Management Team
KR Sridhar, Ph.D - Principal Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Bill Kurtz - Chief Financial Officer
George Nguyen - Chief Operations Officer
Stu Aaron - Vice President Marketing and Product Management
David Barber - Vice President Human Resources
Martin J. Collins - Vice President, Corporate Development
Todd Fierro - Director of Manufacturing
John Finn, Ph.D - Co-Founder, Vice President Technology Infrastructure
Martin Janousek, Ph.D - Vice President Technology Development
Jim McElroy - Co-Founder, Chief Scientist
Ravi Oswal - Vice President Process and Quality Engineering
Bill Thayer - Vice President Sales and Service
Venkat Venkataraman, Ph.D - Vice President Product Development
Gary Workman - Director of Quality and Reliability
KR Sridhar, Ph.D Principal Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Prior to founding Bloom Energy, Dr. KR Sridhar was Director of the Space Technologies Laboratory (STL) at the University of Arizona where he was also a professor of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering. Under his leadership, STL won several nationally competitive contracts to conduct research and development for Mars exploration and flight experiments to Mars. KR has served as an advisor to NASA and has led major consortia of industry, academia, and national labs. His work for the NASA Mars program to convert Martian atmospheric gases to oxygen for propulsion and life support was recognized by Fortune Magazine, where he was cited as "one of the top five futurists inventing tomorrow, today." As one of the early pioneers in green tech, KR also serves as a strategic limited partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and as a special advisor to New Enterprise Associates. He has also served on many technical committees, panels and advisory boards and has several publications and patents. KR received his bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering with Honors from the University of Madras (now called NIT, Trichy), India, as well as his master’s degree in Nuclear Engineering and Ph.D in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.
Bill Kurtz Chief Financial Officer
Bill Kurtz has accumulated 30 years experience serving as either Chief Financial Officer or COO/CFO for both Fortune 500 companies and fast growth Mid-Cap companies in both the East Coast and Silicon Valley. Prior to joining Bloom Energy, Kurtz was Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Novellus Systems, Inc., a global semiconductor equipment company and was Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Engenio Information Technologies, Inc. Prior to Engenio, Bill held Senior Financial positions and served as Chief Operating Officer & Chief Financial Officer for 3PAR Data, Inc. and Chief Financial Officer for Scient Corporation. Bill spent 15 years at AT&T and rose rapidly thru the management ranks holding a number of high profile development roles intended to prepare him for the position of CFO of AT&T, including AT&T Cost Czar where he was responsible for AT&T's worldwide cost reduction program. Bill began his career in public accounting and earned his CPA certification at Price Waterhouse, now PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP. Bill currently serves on the Board of Directors for PMC-Sierra Inc and is Chair of their Audit Committee. He holds a bachelor's degree in Commerce (major in Accounting) from Rider University and a master's degree in Management Sciences from Stanford University.
George Nguyen Chief Operations Officer
George is a proven operations executive with more than 25 years of experience in the industrial, aerospace, and electronics industries. He brings to Bloom a strong engineering and technology background with a track record of success in all aspects of operations from new product introduction, to lean manufacturing, to supply chain management. Most recently George was Senior Vice President of Operations for Hawker Beechcraft Corporation, a $3.5 billion aviation company. At Hawker Beechcraft, George was responsible for global operations with over 6500 employees worldwide. Earlier in his career, George served at Eaton Corporation as Corporate Vice President and President Heavy Duty Transmission Operations and Truck China. At Eaton, George was responsible for the $1.45 billion worldwide heavy duty transmission business with approximately 2,900 employees covering 11 sites across the globe. George has also held executive level positions at ASIMCO Technologies Limited, Honeywell International, AlliedSignal, and United Technologies Corporation. He holds a bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering from Rutgers University, and a master's degree in Manufacturing Engineering from Boston University.
Stu Aaron Vice President Marketing and Product Management
Stu Aaron brings to Bloom Energy more than 20 years proven experience in technology marketing, product management, and business development, having played principal roles in multiple highly successful startup ventures. Most recently Stu held the roles of Vice President of Marketing, Product Management, and Business Development at Topspin Communications, which was acquired by Cisco Systems in May 2005. Stu joined Topspin pre-revenue and was responsible for focusing the technology-centric company on new market opportunities and successfully positioning it as the leader in a new category of intelligent data center infrastructure. Before Topspin, Stu spent three years at CacheFlow Inc., where he held the positions of Vice President of Marketing and Product Management. Stu led the company through one of the most successful IPOs in history and helped achieve #1 market share in caching appliances. Prior to CacheFlow, Stu was the Assistant Vice President of Marketing in the IP and Internetworking Product Group at Newbridge Networks Inc., where he was instrumental in launching the groundbreaking VIVID switched routing architecture. Before joining Newbridge, Stu worked as an Industry Analyst with the Network Strategies Practice of Ernst &Young. Stu has also held a variety of research and development positions at 3M Corporation and National Semiconductor Corporation and holds a bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from Cornell University.
David Barber Vice President Human Resources
David Barber has more than 20 years of Human Resources experience specializing in start-up or early stage companies during periods of high growth and dynamic cultural development. Prior to Bloom, he was the Vice President of Human Resources at Good Technology, where he was instrumental in enabling the company's explosive growth and held a leadership role in the acquisition by Motorola, Inc. Prior to Good Technology, Mr. Barber held the role of Vice President of Organization Development at Flywheel Communications, where he was responsible for strategic development of the leadership team and execution of all facets of the HR function. Earlier, he held the title of Sr. Vice President of Human Resources at Medscape and guided the organization from private to public company, through two large acquisitions and ultimately facilitated the transition in the course of being acquired. Before this, Mr. Barber held HR operating positions at Netscape Communication and Apple computer. He earned a bachelor’s degree. in Finance from San Jose State University.
Martin J. Collins Vice President, Corporate Development
Martin brings to Bloom over 20 years of experience in negotiating commercial transactions and financings, as well as managing the expansion of businesses into new markets. Martin previously served as Senior Vice President, General Counsel, Chief Compliance Officer and Manager of Internal Audit at Novellus Systems, a maker of semiconductor manufacturing equipment, at posts in both the U.S. and Asia. Prior to that Martin was Vice President & Associate General Counsel at Oracle Corporation, where he was responsible for all M&A and corporate matters. Martin joined Oracle from Mayer Brown LLP, a global law firm, where he was a corporate partner based first in New York and then Palo Alto. Mr. Collins holds a B.A. in Political Economy from Williams College and a J.D. from the Georgetown University Law Center.
Todd Fierro Director of Manufacturing
Todd Fierro brings to Bloom more than 20 years of manufacturing experience in the automotive and aircraft industries. Prior to joining Bloom in 2009, Todd was Vice President of Manufacturing at Eclipse Aviation. At Eclipse, Todd was responsible for all aspects of high-rate production for the Eclipse 500 light aircraft. Todd joined Eclipse Aviation following a long and successful career at Ford Motor Company, where he ascended rapidly and most recently served as plant manager for the company's Sterling Heights, Michigan, production facility. In his 18 years at Ford, Todd was known for his commitment to aggressive process improvement and his ability to increase production capability while maintaining a very lean operation. Early in his tenure at Ford, he was appointed to lead the launch of the F Series truck. In 1997, Ford chose Todd to lead its global dimensional control efforts, where he worked closely with the company's European and Asian operations. Two years later, he became the body area manager, and was responsible for all body module fabrication of the Ford Focus product line. Ford soon promoted Todd to lead final assembly for the Ford Taurus, where he oversaw a plant that produced 74 Taurus vehicles an hour. In 2004, Fierro implemented lean processes at the Cleveland engine plant, giving working groups greater responsibility for their decision making. Todd earned a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Wayne State University.
John Finn, Ph.D Co-Founder, Vice President Technology Infrastructure
Prior to co-founding Bloom Energy, John Finn directed development of gas separation and purification technologies at NASA Ames Research Center, where he was regarded as one of NASA's top experts in trace contaminant control and air revitalization for life support systems. Before moving into his current responsibility for development testing worldwide, John was the founding Vice President of Technology Development for Bloom. John holds a bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering from Iowa State University and a Ph.D in Chemical Engineering from the University of Massachusetts.
Martin Janousek, Ph.D Vice President Technology Development
Martin Janousek joined Bloom Energy from Plansee AG, where he was a Manager and Deputy Director of the Technology Center Business Unit. Martin spent nine years at Plansee in various product development rolls including Manager for Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Development. He holds the distinction of being the youngest graduate of the Plansee Management Academy. Prior to Plansee, Martin was a Fellow with Siemens AG Power Generation, responsible for the development and manufacturing of metallic components for solid oxide fuel cells. Martin holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D in Material Science and Technology of Metals from Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nurnberg, Germany.
Jim McElroy Co-Founder, Chief Scientist
Jim McElroy is one of the founding fathers of modern fuel cell technology. His career dates back to the 1960's where he was a space fuel cell pioneer managing Gemini fuel cell projects for NASA. Since that time he has also managed Biosatellite and Space Shuttle Fuel cell projects for the space agency. Jim is also the managing member of McElroy PEM Technologies, a fuel cell consulting firm. Before that he spent 14 years as a program manager for Space, Sea and Aircraft Electrochemical Products for Hamilton Standard, and 21 years as an Engineering Manager at General Electric's Electrochemical Energy Conversion Research Center. Jim has been awarded more than 40 patents in the electrochemical energy conversion field and has authored more than 50 papers, journal articles and conference presentations on the use of electrochemical systems for space, aircraft, undersea vehicular and terrestrial applications. His IEEE journal article entitled "Fuel Cell Power Plants for Automotive Applications" is considered the seminal work for the surging interest in PEM fuel-cell powered, zero emissions vehicles. Jim holds a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from Tufts University.
Ravi Oswal Vice President Process and Quality Engineering
Ravi Oswal brings more than 25 years of proven experience in process and quality engineering, technology development, and operations in both Fortune 500 and startup companies. At Telespree Communications, a wireless software startup, Ravi built the service delivery team from scratch, deployed international customers and established the quality assurance team and process. At Zoho, a business to business e-commerce company, Ravi set up the professional services team, established and operated the network infrastructure, and established content conversion at 50% lower cost than benchmarks. At Raychem Corporation, a leading high tech materials company, Ravi was responsible for a variety of roles from engineering, operations and quality, to product management. Ravi led worldwide operations for a $300 million per year division and delivered programs with double digit gross margin and yield improvements. He was instrumental in scaling up new technologies to high volume and setting up world class manufacturing with a global footprint. Earlier in his career at Raychem, Ravi was responsible for leading the development of three generations of products based on electro-active materials, for which he holds seven patents. Ravi has a bachelor’s degree. in Chemical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi, and a master’s degree in Chemical Engineering from M.I.T.
Bill Thayer Vice President Sales and Service
Bill Thayer joined Bloom Energy as the Vice President of Sales & Service in September of 2005. Before joining Bloom Energy, Bill spent 13 years at American Power Conversion (APC) in a number of senior leadership, management and sales roles. Bill began his career at APC by creating the federal government sales organization and establishing APC as the market leader in that segment. He then moved to Asia-Pacific, first as the Sales Director and was later promoted to the Vice President and General Manager of that region. After helping build the Asia-Pacific operation from a small team of ten people to the dominant power protection vendor in the region, he moved back to APC headquarters and took over as the Vice President of North America, where he was responsible for more than $1B in revenue. Bill graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy with a bachelor’s degree in General Engineering and spent ten years as a Surface Warfare Officer, serving aboard destroyers and cruisers in the Pacific Fleet before being assigned to the Naval War College. He also holds a master’s degree from the University of Rhode Island.
Venkat Venkataraman, Ph.D Vice President Product Development
Venkat Venkataraman brings to Bloom Energy more than 27 years of experience in process design and optimization. He leads development of Bloom Energy Servers. Previously, Venkat was a Principal Technologist at Aspen Technology, Inc. where he led the commercial development of high end design, simulation and optimization software for the chemical and petrochemical industries. Venkat is a winner of AIChE award in the area of chemical process optimization, and holds a Ph.D in chemical engineering from Clarkson University.
Gary Workman, Director of Quality and Reliability
Gary Workman joined Bloom Energy as Director of Quality and Reliability in September 2009. Prior to Bloom, Gary spent 15 years at New United Motor Manufacturing (NUMMI) in Quality Engineering, Operations Management, Production Control, Operations Education, and Productivity Planning. NUMMI is the historic joint venture between Toyota and General Motors, producing as many as 430,000 vehicles per year. He headed overall quality as the General Manager of Quality Engineering, Quality Operations, and Quality Assurance. Prior to NUMMI, Gary spent 11 years at Federal-Mogul Corporation. He serves on the San Jose State University Industrial Engineering Department advisory committee. He is also a manufacturing and quality advisor to Willow Garage in Menlo Park, CA. Gary holds a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from Michigan State University and a master’s degree in Manufacturing Management from Kettering University.
