Kit McDonnell

Trained as a systems biologist, Kit McDonnell operates at the intersection of biotech, design, and sustainability. Her work is heavily informed by the discipline of environmental anthropology, teasing apart human nature’s relationship with the natural world. She recently started as Director of Corporate Affairs at Enko Chem, a Gates Foundation-backed agtech startup designing safer, more effective molecules for crop health. McDonnell formerly led Special Projects across the Creative, Commercial, and Capital Investments Teams at the synbio company Ginkgo Bioworks, where she integrated designed biology into the global manufacturing agenda and the circular economy. She specialized in stakeholder management, branding, compelling organism design, and consumer brand business development—how might we wear, eat, drive, and interact with new forms of biology.