Cibus Inc. (NASDAQ: CBUS) announced the election of Thomas Urban to its board of directors, according to a company press release.

Urban founded Agribusiness Advisors in 2013, a firm providing advisory, investment and entrepreneur support to early-stage agriculture companies. He previously served as chief executive officer of CellFor Inc. from 2004 to 2012 until its acquisition by ArborGen. From 1990 to 2002, he held leadership positions at Pioneer Hi-Bred International, including after its acquisition by E.I. DuPont de Nemours in 1999. Urban began his career in mergers and acquisitions at Goldman Sachs & Co. in 1988.

Urban has served as an entrepreneur in residence at the University of British Columbia since 2013. He received his undergraduate degree from Middlebury College and holds a Master of Business Administration from Harvard Graduate School of Business.

"We are pleased to welcome Tom to the Cibus Board of Directors," said Mark Finn, Chairman of the Board. "As the Company pursues its commercialization initiatives, translating its trait pipeline into revenue producing relationships, Tom's experience building and scaling agribusiness will be highly valuable to our strategic planning and execution."

Urban stated his appointment was "an honor to join the Cibus Board to work alongside the team at the forefront of bringing the power of precision breeding to farmers around the world."

San Diego-based Cibus develops and licenses plant traits to seed companies using gene editing technologies. The company focuses on productivity traits for major global row crops and licenses these traits to customers in exchange for royalties.