ABOUT VOLTAIQ

Dr. Tal Sholklapper is a co-founder of Voltaiq and serves as the company’s Chief Executive Officer. Before co-founding Voltaiq, Dr. Sholklapper was the lead engineer on a DOE ARPA-E funded project at the CUNY Energy Institute, developing an ultra-low-cost grid-scale battery.

Prior to his work at CUNY, Tal co-founded Point Source Power, a low-cost fuel-cell startup based on technology he developed while at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) and UC Berkeley. Dr. Sholklapper has a BS, MS and PhD in Materials Science and Engineering from UC Berkeley.

Dr. Eli Leland is a Voltaiq co-founder and Chief Technical Officer, responsible for the company’s Product and Engineering functions. Prior to Voltaiq, Eli worked at the CUNY Energy Institute as lead engineer on an ARPA-E energy storage and power conversion research project. Before CUNY, Dr. Leland worked at Trilogy Software, where he successfully deployed large-scale enterprise software systems to Fortune 500 companies.

He was a Mirzayan Policy Fellow in Energy and Environmental Systems at the National Academies in Washington, DC. Eli has an MS and PhD in Mechanical Engineering from UC Berkeley, and a BSE in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from Princeton.

Mark is the SVP of Customer Success and Partnerships at Voltaiq. He has a 17-year career working in the domains of process control, semiconductor capital equipment, and most recently, semiconductor and battery materials manufacturing.

Prior to joining Voltaiq, Mark founded and led Moses Lake Industries’ battery materials business unit which develops novel materials for lithium battery cell producers in the U.S. He was also involved with leading multiple different technology development groups in his role as director of technology. This work included developing and rolling out a novel electroplating technology to one of the world’s leading logic chip manufacturers.

Mark holds a PhD in Chemical Engineering from Columbia University and a BS from Syracuse University.

Liam is the Senior Director of Customer Programs at Voltaiq. He is an experienced innovator with a 15-year history of working cross-functionally in the software, energy storage, start-up, and nonprofit industries.

Prior to joining Voltaiq, Liam held a variety of technical and customer-facing roles with Aquion Energy, lastly as their Head of Deployments and Field Services.

Prior to landing into the world of electrochemistry, Liam worked in the Outdoor Education field with organizations such as Venture Outdoors, the US Forest Service and SCA. He is also a trained baker, but couldn’t cut the early hours.

Liam graduated with a BA from Hobart and William Smith Colleges.

Dr. Tal Sholklapper is a co-founder of Voltaiq and serves as the company’s Chief Executive Officer. Before co-founding Voltaiq, Dr. Sholklapper was the lead engineer on a DOE ARPA-E funded project at the CUNY Energy Institute, developing an ultra-low-cost grid-scale battery.

Prior to his work at CUNY, Tal co-founded Point Source Power, a low-cost fuel-cell startup based on technology he developed while at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) and UC Berkeley. Dr. Sholklapper has a BS, MS and PhD in Materials Science and Engineering from UC Berkeley.

Mark is the SVP of Customer Success and Partnerships at Voltaiq. He has a 17-year career working in the domains of process control, semiconductor capital equipment, and most recently, semiconductor and battery materials manufacturing.

Prior to joining Voltaiq, Mark founded and led Moses Lake Industries’ battery materials business unit which develops novel materials for lithium battery cell producers in the U.S. He was also involved with leading multiple different technology development groups in his role as director of technology. This work included developing and rolling out a novel electroplating technology to one of the world’s leading logic chip manufacturers.

Mark holds a PhD in Chemical Engineering from Columbia University and a BS from Syracuse University.

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.

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.

Former VP of Engineering, battery pack lead at Apple, Quantumscape, 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+

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.

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.

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.

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.

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