4 Minutes With…Alex Baker, Chief Operating Officer, Leaf Resources Limited

Tell us about your organization and it’s role in the Advanced Bioeconomy.

Leaf Resources Limited (ASX:LER) is focused on making sustainable products from plant biomass. We offer an advanced technology package for breaking down plant derived biomass to useful, sustainable, renewable and biodegradable products. Leaf Resources’ innovative GlycellTM technology suite will have a significant role in the advanced bioeconomy.

Tell us about your role and what you are focused on in the next 12 months.

My role with Leaf is to focus the operations of the company to deliver a superior technology package centred around the Glycell pretreatment process. Additionally, I am part of the business development team identifying and engaging with potential partners and customers regarding our product solutions. The next 12 months we are focused on establishing a number of North American partner collaborations enabling Leaf an effective means of deployment to multiple plants in diverse settings and the opportunity to further innovation in both product and process technologies.

What do you feel are the most important milestones the industry must achieve in the next 5 years?

Deep recognition from consumers of products that have bio-based alternatives, and the clear preferential purchase of these over petri-chemical.
Scale deployment of manufacturing/production of bio-based building blocks and secondary chemicals
20% ethanol displacing petrol at the pump for the US with greater cellulosic derived inclusion.

Of all the reasons that influenced you to join the Advanced Bioeconomy industry, what single reason stands out for you as still being compelling and important to you?

The future of my children (and everyone’s)

Where are you from? 

I grew up on Tamborine Mountain, located in the hinterlands of the Gold Coast, Southern Queensland Australia. It’s a rainforest microclimate leading to a blissful lack of awareness of actual global climate change impacts, although now days it is not immune.

What was your undergraduate major in college, and where did you attend? Why did you choose that school and that pathway? 

I studied science with majors in biochemistry and microbiology at Griffith University. Griffith had a strong environmental link and industrial pathways for it’s science school. It lead me into a career in biotechnology that I have not looked back from.

What’s the biggest lesson you ever learned during a period of adversity?

Don’t waste your energy on pushing on a door that is closed, use it to find a door that is open.

What hobbies do you pursue, away from your work in the industry? 

Guitar playing and wine collecting (often both together…)

What 3 books would you take to read, if stranded on a desert island?

Terry Pratchett’s “the Last Continent”
Dr Seuss’ “The Lorax”
A dictionary (for lighting fires if nothing else)

What books or articles are on your reading list right now, or you just completed and really enjoyed?

“The Lucky Country” by Donald Horne

What’s your favorite city or place to visit, for a holiday?

Broom Heads New South Wales, Australia
Why? No phone signal + unimpeded view of the Pacific Ocean!