Eduardo “Coco” Oderigo
Criminal Lawyer & Sports Psychologist | Co-Founder, Fundación Espartanos | TEDx Speaker | Disney+ Series Protagonist
Uma Valeti
Founder & CEO, UPSIDE Foods | Pioneer of the Cultivated Meat Industry | Mayo Clinic Cardiologist | Stanford Faculty | Global Thinker of the Decade
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Uma Valeti walked away from a career as a Mayo Clinic cardiologist to found UPSIDE Foods and create the cultivated meat industry. He secured the first dual FDA and USDA approval for cultivated chicken in the US, raised over $600M, and was named a Global Thinker of the Decade by Foreign Policy. His keynotes are a masterclass in building what no one believed was possible.
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Uma Valeti biography
Dr. Uma Valeti is the founder and CEO of UPSIDE Foods, the company that created the cultivated meat industry as we know it. A Mayo Clinic-trained cardiologist who walked away from a promising clinical career to pursue what most of his peers dismissed as science fiction, Valeti founded the company in 2015 — then called Memphis Meats — with a single conviction: that it was possible to grow real meat directly from animal cells, without raising or slaughtering a single animal. A decade later, that conviction has been validated by history.
Innovation speaker Uma Valeti built UPSIDE Foods into the most consequential company in alternative protein, raising over $600 million from a coalition of investors that includes Richard Branson, Bill Gates, Cargill, Tyson Foods, and SoftBank. The company achieved the first dual FDA and USDA regulatory approval for cultivated chicken in the United States — a milestone that rewrote what was considered scientifically and commercially possible. It was also the first to produce multiple species of meat (chicken, duck, and beef) from cultured cells, and the first to break ground on a dedicated cultivated meat production facility. Foreign Policy magazine named Valeti a “Global Thinker of the Decade” in 2019, and he has appeared at SXSW, the Aspen Ideas Festival, and in the Wall Street Journal.
His path from cardiologist to food technology founder was not accidental. In 2005, while practicing interventional cardiology at the Mayo Clinic, Valeti was studying the use of stem cells to repair damaged heart muscle. The connection came quickly: if stem cells could regenerate cardiac tissue, they could grow skeletal muscle tissue too. That insight became the intellectual foundation of UPSIDE Foods. He continued teaching Cardiovascular Medicine at Stanford University while building the company, and serves on the Advisory Council of the Good Food Institute.
Building a Category From Scratch
The UPSIDE Foods story is as much about category creation as it is about food technology. When Valeti founded the company, there were no regulatory pathways, no established investors in the space, no university programs, and no consumer vocabulary for what cultivated meat even was. By the time the company received federal approval in 2023, it had helped create an industry with over 150 companies operating across every major meat-producing country, billions in cumulative investment, and academic programs at leading agricultural universities. The company has since expanded into life sciences, developing cell culture media infrastructure that has applications well beyond food. It is also actively challenging state-level bans on cultivated meat through the courts, with cases in Florida and Texas moving forward.
As a speaker, Uma Valeti brings something rare to any stage: the founder’s view of a category that did not exist when he started building it. His talks cover the intersection of scientific conviction and commercial reality, what it takes to move technology from science fiction to regulatory approval, how to raise capital for ideas no one has funded before, and the long-term implications of cultivated protein for food security, public health, and animal welfare. For audiences in food, technology, sustainability, entrepreneurship, and healthcare, few speakers offer a more instructive case study in what it actually takes to change an industry from the inside.
Uma Valeti Speaking Videos
Is Cultivated Meat the Future of Food? | Uma Valeti | TED
What’s the Future of Food? A Chef + a Cardiologist Answer | @jonkung + Uma Valeti | Intersections
Uma Valeti Speaking Topics
Uma Valeti traces the full arc of UPSIDE Foods, from a Mayo Clinic insight about stem cells in 2005 to the first federally approved cultivated chicken in the US. This is not a product pitch. It is a first-person account of what it takes to commercialize a technology that didn't exist, in a regulatory environment with no precedent, for a market that had to be educated before it could be captured. Valeti covers the science, the capital-raising reality, the regulatory journey, and the competitive dynamics of a category he built from scratch. Essential viewing for anyone working at the frontier of deep tech or food systems.
The global food system faces three converging pressures: a growing population, the environmental cost of conventional livestock farming, and mounting concern about animal welfare and antibiotic resistance. In this keynote, Valeti lays out the case for cultivated protein not as a niche alternative but as a structural solution. He covers what has been proven scientifically and commercially, what remains to be solved at scale, and where the industry is headed over the next decade. Suited for sustainability conferences, food and agriculture forums, and events focused on the long-term future of consumption and supply chains.
In 2015, Uma Valeti was a respected Mayo Clinic cardiologist with a tenured path ahead of him. He walked away to found a company in a category that did not exist. This keynote is a candid account of that decision: the intellectual foundation that made it feel less irrational than it looked, the process of building conviction in the face of expert skepticism, and the principles that have guided the company through both its highest milestones and its most difficult periods. A session for founders, executives, and anyone navigating the tension between institutional safety and transformative risk.
Building a new food category required Uma Valeti to maintain conviction while operating in conditions designed to erode it: early scientific uncertainty, a skeptical investment community, no established regulatory pathway, and sustained media criticism. In this keynote, he examines the leadership behaviors that allowed UPSIDE Foods to reach federal approval and unicorn valuation, and what the company has learned as it now confronts the harder problem of commercial scale. Practical, honest, and unusually specific, this session is designed for senior audiences who have moved past inspiration and want the operational reality of transformational leadership.
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FAQs on Booking Uma Valeti
Booking Uma Valeti means bringing to your stage the founder of an entire industry: a physician who left clinical medicine to pursue an idea most experts called impossible, then spent a decade proving them wrong. His keynotes don't trade in abstractions. They are built from the direct experience of securing regulatory approval where none existed, raising over $600 million for a category investors had never funded, and navigating the full lifecycle of deep tech commercialization from a two-person startup to a federally approved food company. For events focused on innovation, entrepreneurship, sustainability, food technology, or the future of healthcare and science, few speakers offer a more credible, more compelling case study. Contact Aurum Speakers Bureau to check availability and book Dr. Valeti for your next event.
UPSIDE Foods, founded by Uma Valeti in 2015 as Memphis Meats, is the world's most funded and most recognized cultivated meat company. It was the first to grow real meat directly from animal cells across multiple species, the first to receive both FDA and USDA approval to sell cultivated chicken in the United States, and the first to build a dedicated production facility for cultivated meat at commercial scale. The company has raised over $600 million from investors including Richard Branson, Bill Gates, Cargill, and Tyson Foods. In 2019, Foreign Policy magazine named Valeti a "Global Thinker of the Decade" for his role in reshaping how the world thinks about protein production.
Cultivated meat (also called cell-cultured or lab-grown meat) is real animal meat grown directly from animal cells in a controlled facility, without raising or slaughtering animals. It is biologically identical to conventional meat, unlike plant-based alternatives such as Beyond Meat or Impossible Foods, which use plant proteins engineered to mimic the taste and texture of meat. UPSIDE Foods grows its products from a small sample of animal cells that are placed in a nutrient-rich environment and allowed to multiply and differentiate into muscle tissue, the same biological process that happens inside an animal's body.
Uma Valeti speaks on the science and business of cultivated meat, deep tech commercialization, mission-driven entrepreneurship, food security and sustainability, the future of protein, and the intersection of healthcare and food systems. He also speaks candidly about what it takes to secure regulatory approval for a genuinely new product category, how to build investor conviction around an unproven technology, and the leadership required to sustain a company through the long arc between founding vision and market reality. His talks are well suited to innovation conferences, sustainability summits, food and agriculture events, healthcare leadership gatherings, and entrepreneurship programs. Reach out to Aurum Speakers Bureau to explore availability and formats.
Aurum Speakers Bureau can help you book Uma Valeti as a speaker for your next event, conference, or board meeting. Simply fill out our contact form to inquire about Uma Valeti's availability for a speaking engagement. One of our booking agents will respond to your request immediately and contact the speaker to let them know you want to hire them. We will assist you with obtaining speaking fees, booking information, and confirming availability for Uma Valeti or any other top keynote speaker or celebrity of your choice.
Uma Valeti speaking fees are determined by several factors, including the event's date, whether it's a virtual or in-person event, the duration, format, preparation required for their speech, and more. The same applies to the cost to hire any other top expert speakers and celebrities. The Speaker Fee Range listed on our website is simply a guideline and is subject to change without notice. If you would like to hire Uma Valeti to deliver a keynote speech for your event, please fill out the contact form or email us at info@aurumbureau.com with as much detail as possible. One of our experienced agents will get in touch with you and let you know exactly how much it will cost to book Uma Valeti.
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Yes, Uma Valeti is available for virtual keynotes and webinars. To book Uma Valeti for a virtual event, please complete the contact form or send us an email to inquire about the special fees for virtual engagements.
