Daphne Nwobike, Staff Writer
On April 1, the Babson Center and the Biology Department invited John Davies (C ’81) to serve as the Bryan Viewpoints Speaker. As the Principal at JP Davies Consulting and the Interim Chief Scientific Officer at the Global Institute for Food Security, Davies has crafted a unique career that allows him to enjoy the best of both worlds: his love for science and business. Davies was a biology major at Sewanee, an experience that informs his passion for using science to solve some of society’s biggest challenges related to food security. During his visit, Davies gave a talk titled “From Academia to Industry: Learnings from My Career in Biotechnology,” where he described his journey into the world of business and his ability to merge science and business into a meaningful career. While on campus, Davies sat down with The Sewanee Purple to share details about his work.
What was your Sewanee experience like? How did it lead you to the path of business?
Davies: I came to Sewanee from Huntsville, AL, and it seemed like a nice, idyllic place to me when growing up, so I chose to come here. It was a good experience but very challenging, with a lot of learning and stretching. I decided to be a biology major because it’s really what I was always passionate about, [it] coupled with my interest in the rise of food security issues in the 70s. I had experiences working in a lab both here and at the University of Tennessee, and at the time, I decided I didn’t want to pursue a laboratory degree. I was still interested in science and working on sustainable foods, so I chose to do a master’s in plant breeding at Auburn before completing my PhD in microbiology at Vanderbilt. I eventually completed my MBA at the University of Oregon. After building an exhaustive career in academia, I moved into industry both for the chance to work for organizations with a big goal that all researchers can support and for the opportunity to work on what I hope will be products that people care about and that will make their lives better.
So, how did you get to work at the Global Institute for Food Security?
Davies: After retiring in 2019, I got a call from Steve, a friend who used to work with me at Dow AgroSciences and was now at the University of Saskatchewan, working as the CEO of the Global Institute for Food Security. He asked me if I would come in and help the scientists there learn about their path to impact and how their science could move from the laboratory to have an effect on people’s lives. So I initially began some training with them, and then as we continued to develop the institute, I stayed with them for, I think, over four years now.
What has been your experience working in food security?
Davies: It seems like there’s always new technology created to help us produce more and better food for people. I’ve worked a lot on maize and corn and seen that yield increase is often attributed to different technologies, such as inventions like hybrid corn and transgenic technology. In the mid-2000s, people were beginning to worry about really stagnating in terms of our yield increase (and they’re still worried) because the other thing that has continued to increase is the population. We’re close to 8 billion now, and we think it’s going to 10 billion, probably at its peak around 2050. When we saw the yields kind of plateauing, people were beginning to worry. But then comes this newer technology called genomic selection, which has forged even greater increases in the yield, and it’s really been exciting and fun to see and try to understand all those technologies that have led to the incremental increases in yield. It’s really gratifying work.
What do wins and successes look like for you in this field?
Davies: Having a huge business success is a rare thing, and if you have to wait for that, you’re probably not celebrating enough. Having celebrations along the way as a project progresses can really make a difference and keep the team motivated. Yeah, there’s pressure in it, too, because these people are paying us money, and they want good data back. But we need to see that what we’ve built is something that we can continue to build on and can continue to take us where we want to be to get those huge business successes. And so that’s finding those little milestones along the way that indicate we’re on the right track. By expressing genuine gratitude to the team, we stay aligned with the mission and vision of our work, and other good things will continue to flow from this unison. We’ll be able to bring in more relationships with other businesses, have more of an impact, and increase our revenue.
Are there any future developments and initiatives in the field of agriculture, biotechnology, and food security that you’re looking forward to?
Davies: I certainly hope that we can help develop these technologies, which can really make production sustainable in a way where geographies that haven’t had much success in producing their own food can replicate them. Being able to take findings and apply them to crops in different environments to feed people is really exciting. But as I said earlier, genomic selection is just kind of the latest technology that’s really helped. There are going to be others that come along behind it, and having those work in the individual geographies around the world is important as well. There’s a lot of food that’s produced in the world that doesn’t get to the mouths that need it, and I think more local production can enhance that as well.