Speakers 2022

Kevin Rhodes is Senior Director of Battery Development at Lyten. He is responsible for working with automotive OEMs and driving the development of suitable battery cell, module, and control system development for electrified passenger car, commercial vehicle, off-road, aviation, and stationary applications.

Prior to joining Lyten, Kevin was Chief Engineer and Electrification Segment Leader at AVL, the world’s largest independent powertrain engineering company. Before this, he spent nearly a decade working in R&D, electrification strategy, and supervising the Advanced Electrified Powertrain Systems group at Ford Motor Company.

Kevin received his doctorate in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of Tennessee where he performed research at Oak Ridge National Laboratory related to advanced energy storage material synthesis and novel in situ battery characterization techniques. He holds an extensive list of publications and patents related to battery active materials, vehicle electrification, and energy storage which have received over a thousand citations and implementation on major electrified vehicle programs. Additionally, he has served as a committee chairman for the Electrochemical Society and earned graduate certificates in electric powertrain architecture design and advanced refinement techniques for X-ray and neutron diffraction data analysis.

Kunal Phalpher is the Chief Commercial Officer of Li-Cycle Corp. He has extensive international experience in the lithium-ion battery and renewable energy sectors, with a focus primarily on strategy and business development. His recent experience includes working as a Director of Product Development at a residential solar company and Director of Business Development with a lithium-ion battery manufacturer. Prior to those roles, Kunal spent several years in Germany working in the renewable energy and energy storage sectors.

Educated as a chemical engineer at the University of Cambridge in England, Richard Clark has been with Morgan Advanced Materials (LSE: MGAM) for over 30 years, developing and commercializing carbon and ceramic materials and components. He leads Morgan’s work in energy storage, which encompasses all businesses related to lithium-ion batteries and fuel cells as well as products directly or indirectly related to electric vehicles.

His experience in materials and product development covers a wide-range, including inception and commercialization of three recognized as globally best-in-class: graphite for synthetic diamonds; ablative carbon material for space vehicle propulsion; anode graphite for lithium-ion batteries for power tool applications. Most recently he has focused on the manufacture and use of ceramics in and around lithium-ion batteries, for which he has several patent applications as a named inventor.

Tim has over 35 years experience exclusively working in the light and heavy commercial vehicle sector on a global scale, helping many of the household names from OEM’s, Tier 1 and Finance institutions His consultancy and training company operates around the world offering insights into the various aspects of the commercial vehicle sector, particularly looking at the autonomy, connectivity and zero emission vehicles. Tim holds Galileo Master Certificate in Electric Vehicles from the European Energy Centre. Speeches and moderator engagements in the last 12 months include Urban Freight Alexandra Palace London, CV Show Chennai India, Green Truck Show Indianapolis USA, CV Forum Pune India and FTA Future Van Conference Coventry. He has had a home in the US for 17 years and travels around the world reviewing the advances in alternative fuels and connectivity for the commercial vehicle market including countries such as India, China, Japan, South America, Australia, Russia as well as Europe and the US.

Dr. Pirmin Ulmann is a co-founder and CEO of b-science.net, an information service that provides strategic analyses of the energy storage patent literature based on a supervised machine learning approach.

Rob Privette, Business Development Manager, North America for Umicore Rechargeable Battery Materials (RBM) is the prime OEM and customer interface in North America and develops new RBM strategic business. He has more than 30 years of experience developing and commercializing new products in the battery and fuel cell industries. He has an M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Purdue University and has completed M.B.A. coursework.

Before rejoining Umicore he was Vice President Energy Markets at XG Sciences, a Michigan-based start-up commercializing graphene-based products. In this role he created and grew XGS' Energy Materials business targeting silicon/graphene anode materials and graphene conductive additives for lithium-ion batteries. Prior to that he was Product Development Director and U.S. Fuel Cell Development Director at Ovonic Energy Conversion Devices and Umicore Fuel Cells respectively.

Dr. Madhuri Thakur: Manager of Cell Technology Development
Experience: 12 years Li-ion technology development with focus on Silicon anode materials at Farasis, Qnovo, Leyden Energy and Rice University; PhD Physics

I am a graduate of Central Michigan University with a Bachelor in Science degree specializing in Management Information Systems. I have nearly 10 years of experience working in the industrial cleanliness industry for SBS Ecoclean (formerly Durr Ecoclean) as a Lab Technician and Project Coordinator for industrial cleaning machine projects. This experience gave me the fundamental knowledge and motivation to pursue my current position with JOMESA North America. As Product Manager, I am responsible for promoting our world-class automated particle analysis software as well as the accessories that JOMESA has become well known for. I have a passion for science and problem solving which fits perfectly in a company like JOMESA.

Sachiya Inagaki, MBA, Senior Exucutive Manager/Seoul Branch Office Manager, Industrial Technology Unit/Seoul Branch Office, Yano Research Institute, ltd.

Sachiya Inagaki has been working with Yano Research Institute since August 2000. Since 2009, he has been focusing primarily on market research for xEVs, LiB cells and it's materials. He also has been publishing market reports as to LiB and material annually and conducting a lot of custermised research so far.

Since August 2011, he had been in a position of General Manager of Seoul branch office for three years and he has been in a position of Senior Executive Manager of Industrial Technology Unit at headquarter in Tokyo, Japan.

He has acquired MBA from Tsukuba University in 2007.

John Chmiola is an experienced research professional that specializes in developing very early stage energy storage devices then quickly and efficiently moving them from the benchtop to pilot scale. He has more than 15 years of experience in devices that run the gambit from tiny inkjet printed IoT-scale (<50 mW) batteries to hulking thought inexpensive grid-scale (>50 MW) batteries. He has a PhD from Drexel University and dozens of patents/publications with >8,000 citations.

Dr. Matti Vint is currently Founder and Principal of E-Mobility Technology Systems, specializing on providing strategic and technical consulting services in e-mobility. Prior to this he was Engineering R&D Director of Valeo Powertrain North America for 6 years. He has held a number of technical management positions through his career that includes working in Australia and USA, with 30 years experience in powertrain, of which over 15 years has included electrification of powertrains.

Mr. Schaffer is currently the Global Director of Sales for Danfoss Editron responsible for Global Electrification Sales for On-Highway commercial business. In this role, Mr. Schaffer leads Danfoss Sales and business development initiatives, focusing on developing and enhancing new business opportunities, product and global expansion and investigation of potential strategic partnerships to allow continued growth into the vehicle electrification marketplace.

Prior to Danfoss, Mr. Schaffer was Senior Vice President of Sales and Business Development for UQM Technologies, Inc. since 2011. UQM was purchased by Danfoss in 2019. Mr. Schaffer also held the position of Vice President of Sales for the Industrial Commercial & Energy Group (ICE) for Linamar Corporation - a leading supplier to the global vehicle and mobile industrial equipment markets. Adrian also spent nearly twenty years in senior executive and sales positions at Motorola where he successfully launched new technologies that are now a part of the global vehicle marketplace. Adrian earned his Executive MBA from Michigan State University and has a Bachelor of Arts degree from Oberlin College.

Navistar Vice President of eMobility Gary Horvat has over 35 years of experience in the automotive industry, with an educational background in both industrial and manufacturing engineering, including a Ph.D. in industrial engineering. Gary started his career at Eaton Corporation working on Heavy Duty Truck Axles and Transmissions. The majority of his career was at General Motors where he was responsible for the engine controls on the third-generation small block V8 and as assistant chief engineer, launched the 3900 V6 Engine, winning the Popular Mechanics “Breakthrough” Award. Gary’s last position at GM was as Executive Director of engineering operations, managing powertrain global development, testing and validation facilities. After his GM career he was Vice President of Product Development at Fisker Automotive as well as Vice President of Powertrain at DENSO International. Gary was the CTO at Proterra from 2015 through 2018. At Proterra, Horvat was responsible for all engineering and technology development for that company’s electric bus product line. Accomplishments included setting a world record of 1101.2 miles for the longest range of any electric vehicle on one charge. At Navistar, Horvat is responsible for augmenting and aligning Navistar’s eMobility team in all commercial, technical, and implementation activities for Navistar’s various product lines.

With background in Mechanical Engineering, Alexandre Almeida is a PMI certified program manager responsible for coordinating the Innovation and Pre-development portfolios at MAHLE Filter Systems North America, Inc. In his more than 7 years of international experience in the automotive sector, he has contributed with several patent applications and papers in Brazil, Europe and North America. Most recently, he is engaged in both technical and strategy development of peripheral systems and components for electric, hybrid and fuel cell vehicles.

Jenna King is the CEO of Amionx, Inc. Ms. King has twenty years of experience working with technology companies ranging from startup ventures to large public companies. Prior to joining Amionx, Ms. King served as CEO of a fast-growing consumer products company and prior to that role served as General Counsel and a member of the executive leadership team of a large medical device manufacturer.

Jim Sherman joined VFS in May 2019 as the Society's Director of Strategic Development, responsible for setting and executing the Society’s strategy for promoting membership development and growth. Jim in particular is responsible for supporting the development of the "Electric VTOL Revolution" and expanding the Society’s membership in this fast-growing market segment.
Jim worked for SAE International for more than 8 years as the lead event developer for aerospace and automotive technology, including AeroTech, Convergence, Aerospace Systems and Technology Conference (ASTC), International Powered Lift Conference (IPLC), and the Connect2Car program at CES. He also led many other strategic programs that coordinated SAE Aerospace activities.
Prior to SAE, Jim worked at BAE Systems in Johnson City, New York (now Endicott) for 15 years as a project engineer leading programs targeted at military ground vehicle power systems, hybrid-electric drive for heavy-duty vehicles (transit buses, class 5/6 trucks). As an individual contributor earlier in his career, he developed flight and engine controls, and systems/software test protocols for the V-22, C-17, F-18, Saab 2000, T700, GE90 and CFM56. Jim also worked at IBM for four years developing digital audio and video compression/decompression algorithms.
Jim holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Penn State University, a M.S. in Electrical Engineering and an M.B.A from Binghamton University.

Graduated in Chemical Engineering from Brussels University, 1983
Joined Umicore, 1984
Department head Special Materials, Hoboken Belgium, 1990-1994
Graduated Master in Business from the Flanders School of Business, 1992
General Manager Cobalt Products, Maxton, NC 1994-1998
President Umicore Marketing Services USA, New York, NY, and Raleigh, NC 1998-2016