CULT Food Science Corp said Lejjy Gafour has been promoted to the role of chief executive officer effective April 20, 2022, following the transitioning of former CEO Dorian Banks from the role.
“I am grateful to the Board of Directors for promoting me from president to CEO and I will work even harder to create value for shareholder and stakeholders alike,” Gafour said in a statement. “The company continues to lay an impressive cell-ag foundation and I look forward to cultivating that further.”
Gafour, who was previously president of the company, joined CULT in January 2022 after accumulating 15 years of experience in executing strategy, technology and product development across mature and emerging industries.
“I would like to thank Dorian for making it easy for me to join CULT as president earlier this year and for transitioning the role of CEO to me so seamlessly. I look forward to receiving his continued guidance as an independent member of the company’s Board of Directors as we work toward executing on our mission of building a complete cellular agriculture ecosystem,” he added.
READ: CULT Food Science invests in leading cultivated meat company MeaTech 3D Ltd
Prior to joining CULT, Gafour was co-founder and former CEO of Future Fields – a Y Combinator-backed biotechnology company and one of the first operating cellular agriculture companies in Canada. He was also a founding member of Cellular Agriculture Canada (CAC), the first nationwide interdisciplinary not-for-profit working to advance the cellular agriculture industry in Canada, and currently serves on its board of directors.
As consideration for his appointment, CULT has granted Gafour 500,000 options to purchase up to 500,000 common shares of the company, at a price of $0.17 per common share for a period of five years from the date of grant. It said 25% of the options vest three months from the date of grant, with the remaining 75% of the options vesting in tranches of equal size three, six and nine months thereafter, the company added.
CULT Food Science is an innovative investment platform with an exclusive focus on cellular agriculture that is advancing the development of novel technologies to provide a sustainable, environmental, and ethical solution to the global factory farming crisis.
The first-of-its-kind in North America, the company aims to provide individual investors with unprecedented exposure to the most innovative start-up, private or early-stage cultivated meat, cell-based dairy and other cultured food companies around the world.
Contact the author at jon.hopkins@proactiveinvestors.com