Residence Chicago, Illinois Years active 1980-present Name Nick Rosa | Nationality American Children 2 | |
Born 1951 (age 63–64) Chicago, Illinois Alma mater Northern Illinois University
(BS, 1973)
DePaul University
(MBA, 1976) Occupation Monsanto
(senior vice president, 1994-00)
NutraSweet
(president & CEO, 2000-02)
Sandbox Industries
(co-founder & managing director, 2003-present) | ||
Nick E. Rosa (born 1951) is an American executive, entrepreneur and venture capitalist. He was formerly the president and chief executive officer of NutraSweet, and co-founded Sandbox Industries, serving as managing director.
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Early life and education
Rosa was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois. He graduated from Northern Illinois University in 1973, with a BS in political science. He briefly worked in construction before earning his MBA at DePaul University in Chicago in 1976. As a graduate student, he spent six months in Kuwait, studying the country's non-oil-related economic opportunities.
NutraSweet
In 1980, Rosa joined G.D. Searle & Co. as a financial analyst. Searle's CEO at the time was future US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. In 1982, Rosa started working in business development in the company's NutraSweet division, based in Deerfield, Illinois. The brand name for the low-calorie sweetener aspartame, NutraSweet was created in Searle's laboratories in Skokie, Illinois, in 1965, and approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1981.
In 1985, Searle merged with Monsanto. After the merger, Rosa became a group vice president at NutraSweet, and general manager of Monsanto's global tabletop sweetener business, which included Equal and Canderel. The branding of aspartame Rosa helped to implement was the first time a food ingredient was branded and advertised to consumers. In 1991, he moved to Paris, France, after being named president and managing director of NutraSweet Europe, the company's new European headquarters. He also oversaw the European marketing development of the company's Simplesse fat substitute. In 1994, he returned to NutraSweet's US office after being named an executive vice president. That year, he was also elected to the company's board of directors. He served as president of Monsanto's nutrition and consumer products sector when it developed neotame in the late '90s, and ultimately became a senior vice president at Monsanto. In addition to his time in Europe, he also held a post at NutraSweet in Canada.
Monsanto sold its sweetener ingredient business, including NutraSweet, to Boston-based investment group JW Childs Equity Partners for $440 million in May 2000, and Rosa was named president and CEO of NutraSweet Company. He resigned in August 2002, following the FDA's approval of NutraSweet's new neotame sweetener in July 2002.
Sandbox Industries
In 2003, Rosa and Robert Shapiro founded venture capital firm and startup foundry Sandbox Industries in Chicago, Illinois, with $4 million. They then raised an additional $18 million. Rosa serves as managing director. He and Shapiro previously worked together as executives at Monsanto and NutraSweet. Sandbox is the fund manager for BlueCross BlueShield Venture Partners and Cultivian Sandbox Food and Agriculture Fund, among others. In addition to its original Chicago office, Sandbox opened a second office in San Francisco in 2012.
At Sandbox, Rosa has helped launch several companies, including Excelerate Labs in 2009, a Chicago-based program that connects young entrepreneurs to venture capitalists; Marbles: The Brain Store, a retailer focused on improving brain health; market research company Lab42; Healthbox, a company that funds promising healthcare startups; and Morgan Street Document Systems, an online document management system, which later folded. He also serves as an advisor to several companies.
Personal life
Rosa lives in Chicago and has two sons.