial pipeline. Before that, she served as Vice President of R&D at Perfect Day, overseeing strain engineering, high-throughput screening, fermentation, automation, bioanalytics, and data science — a tenure that generated measurable cost-of-goods reductions across the business. She has also held senior roles at Zymergen, Synthetic Genomics, and BP Biofuels, and has co-invented several patents. At Switch, she will oversee the full R&D organization, guiding programs from laboratory development through greenhouse and field validation while advancing the company's IP and regulatory positions.
Bartels' Commercial Weight
Bartels brings more than three decades of experience spanning agricultural biologicals, R&D, strategy, and commercial launch. He held senior leadership roles at Syngenta before building and running McKinsey's agriculture and food chain practice. Most recently, as Global Head of Biological Products and Chief Science Officer at Indigo Ag, he owned the biologicals business from discovery through commercial revenue. He currently advises McKinsey, agricultural technology startups, and German federal innovation agencies — a roster that underlines the cross-functional scope Switch is seeking as it approaches market entry.
"Switch has developed a compelling solution to one of the core constraints in engineered biomanufacturing," Djordjevic said. "The opportunity now is to scale that advantage — from strong growroom results to consistent performance in the field, and ultimately across every application this platform can reach."
Why It Matters for Food Supply Chains
Nitrogen fertilizer sits at the foundation of global food production, yet the dominant Haber-Bosch synthesis process is energy-intensive and leaves growers exposed to commodity energy markets and supply-chain disruptions — a vulnerability that drove input-cost volatility throughout 2022 and into 2023. Switch's platform engineers microbes that establish on the plant root and then activate nitrogen production on a programmable schedule, a design intended to deliver a lower-cost, more stable alternative to fossil fuel-derived fertilizer.
The company's genetic-switch technology is protected by seven patent families, and the underlying platform is architected to extend beyond nitrogen fixation into broader agricultural biologicals, energy, and industrial biotechnology applications. For food and beverage operators tracking input-cost exposure across the grain and oilseed complex, a credible biological nitrogen alternative reaching commercial scale would represent a structural shift in grower economics — and, downstream, in commodity pricing dynamics. Tim Schnabel, founder and CEO of Switch Bioworks, framed the dual hire as execution-focused: "Gordana has built and scaled R&D organizations that translate complex biology into commercially relevant products, while Eric has helped agricultural technology companies connect scientific development with strategy, partnerships, and market execution."
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
