Robert B. Shapiro, Board Member

Robert B. Shapiro is Co-Founder and Managing Director of Sandbox Industries, LLC, a Chicago-based business incubation and venture capital firm. He was formerly Chairman and CEO of Monsanto Company. Upon the merger of Monsanto with Pharmacia & Upjohn, he served as Chairman of the newly-formed PharmaciaCorporation.

Previously, Bob was President and COO of Monsanto, President of Monsanto's Agriculture Group, Chairman and CEO of The NutraSweet Company (a subsidiary of Monsanto), and President of the NutraSweet Group of G.D.Searle & Co., where he previously served as Vice President and General Counsel. Before joining Searle, Bob was Vice President and General Counsel of General Instrument Corporation. Prior to this, he practiced law in New York City; served in government as Special Assistant to the Undersecretary of the U.S Department of Transportation; and as a professor of law at Northeastern University in Boston and the University of Wisconsin in Madison.

Bob has served on the boards of NYSE Euronext (parent company of the New York Stock Exchange), Citigroup, Rockwell International, Silicon Graphics., and Sequus Pharmaceuticals. He currently serves as a director of Theranos. Sapphire Energy, AgraQuest and Elevance Renewable Sciences. all private companies.

He has also served on the President’s Advisory Committee on Trade Policy and on the White House Domestic Policy Review of Industrial Innovation. He is aFellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Bob is a 1959 graduate of Harvard College and holds a JD from Columbia University School of Law. He is married to Ginger Farley, has four children and lives in Chicago.