Accelerating the transition to a battery-powered world.

Richard Spitzer, Founder and Managing Partner at Escavel Capital, a venture capital and private equity investor with deep knowledge of the automotive space.

Prior to his role at Escavel, Spitzer served as Global Managing Partner for Automotive Accenture and Senior Partner at A.T. Kearney Automotive.

Rick Wagoner, Director at ChargePoint Inc., Excelitas Technologies, Graham Holdings, and Invesco, where he serves as Chairman, had a 32-year career at General Motors where he held senior leadership positions including Chairman and CEO for almost a decade, Chief Operating Officer, Chief Financial Officer, and head of worldwide purchasing.

He currently serves as an advisor to Jefferies and Riverwood Holdings, and is an investor in and advisor to a number of startups and early stage companies in the auto space.

Celina Mikolajczak has spent 20 years working in lithium-ion batteries and has taken on a variety of roles across the field.  At Exponent, Celina helped found the battery consulting group and developed battery failure analysis techniques and safety standards related to consumer electronics devices.

She led Cell Quality and Materials Engineering at Tesla while the company launched Model S, Model X, Model 3, Powerwall and Powerpack products.  Celina joined Uber as Director of Battery Engineering to lead design of battery packs for micro-mobility and urban air mobility applications.  She then became Vice President of Engineering and Battery Technology at Panasonic Energy of North America, which produces li-ion cells for Tesla at the Gigafactory in Sparks, Nevada. 

Celina currently works as the Vice President of Manufacturing Engineering at QuantumScape, where she is taking a leadership role in developing QuantumScape’s cell manufacturing capability.  Celina has a particular passion for battery safety.  She has published extensively on this topic, and has served on a variety of li-ion battery safety standards committees including those responsible for UL 1642, UL 2054, and NFPA 855, as well as working groups supporting development of fire codes related to li-ion battery production, storage, and installation.

Kevin Whalen, President of Rohrich Automotive Group, brings more than 40 years of automotive retail experience to the board. Whalen was a founding member of Fortune 500 company Group One Automotive and Ascent Automotive.

He also served on the Product Advisory Committee for Toyota and as the Chairman of the National Dealer Council for Lexus.

Robert Galyen, Chairman of Galyen Energy LLC, has over 40 years of experience in the battery technology and business space. Over more than 20 years at General Motors, he helped to develop the GM Impact electric car concept, and was the former President of Global Cells and Battery Pack Systems at Magna International and Chief Technology Officer at the world’s largest battery manufacturer, Contemporary Amperex Technology Company Limited (CATL).

In addition to his board role at Voltaiq, he also serves as Chairman of Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) Battery Standards Committee and NAATBatt International as CTO and Chairman Emeritus.

Dr. V. Sumantran, Chairman at strategic advisory firm Celeris Technologies, has over 35 years of global automotive experience specifically spanning the Americas, Europe and India.

Sumantran’s background includes serving on the Board of Directors of Tata Motors where he was chief executive of the Car Division. Sumantran was also Vice Chairman of Indian commercial vehicle company Ashok Leyland, Special Advisor to the Leadership of the Renault-Nissan Alliance, and is currently on the advisory board for multiple Fortune 500 companies.

Carl-Peter Forster, brings extensive board and management experience from the world’s biggest automotive companies to the Voltaiq Advisory Board. Forster served as General Motors Automotive Strategy Board (ASB) member, CEO and President of General Motors Europe, and as CEO of Tata Motors where he was responsible for Jaguar LandRover, and held various senior management positions at BMW AG. His last position at BMW was head of Global Manufacturing.

He has also held board positions at Volvo Cars, Geely Automotive Holdings, LEVC (London Electric Vehicle Company), CEVT and Rolls-Royce Plc. Currently he is the Chairman of the Shareholder Committee at Hella KGaA and Chairman of Chemring Plc, a NED at IMI Plc as well as Babcock Plc and serves on the boards of the automotive related small cap/startup companies LeddarTech, Envisics, ClearMotion, Gordon Murray Design, Kinexon and The Mobility House.

Chris Perry, Chief Innovation Officer at Weber Shandwick has served as the communication agency’s lead for the General Motors for over twenty years—and has worked with global brands including PepsiCo, IBM, Novartis and Verizon to modernize marketing and PR functions.

He also serves on a number of boards, including First Draft News, a leading non-profit research center that protects communities from harmful disinformation campaigns.

Kenzo Nagai is a battery industry consultant and Voltaiq advisor who brings nearly three decades of experience — from early prototypes to mass production — at some of the world’s leading companies in the battery field, including Tesla, Apple, E-One Moli, and Northvolt. Kenzo’s specific expertise includes facility design, process development and scale-up, product and process validation, quality assurance, factory audits, and project management.

Peter Haeussermann, General Manager of Mitsubishi Electric, brings more than 40 years of expertise in automotive technology development to Voltaiq including 38 years at automotive company Daimler AG.

Haeussermann has also served as an advisor to various OEMs and component suppliers in the automotive business. In addition to his role at Mitsubishi, he is also the Senior Expert at Hanselmann & Compagnie GmbH.

Former VP of Engineering, battery pack lead at Apple, Quantumscape, and A123.

Daniel Steingart is the Stanley Thompson Associate Professor of Chemical Metallurgy and Chemical Engineering and the co-director of the Columbia Electrochemical Energy Center. His group studies the systematic behaviors of material deposition, conversion, and dissolution in electrochemical reactors with a focus on energy storage devices. His current research looks to exploit traditional failure mechanisms and interactions in batteries, turning unwanted behaviors into beneficial mechanisms.

His efforts in this area over the last decade have been adopted by various industries and have led directly or indirectly to five electrochemical energy related startup companies, the latest being Feasible, an effort dedicated to exploiting the inherent acoustic responses of closed electrochemical systems. Steingart joined Columbia Engineering in 2019 from Princeton University where he was an associate professor in the department of mechanical and aerospace engineering and the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment. Earlier, he was an assistant professor in chemical engineering at the City College of the City University of New York. Even earlier he was an engineer at two energy related startups . He received his PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, in 2006.

Vice President of Marketing at PDF Solutions,
Former VP Worldwide Marketing for Optimal+.

Takuya Hirano previously worked for Microsoft, where he supported global enterprise leaders through digital transformational journeys with cloud-based solutions. As president & CEO of Microsoft’s Japan subsidiary, Hirano led strategic growth and innovation for Japanese enterprise customers, while optimizing their business operations with technology.

Hirano’s close partnership with Japan’s leading organizations supports Voltaiq's growth in the APAC region and accelerate battery innovation in Japan.