How Xampla’s principal scientist Lynette Holland became an industry leader without sacrificing her work-life balance
Growing up in Brazil, Lynette Holland was one of only two girls at school studying chemistry. But this didn’t deter her from pursuing her passion for Stem subjects.
From a young age she was driven by a desire to use her chemistry knowledge for good. For her International Baccalaureate research project she decided to investigate water pollution: ‘In Brazil there was a place called the Valley of Death, in a city called Cubatão, where [there was a lot of] very heavy chemical industry [leading to] birth defects,’ she explains.
‘I went to the water board and sat in their library for weeks, looking through their water quality data, trying to understand where the pollution was coming from and looking at these horrific figures.’
‘That’s when I realised that chemistry was more than just textbooks,’ says Holland. ‘Now I look back, I can see that’s where my first interest in sustainability came from.’
From tonnes to grams
For her undergraduate degree, Holland chose a broad natural sciences course at the University of Cambridge, UK, but when she realised it was the physical chemistry she enjoyed the most she moved into chemical engineering for her third year and Master’s degree.
Holland was lucky enough to get a job straight out of university at the UK arm of the US manufacturing company, Procter & Gamble (P&G) – a company she would be at for the next two decades, starting off in a factory-facing research role and progressing through the chain of research and development, effectively moving further backwards in the production process.
For her undergraduate degree, Holland chose a broad natural sciences course at the University of Cambridge, UK, moving into chemical engineering for her third year and Master’s degree.
Holland was lucky enough to get a job straight out of university at the UK arm of the US manufacturing company, Procter & Gamble (P&G) – a company she would be at for the next two decades, starting off in a factory-facing research role and progressing through the chain of research and development.
‘[I went] from making tonnes of washing powder an hour, to make a few grams on the bench in the chemistry lab,’ Holland says.
Eventually she led work between the company and UK universities, scouting for new technologies and materials and figuring out how to take them into industry.
When P&G’s parent company decided to close its UK operations, Holland was forced to move on. Although unplanned, she now sees it as a positive change enabling her to put all she had learned into exciting new ventures.
Natural developments
She first encountered Xampla in 2019 while she was working for herself as a consultant. At that point the company was a startup with huge ambitions to become a global leader in natural polymers to help fight plastic pollution.
‘They had this material which … was just absolutely amazing,’ says Holland. ‘[I thought] I have to be a part of this journey.’
Around the same period the European Chemicals Agency came out with new regulations essentially banning microplastics from consumer products, disrupting the fragrance industry. ‘Entire project groups stopped what they were doing and focused on finding biodegradable alternatives,’ she says.
Now a company of around 40 employees, Holland has seen Xampla grow from strength to strength.
‘It’s been amazing to see the scale up … it was literally an empty lab with a few cardboard boxes on the floor … now we have several labs, we’ve just opened our pilot plant and have been able to build essentially all the analytical capabilities for physical and chemical analysis of samples.’
As principal scientist, Holland sees her role falling into three distinct camps: ensuring the company has the right people, equipment and facilities to do R&D; using her expertise to lead its work on microencapsulation; and managing the company’s patent portfolio.
Xampla has a patented process for transforming plant materials – mainly proteins – into useable structures and its inventions have gained the interest of some well-known brands, including the British meal kit company, Gousto.
‘We had a project where their stock cubes were wrapped in our film,’ Holland explains. ‘The film comes from pea proteins, and … is edible so you don’t have to unwrap the stock cube, you put it in the pot, you stir it in and everything ends up being eaten as part of the meal – from plastic waste to zero waste.’
It also has an ongoing partnership with British skincare brand, Elemis, with whom they have been developing a film made entirely from plant materials that can be used as home-compostable packaging.
Xampla is also working on replacing the microplastic capsules in fragranced products with fully biodegradable microcapsules and swapping the coatings on takeaway containers with materials that can be more easily recycled.
Flexible success
With so much experience working in the R&D field, Holland has seen many changes over the past 25 years.
‘Certainly the focus on sustainability,’ she says. ‘I remember when I graduated most of my peers went into the oil industry … and now there are so many places that chemists can work where they can actually do good,’ she says.
Holland has also been fortunate enough to work part time without sacrificing her career progression. In fact, in 2017, Holland was recognised by the social enterprise, Timewise, in their flexible working awards; an achievement she is incredibly proud of.
‘It highlighted that part time doesn’t mean that … you have to take an inferior role. At the time I was doing three days a week and I’d managed to progress and be at the top of my industry,’ she says.
Why not choose to do something positive?
However, she recognises that compared to 20 years ago, it is now much harder for graduates to enter the industry and the path of progression is less well defined: ‘there is sometimes so much choice that it’s hard to know where to go’.
But she has made it her mission to help her more junior colleagues navigate the crowded workspace and find out what is right for them..
‘One of the things I try to do is mentor some of the younger talent that we have in the organisation and because I feel I’m reaching the ceiling of my personal achievement, achieving through others is really important.’
‘The sustainability sector is growing … the opportunities for chemistry to enable technologies that we haven’t even thought of are huge … why not choose to do something positive?’
This article was corrected on 2 April 2024 to clarify that Holland was the not the only girl who studied chemistry at her school
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