Impossible Foods has hired veteran human resources leader Marcella Butler as the company’s first Chief People Officer.
 
Butler, who moved back to California’s Silicon Valley earlier this month to lead the startup’s human resources department, reports directly to CEO and Founder Dr. Patrick O. Brown and serves on the company’s senior leadership team.
 
Previously, Butler was head of human resources at a publicly-traded enterprise software company, Opower, which is now part of Oracle. From 2007- 2012, she was a Director in People Operations at Google, supporting HR and Recruiting for the Product Management organization at Google headquarters in Mountain View, Calif. She later moved into Corporate Development to lead Google’s Mergers & Acquisitions Integration team.
 
Before that, Butler was Chief Operating Officer and Chief Compliance Officer of SEC-registered investment advisor Pershing Square Capital Management in New York. She also held senior executive positions at Alliance Bernstein and Egon Zehnder International in New York and London. She began her career in the financial services practice of McKinsey & Company.
 
Butler is a native Texan with a master’s degree in Public Policy from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. She received her undergraduate degree, Phi Beta Kappa, in Geography from the University of North Carolina, where she was a Morehead-Cain Scholar. She is an ultra-long-distance cyclist and has earned the “Super Randonneur” designation every year since 2007.
 
“Marcella brings to our People team a strong business perspective gained in organizations ranging from startups to major multinationals, in roles from finance and operations to HR leadership,” Brown said. “She’s an ultra-long-distance athlete with the confidence and discipline to go the distance as Impossible Foods grows rapidly.”
 
Butler is the latest executive to join Impossible Foods. In June, Dr. David J. Lipman, M.D., joined the company in the newly created role of Chief Science Officer, reporting directly to the CEO. In May, food industry veteran Chris Gregg took over as Senior Vice President of Supply Chain and Manufacturing, overseeing operations for manufacturing and supply chain.