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CAMBRIDGE, Mass., October 29, 2025 – Inari, the SEEDesign company, and Flagship Pioneering, a scientific innovation engine for transformative platforms and products, today announced that Lisa Nunez Safarian has been appointed as the company’s new chief executive officer, effective November 4. A member of Inari’s board since May 2025, Safarian will also continue as a board director. Safarian will replace the interim CEO, Ignacio Martinez, who is Inari’s co-founder and board chair in addition to a Flagship Pioneering General Partner. She will also join Flagship Pioneering, Inari’s founding company, as a CEO-Partner.

Safarian is an esteemed executive in the agriculture industry, having held several leadership positions, most notably during her more than 30 years at Monsanto and then Bayer. Among her many accomplishments, Safarian helped build Monsanto’s $12 billion seeds, traits, licensing and crop protection businesses before transitioning to President, Crop Science North America for Bayer as part of the company’s acquisition.

“Lisa is a visionary leader who will propel Inari into its next phase of growth,” said Martinez. “Her deep expertise is matched only by her steadfast commitment to helping farmers achieve better outcomes. I look forward to continuing to work closely with her at Inari and leveraging her expertise for the benefit of the broader Flagship Pioneering ecosystem.”

“When I joined the board, I was immediately impressed by Inari’s level of sophistication and how far they had advanced their product pipeline in such a short period of time,” said Safarian. “As I dove deeper into the business, I knew I wanted to play a more active role in leading the organization as we revolutionize agriculture.”

Inari is setting a new standard for increasing plant performance by creating seed designs that deliver high-impact, high-value broadacre crops. The first wave of products feature High Yield Designs for three of the world’s largest crops by acre: soybeans, corn and wheat. This work is made possible through its AI-enabled SEEDesign Platform – the industry’s most sophisticated performance accelerator, integrating breakthroughs in genomics, AI and gene editing for exceptional seed designs.

Safarian continued, “Inari is built on groundbreaking technology – from AI-enabled systems to a deep IP portfolio spanning traits to tools – all driving a major shift for the industry. Seeing the proven results of the High Yield Designs, I knew this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I’m eager to hit the ground running with this world-class team.”

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About Inari

Inari, the SEEDesign company, develops seeds that address the world’s needs, pushing the boundaries of what is possible for a more sustainable, nature-positive food system. Through a combination of AI-enabled predictive design and a pioneered multiplex gene editing toolbox, the company is unlocking the full potential of seed to bring step-change soybean, corn and wheat products to market. Founded by Flagship Pioneering in 2016, Inari is based in Cambridge, Mass., with additional sites in West Lafayette, Ind., and Ghent, Belgium. Inari is a growing team of more than 300 employees working to solve the critical issues of food security and sustainability. To learn more, visit Inari.com.

About Flagship Pioneering

Flagship Pioneering invents and builds platform companies, each with the potential for multiple products that transform human health, sustainability and beyond. Since its launch in 2000, Flagship has originated and fostered more than 100 scientific ventures, operating with $14 billion of assets under its direction as of its latest capital raise, announced in July 2024. The current Flagship ecosystem comprises more than 40 companies, including Foghorn Therapeutics, Generate Biomedicines, Inari, Indigo Agriculture, Lila Sciences, Moderna, Sana Biotechnology, Tessera Therapeutics and Valo Health.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., September 16, 2025 – Inari, the SEEDesign company, has appointed Rob Dunlop Chief Commercial Officer (CCO), effective September 15, 2025. In this role, Dunlop will lead global commercial strategy and drive revenue, advancing the company’s novel go‑to‑market approach as it scales its growth with high-impact, high-value seed designs for broadacre crops.  

Dunlop brings more than 30 years of experience, spanning agribusiness, breeding, agronomy and biotechnology. He most recently served as Vice President, North America Seed at Nutrien Ag Solutions, with additional senior leadership roles at Bayer Crop Science and Monsanto that have included assignments across the Americas, Asia, Africa and Europe. 

“Rob’s global perspective and leadership in crop strategy, technology adoption, and team development make him uniquely positioned to lead Inari’s next growth phase of commercial efforts,” said Ignacio Martinez, interim CEO, co-founder and board chair of Inari. “His track record of scaling businesses will help accelerate our momentum.”  

“Joining Inari at this pivotal moment is energizing,” Dunlop said. “Inari’s SEEDesign platform redefines what’s possible in seeds. I’m inspired by our shared passion for ensuring global and sustainable food security. Inari’s ability to help growers significantly increase yields in the face of increasingly challenging growing conditions is delivering on this vision.”  

As part of this transition, Ron Wulfkuhle – who has been instrumental in shaping Inari’s commercial foundations – will become a strategic advisor to the CEO, with a focus to maximize Inari’s strategic agenda and continued business development success. “We’re grateful for Ron’s leadership and are pleased he will continue to support the company in this strategic capacity,” added Martinez.  

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About Inari 

Inari, the SEEDesign company, develops seeds that address the world’s needs, pushing the boundaries of what is possible for a more sustainable, nature-positive food system. Through a combination of AI-enabled predictive design and a leading multiplex gene editing toolbox, the company is unlocking the full potential of seed to bring step-change soybean, corn and wheat products to market. Founded by Flagship Pioneering in 2016, Inari is based in Cambridge, Mass., with additional sites in West Lafayette, Ind., and Ghent, Belgium. Inari is a growing team of more than 300 employees working to solve the critical issues of food security and sustainability. To learn more, visit Inari.com. 

The AgTech Breakthrough program strives to honor and represent the very best breakthrough technology and innovation around the world. The 2025 award recipients “represent the visionaries and disruptors solving agriculture’s most pressing challenges – from rising global food demand to sustainability – while setting the pace for the industry’s future,” said Bryan Vaughn, AgTech Breakthrough managing director.  

Read their full announcement here. 

Take corn, for example, a crop where two varieties can appear similar, yet have even less in common genetically than a human and a chimpanzee. These genetic differences result in one variety delivering its best yields in cold, wet regions, while another performs its best in hot, dry conditions.  

Biodiversity like this has clear advantages, but it also has been difficult to maintain over time and throughout the breeding process. As a result, plants have become more vulnerable to rapidly changing environmental conditions. 

Recent technological progress offers a path forward, however, through the arrival of gene editing. Here are three ways this groundbreaking technology could be a gamechanger for not only maintaining, but also restoring biodiversity: 

1. Reversing Genetic Loss 

Traditional breeding is defined by the process of crossing plants together to generate desired results. While breeders aim for positive and beneficial traits, the approach depends heavily on nature’s randomness. Although techniques have greatly improved over the past century to increase the likelihood of breeding success, the process remains mostly blind, guided more by probability than precision. 

The benefits of plant breeding to society is unquestioned, but there has always been an inherent tradeoff: the multiple rounds of crossing, testing and whittling required to land on a desirable outcome also causes many other valuable genetic variations to be lost. With gene editing, however, this tradeoff can be eliminated.  

That’s because when using this breeding technology, scientists can directly adjust specific genes and gene networks in plants to instantly create a wide range of novel variations, bypassing hundreds of years of diversity-culling trial and error. And by enabling the creation of variations from the plants’ natural DNA, the process introduces new or improved abilities that breeders can select from while maintaining the underlying desirable genetics. 

At Inari, we are working to significantly increase soybean, corn and wheat yield potential by editing the plants’ natural DNA. The result is literally hundreds of novel variations that add beneficial characteristics to the genetic pool without negatively impacting diversity.  

2. Providing More Options, Faster 

Gene editing allows scientists to edit any variety directly – and once an effective edit is identified, it can be applied to many varieties at the same time. This is another core benefit of gene editing: it greatly accelerates breeding timelines, delivering meaningful outcomes in a fraction of the time. As a result, breeders can reintroduce biodiversity at an incredibly rapid pace. 

For example, take a portfolio of 100 soybean varieties that are highly desirable across geographies, except where a certain disease is rampant. Through gene editing, scientists can introduce genetic changes that make new versions of those varieties that are resistant to the disease. Within a couple of years, all varieties of a portfolio can benefit from the positive effect of the edits, offering a significant acceleration from previous approaches.   

3. Making the Previously Non-Viable Viable 

Beyond mitigating genetic erosion, gene editing also represents a new frontier in plant science, one where genetic diversity is not only preserved but actively enhanced.  

Bringing back lost genetic diversity is not a new idea. Valuable novel variations, for example disease resistance, still exist in the “wild” (i.e. ancestral) relatives of today’s crops. The challenge is transferring those beneficial variations into cultivated species without losing positive attributes or introducing negative ones through the genetic reshuffling that occurs during the traditional breeding process. Gene editing has the potential to change that by enabling precise creation and selection of only beneficial variations in specific genes, without the risk of introducing undesirable traits. 

New techniques will enable us to replicate the positive variations found in wild relatives of cultivated species. To do so, it is essential to identify the target genes and variations that exist in wild relatives, as well as in cultivated species, to design the precise genetic changes needed. Advances in artificial intelligence and increasing efforts to generate data like the ones that enable Inari’s predictive design platform are boosting the ability of breeders to make that dream finally come true.  

Gene editing supports the next agricultural revolution – one that prioritizes genetic diversity alongside productivity to ensure ongoing food security, resulting in a more resilient and sustainable food system. As agriculture faces mounting, fast-moving challenges, embracing advanced genetic tools will be key to securing a future where crops can thrive, farmers can succeed, and people everywhere can access nutritious food.  

Learn more about its potential here.  

Read more about the recognition here.

Martinez was the founding CEO of Inari and has since served as a board member, being named board chair in February of this year. As a general partner of Flagship Pioneering, Martinez leads its sustainability activities in addition to entrepreneurial activities in life sciences, with a special interest on food, nutrition, and health.

“Ponsi is the best example of an empowering leader. She was relentless in her devotion to developing a team and a business in a way that ensures our ongoing success,” said Martinez. “We are incredibly grateful for what Ponsi achieved in her seven years. To say she will be missed is an understatement, but we are glad that she is prioritizing her health.”

“Knowing the strength of the company gave me peace of mind in making this difficult decision. I am so proud of what the team at Inari has achieved and what I know they will continue to achieve,” said Trivisvavet.

Inari and its board of directors have already begun conducting a comprehensive search for a new CEO.

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About Inari

Inari, the SEEDesign company, develops seeds that address the world’s needs, pushing the boundaries of what is possible for a more sustainable, nature-positive food system. Through a combination of AI-enabled predictive design and a pioneered multiplex gene editing toolbox, the company is unlocking the full potential of seed to bring step-change soybean, corn and wheat products to market. Founded by Flagship Pioneering in 2016, Inari is based in Cambridge, Mass., with additional sites in West Lafayette, Ind., and Ghent, Belgium. Inari is a growing team of more than 300 employees working to solve the critical issues of food security and sustainability. To learn more, visit Inari.com.

The new building contains multiple greenhouse compartments and walk-in growth chambers, providing a cutting-edge environment to test and advance novel product designs within fine-tuned customizable conditions. In line with the company’s commitment to embed sustainable practices at all levels of the organization, the facility includes advanced features like energy-efficient LED lighting, shading systems to optimize growing conditions, and water recycling for the growth chambers.

“This investment reflects Inari’s commitment to Europe and highlights our confidence in the exceptional talent of our Ghent team,” said Fred Van Ex, Inari Head of Europe, Africa and Middle East, as well as the Ghent site’s managing director. “As the European Union progresses toward adopting its proposal for new genomic techniques, this greenhouse space further ensures that we are well-positioned to quickly develop crops tailored for the region.”

Through its SEEDesign technology platform, Inari combines AI-enabled predictive design and advanced multiplex gene editing to unlock the full potential of seed in support of a thriving planet, food security and farmer well-being.

Learn more at Inari.com.

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About Inari

Inari, the SEEDesign company, develops seeds that address the world’s needs, pushing the boundaries of what is possible for a more sustainable, nature-positive food system. Through a combination of AI-enabled predictive design and a pioneered multiplex gene editing toolbox, the company is unlocking the full potential of seed to bring step-change soybean, corn and wheat products to market. Founded by Flagship Pioneering in 2016, Inari is based in Cambridge, Mass., with additional sites in West Lafayette, Ind., and Ghent, Belgium. Inari is a growing team of more than 300 employees working to solve the critical issues of food security and sustainability. To learn more, visit Inari.com.

“Lisa has dedicated her career to advancing agriculture and helping farmers achieve better outcomes, with three-plus decades in key commercial, product development and strategy roles at market leaders and beyond,” said Inari Board Chair Ignacio Martinez. “Her insights will be invaluable as we further progress in delivering our step-change, high-yielding seed products to customers.” 

Safarian was most recently president and chief operating officer at Pivot Bio. Prior to that, she held leadership positions at Monsanto and Bayer for more than 30 years, where her responsibilities included strategic growth, commercial transformation, product supply and market development. Most notably, Safarian helped build Monsanto’s $12 billion seeds, traits, licensing, and crop protection businesses as the Vice President of North America before transitioning to President, Crop Science North America for Bayer as part of the company’s acquisition of Monsanto. She is also a board member at RiceTec Inc. and holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. 

“Having a front row seat to many of this industry’s big shifts over the past 30-plus years has been a great privilege, and I fully believe Inari is on the forefront of the next one,” Safarian said. “I look forward to working with the team and lending my expertise to help realize the full potential of Inari’s game-changing seed innovations.”   

Learn more at Inari.com. 

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About Inari 

Inari, the SEEDesign company, develops seeds that address the world’s needs, pushing the boundaries of what is possible for a more sustainable, nature-positive food system. Through a combination of AI-enabled predictive design and a pioneered multiplex gene editing toolbox, the company is unlocking the full potential of seed to bring step-change soybean, corn and wheat products to market. Founded by Flagship Pioneering in 2016, Inari is based in Cambridge, Mass., with additional sites in West Lafayette, Ind., and Ghent, Belgium. Inari is a growing team of more than 300 employees working to solve the critical issues of food security and sustainability. To learn more, visit Inari.com.