Tim Van Berkel
Managing Director, Sea-based seaweed cultivation
Tim van Berkel is a pioneer in the seaweed movement, championing the potential of ocean greens long before they entered mainstream consciousness. As co-founder and Managing Director of the Cornish Seaweed Company, Tim has been instrumental in introducing sustainably harvested and cultivated seaweeds to the wider public since 2012.
With a foundation in conservation biology and field ecology, Tim brings both scientific insight and entrepreneurial energy to the seaweed world. Under his leadership, the Cornish Seaweed Company became one of the first in the UK to trial commercial seaweed cultivation, helping to shape early aquaculture efforts in England and demonstrating the environmental and nutritional value of seaweed as a scalable, sustainable resource.
Tim's deep understanding of seaweed ecology, cultivation techniques, and market development has helped build a broad network across industry, academia, and conservation sectors. Beyond business, he is committed to unlocking seaweed's role in healthy diets, resilient coastal ecosystems, and regenerative food systems — bridging the gap between ocean science and everyday eating.
Chris Lowe
Managing Director, Land-based seaweed cultivation
Chris leads technology development at OceanGreens, designing and building scalable land-based seaweed cultivation systems. With a background in marine ecology and environmental physiology, Chris combines scientific research with hands-on engineering. He has published over 45 peer-reviewed research papers and previously held academic positions at the University of Exeter and the University of Liverpool, where he specialised in understanding how marine organisms respond to environmental change.
At OceanGreens, Chris focuses on turning science into practical systems. He develops and prototypes aquaculture systems, and builds integrated open-source hardware and software platforms to optimise seaweed growth in controlled environments.
His work spans experimental design and data analysis, system design, rapid prototyping, and the development of resilient, efficient cultivation technology. Chris is driven by the challenge of translating research into real-world impact — developing sustainable seaweed production systems that support food security and supply innovative ingredients for emerging green industries.
Clare Whitney
Business Strategy
Clare is a commercialisation and scale-up specialist with over 25 years' experience helping founders turn complex ideas into sustainable, high-growth businesses. She combines deep expertise in innovation funding and investment readiness with hands-on experience as part of two successful startup and scale-up leadership teams. An IoD-certified director, Clare has built international brands from the ground up and worked extensively with disruptive, innovation-led business models. She enables ventures to become not only fundable, but durable, investable and ready to grow internationally — with a strong focus on governance, sustainability and long-term value creation.
Jeremy Lane
Lab Manager
Jeremy has a masters degree in marine biology from Exeter University. During his degree Jeremy developed an interest in sustainable aquaculture and conducted research on seaweed growth optimisation in land-based aquaculture systems. At OceanGreens, Jeremy manages the lab, the day-today running of the cultivation systems, and continues his work on growth optimisation.