Dr. James Zhang leads the China business development team. He began his career as the founding scientist at Mendel Biotechnology and led its business development. As an Entrepreneur in Residence at Khosla Ventures, James co-founded BioDiscovery Inc, a modern agriculture company, and led the China initiatives for Lanzatech (a Softbank China and Khosla Ventures portfolio company). Most recently, James is a Venture Partner at Softbank China Venture Capital and a Managing Director of Australian Government’s Renewable Energy Venture Capital (REVC) Fund.
As a China native, James attended the University of Science and Technology of China. He has a PhD in Genetics from the University of California Davis and has completed his post-doctoral training at Stanford University.
Recognizing the potential of Asian markets and remaining passionate about solving major IT and energy problems, James has returned to China to establish Formation 8′s presence in the region. James is a recipient of the Outstanding Young Scholar Award by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC). As a high school student, he had the highest college entrance examination score in his home province of 100 million people, which qualified him as one of the nerdiest high school students in all of China.