Team

Hello, I’m Rhiannon Rees, the CEO driving the vision at PlantSea. My role encompasses leading funding initiatives, developing new business strategies, and fostering partnerships that drive positive change. With over 20 years of entrepreneurial experience, I bring a wealth of expertise to the team.

My journey as an entrepreneur and marketing academic has been marked by a passion for growing teams and businesses from the ground up. The decision to co-found PlantSea was born out of a desire to make a meaningful impact on the environment. The frustration I felt as a consumer, coupled with my experiences in Bali witnessing the pervasive use of plastic against a backdrop of stunning beauty, fuelled a commitment to providing viable and affordable biodegradable plastic alternatives.

My journey took a turn upon returning to Wales, where I actively engaged in beach cleans, confronting the issue of microplastics firsthand. These experiences solidified my resolve to offer consumers and businesses more choices in sustainable packaging, creating awareness and working towards reducing plastic consumption.

Beyond my work, I find solace and joy in travel and swimming, particularly in the sea. Having spent most of my life in Aberystwyth, living by the sea has instilled a deep love for the water and the beach.

The PlantSea journey has been a blend of challenges and fulfilment, driven by amazing support from customers, partners, and our dedicated team. I look forward to the day when PlantSea’s plastic-free products are not just a choice but a norm everywhere, impacting our environment.

With PlantSea, we have the opportunity to provide products that are better than what is currently available. Things that are better for the environment, but also better for consumers and end users. There are currently limited options available to select a more environmentally friendly alternative, particularly with packaging, and this limits the ability for us as individuals to make choices that reflect our values. At PlantSea, this is something we want to address so we can empower consumers and other businesses to make more ethical choices without compromising on performance or value for money.

The volumes of plastic consumed and wasted are vast and the potential for positive impact with environmentally friendly biomaterials is significant. Taking steps to address this challenge really excites and inspires me. Also, having such a strong team of talented and committed co-founders and employees who all share the dream and a passion for what we do really helps to drive us forward and continue to innovate. I am excited to see what comes next and to measure our impact on these global challenges.

I decided to undertake a dissertation to investigate a coastal algal bloom, a global warming consequence, affecting the seaside of my hometown. It was then when I first studied and learnt about Phycology, the Science of Seaweed, and learnt the numerous species and forms populating our seas – I was deeply fascinated by it that my family gifted to me a waterproof camera and I started collecting underwater photos capturing their colours and shapes.

My academic journey led me to Aberystwyth, a colourful Welsh coastal town where the bond with seaweed strengthened. There, I met friends and colleagues, like-minded people with common interests. Together, driven by our shared motives and passion for ventures, we decided to establish PlantSea.

As co-founder this venture holds immense significance for me, allowing me to merge my passion for the marine environment with the opportunity to harness the potential of seaweed biomaterials. Leading on research is a significant role for a start-up which is innovating and developing bio-based materials from raw seaweed. We are committed to develop a platform technology to offer eco-friendly and bio-based material alternatives, mitigating the impact of single-use plastics and empowering any future users to contribute positively to the planet’s well-being. Together with the other two PlantSea’s co-founder, we are building a strongly motivated team of people embracing our core values and dedicated to achieving our goals. We are bringing together a business network including seaweed farmers, researchers and manufacturers who certainly align with the business’s ethos, introducing truly biomaterial derived from renewable resources and working in syntony to make PlantSea impactful and successful!

Let’s turn the tide on plastic pollution.