Catherine Roggero-Lovisi, CEO, Modern Meadow, A DotCom Magazine Interview

The DotCom Magazine Entrepreneur Spotlight Series

About Catherine Roggero-Lovisi and Modern Meadow:

Catherine Roggero-Lovisi is a global consumer goods industry veteran and the CEO of Modern Meadow, a purpose-driven, protein applications powerhouse on a mission to be a catalyst for the wellness of people and the planet. Catherine has a proven executive management track record of building and leading entrepreneurial and large-scale global businesses. In her roles as L’Oréal’s APAC GM and Revlon Inc.’s President for North America, she was accountable for revenue, profit, consumer insights, data analytics, and new business development. At Christian Louboutin, she was tapped as its first-ever worldwide GM of Beauty, building that business into one of the industry’s most recognizable and fastest growing brands. She consistently outperforms the market in terms of growth, brand equity enhancement, product sentiment, and partnership development. Catherine also serves as Executive Board Member at Positive Planet US, a coalition to alleviate poverty through entrepreneurship. Originally from France, Catherine resides in New York City. She holds an MBA/MIM from The American School of Global Management (Thunderbird) and a BA from the Florida Institute of Technology.

Modern Meadow is a purpose-driven company positioned at the intersection of material science and biology with a mission to be a catalyst for real-world impact on people and the planet. Modern Meadow’s proprietary Bio-Alloy™ and Bio-F@rm™ technology application platforms harness the unique properties of tuned proteins to sustainably move the world away from petrochemical and animal-derived inputs without compromising on performance. These innovations can drop into any existing infrastructures for immediate scalable adoption in the materials, beauty, and other industries. Our close relationship with development partners and production facilities allows companies partnering with Modern Meadow to feel confident knowing our products are 100% traceable from Lab-to-Brand™.

The son of a theoretical physicist turned bioengineer, Andras Forgacs--the founder of Modern Meadow--was thinking of the world’s future in terms of biology before he even realized it.

Andras’ passion for science came from his father, Gabor Forgacs, who was a pioneer and innovator. A lifelong physicist, Gabor was one of the first to apply the frameworks of physics to understand biological phenomena such as how embryos develop and organs form. Around 2006, Gabor was pursuing some of the most interesting work of his career: developing a form of biofabrication called bioprinting. This innovation in 3D printing of human tissue led Andras and his father Gabor to partner with other co-founders to create the company Organovo (meaning “new organ”). Led by a dynamic team of forward-thinkers, Organovo was a pioneer in biofabrication focusing on creating human tissue models that could be used to accelerate pharma drug discovery and development.

Over ten years ago, Andras once again started thinking about biofabrication as a way to reimagine how the world approaches materials, sustainability and consumption, and how they are intertwined. Living in China in 2010-2011, Andras saw that rapid growth in consumption -- specifically in animal products such as leather and meat -- can come at great cost to the environment. He began to wonder if the principles of biofabrication could be used to make these animal products without the animal. In 2011, Modern Meadow (named to signify “a new field”) was founded.

Andras, Gabor and the small founding team at the newly-formed Modern Meadow began looking at the starting point for the creation of these materials: proteins. Experimenting with several different processes, and leveraging the knowledge and skill-set of a growing scientific team, Modern Meadow has been able to evolve its approach to create materials that support sustainability while balancing performance, aesthetics, and accessibility.