Mike Giardello

Founder of Materia

Mike Giardello is a founder of Pasadena-based Materia, an advanced materials and catalyst technology company, and serves as President, CEO and CTO. He received his Ph.D. in Chemistry from Northwestern University and was a post-doctoral fellow with Professor Robert H. Grubbs at Caltech.

Prior to co-founding Materia in 1998, Mike worked for several start-ups including Maxdem (acquired by Solvay), Cyrano Sciences (acquired by Smith) and also provided technology diligence and operations consulting services to a number of development stage companies and venture capital firms. Mike is also the co-founder and co-chairman of Innovate Pasadena, a Director of the Caltech Student Investment Fund, serves on the Advisory Board of the Pasadena Bioscience Collaborative and The Design Accelerator, and was the Vice Chairman of the Pasadena Economic Development Task Force.