Michael Keane ’77 is an accounting graduate now helping transform the chemical industry.

He is the executive vice president and chief financial officer of Genomatica. A leader in sustainable chemicals, the California company is developing ways to manufacture many of the world’s highest-volume intermediate and basic chemicals from renewable feedstocks.

The company received the 2012 Wall Street Journal Technology Innovation Award, was voted No. 1 in Biofuels Digest 30 Hottest Companies in Renewable Chemical and Biobased Materials two consecutive years, was named one of 10 Big Green Ideas by Newsweek, and received the Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award from the EPA in 2011.