Leading Ag Tech Startup Iron Ox Appoints Impossible Foods and Tesla Veteran Myra Pasek as General Counsel

• After building and leading legal teams at some of Silicon Valley’s hottest startups, Pasek joins Iron Ox during a period of hypergrowth.
• Iron Ox uses artificial intelligence, plant science and robotics to help farmers mitigate the devastating impact of global warming — with the goals of improving food quality and making the food sector carbon negative.
• Pasek joins the executive leadership team as the company, whose products are already a breakout hit in California, hires plant scientists, engineers, growers and roboticists

SAN CARLOS, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Iron Ox, a farming innovation company with deep expertise in plant science, robotics and artificial intelligence, has hired former Impossible Foods and Tesla executive Myra Pasek as General Counsel.

Pasek joins the industry-leading ag tech company after spending the past three years as General Counsel of leading lidar startup Ouster, which she took from its nascent stage through its SPAC IPO earlier this year.

Prior to joining Ouster, Pasek was General Counsel and a key member of the senior leadership team at Impossible Foods following her years with Tesla, where she held senior legal and management roles in multiple divisions on two continents as the company scaled up global operations.

She previously practiced law at top-tier firms Latham & Watkins, Orrick, and K&L Gates, representing startups, venture capital firms and some of the largest companies in technology as well as traditional industries. Her leadership experience includes fundraising, intellectual property strategy, government relations, litigation and governance.

“Iron Ox is integrating breakthrough technologies such as lidar and robotics into food production, transforming the traditional agriculture sector into a center of innovation. Myra’s rare combination of experience in food, transport, lidar and robotics makes her a stellar addition to our team,” said Iron Ox CEO Brandon Alexander. “Most importantly, Myra is genuinely driven to accelerate our long-term goal of making the food system carbon negative.”

A California transplant born and raised in Minnesota, Pasek graduated from Northwestern University’s Pritzker School of Law and holds undergraduate degrees in business administration and political science from the University of Minnesota. She was named the 2019 Distinguished Entrepreneur of the Donald Pritzker Entrepreneurship Law Center at Northwestern University and in 2020 served as that organization’s Innovator in Residence.

“We are in a late-stage climate crisis, and we can’t solve the problem until we overhaul the way we grow food,” said Pasek, who joins Iron Ox’s leadership team and reports directly to CEO Brandon Alexander. “I’ve worked at some truly groundbreaking startups — and I am confident that Iron Ox’s innovative reimagining of farming, from-seed-to-table, will be profoundly impactful, ushering in an exciting new era of agriculture.”

Iron Ox, which pioneered the field of autonomous farming, grows produce in proprietary greenhouses designed from the ground up to mitigate the environmental impacts of agriculture — a data-driven approach backed by plant science, robotics and artificial intelligence. Iron Ox’s closed-loop system maximizes plant yield, expands growth cycles and enhances nutritional value. The result is delicious, nutritious, locally sourced fruits and vegetables, with drastically lower environmental impacts.

Iron Ox blasts into hyper growth mode

Iron Ox operates farms in Northern California and earlier this year broke ground on the 535,000 square-foot greenhouse farm in Lockhart, Texas. The company is significantly scaling up, with its robotics fleet working alongside an expanding team of plant scientists, growers and data scientists.

Iron Ox produce can be found throughout California at Whole Foods Markets and at San Francisco Bay Area markets such as Bianchini’s and Mollie Stone’s. Sales outside of California are expected to begin by the holidays with the first harvest from the new Texas facility.

This fall, Iron Ox announced a $53 million Series C funding round led by new investor Breakthrough Energy Ventures, an investment group backed by many of the world’s top business leaders and dedicated to achieving net-zero emissions by 2050.

Iron Ox is using its latest funding round to expand its intellectual property portfolio in robotics and artificial intelligence. The company is accelerating its efforts to hire plant scientists, engineers, greenhouse operators and roboticists to join their dynamic team. To learn more about careers and open positions at Iron Ox, please click here.

About Iron Ox

Based in California's Silicon Valley, Iron Ox is an agriculture technology startup with deep expertise in plant science, robotics and artificial intelligence. The company's mission is to make growing fresh produce carbon negative. Iron Ox has redesigned every step of the farming process, from seed to store shelf, achieving levels of precision that are impossible through conventional farming. Iron Ox produce is delicious, nutritious, sustainable, and local, greatly reducing food waste and reducing the footprint of farming. For more information, visit www.ironox.com.