Keith Pitts - VP of Regulatory Affairs

Mr. Pitts has worked in senior legislative, administrative, regulatory and public policy roles for more than two decades. In that time, Keith has been a successful senior-level administrator and negotiator who has been actively involved in shaping domestic and international policies regarding pesticides, organic agriculture, agricultural biotechnology, invasive species, climate change, specialty crops and food safety. At the US Department of Agriculture, Keith served as Special Assistant to Deputy Secretary Richard Rominger (MOI Board member and founding investor) and, also, to Secretary Dan Glickman. Keith was a senior advisor to the Secretary and Deputy Secretary and led several key agricultural, environmental and food safety initiatives for the USDA and the Clinton Administration. Keith’s career work has focused on issues such as the President’s Initiative to Ensure the Safety of Imported and Domestic Fruits and Vegetables, the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Montreal Protocol and phase-out of methyl bromide, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, major reform of U.S. pesticide policy and agricultural biotechnology policy, the WTO and NAFTA, and several U.S. farm bills. He was also the USDA leader on developing and implementing the President’s Executive Order on Invasive Species and the President’s National Invasive Species Management Plan.

Most recently, Keith was Public Policy Director for the Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology, a nonpartisan research and policy organization based in Washington, DC, where he led all of the organization’s policy-related activities. Keith is Member, Board of Directors, Institute of Forest Biotechnology based in Raleigh, NC, and is also a member of the National Academies of Science Board on Agriculture and Natural Resources (The National Research Council) headquartered in Washington, DC.