
About
LiNa Energy was created as a spin-out of Lancaster University, where founders Dr Gene Lewis and Dr Richard Dawson combined their world-leading expertise and successes in ceramics and electrochemistry.
Since then, our growing team has developed an innovative solid state sodium-based battery technology which offers superior safety and sustainability standards compared to lithium-based batteries.
Based in Lancaster with newly expanded lab facilities, LiNa Energy is privately held and boasts an energetic team of engineers and electrochemists alongside commercial and product development experts. We are ambitious and galvanised around our mission: to help the energy and industrial sectors get to Net Zero faster.

Our Board

Dr Gene Lewis
Founder CEO

Dr Richard Dawson
Founder CTO

James Morrish
CFO

Will Tope
CCO

Mark Boland
Founder Company Secretary

Niall O'Keeffe
Non-executive director

Dr Tom McColm
Founder Non-executive Director
Executive Team

Andreas Bäckström
Director of Product Development

Joana Azevedo
Cell Development Manager

Kris Barr
Director of Operations

Aisha Ford
People and Finance Manager

Daniel Matthews
Director of Engineering
Expert Advisors

Jeetej Jandu
Director

Lina Emilsson

Rick Dauch
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Dr Gene Lewis
Founder CEO
Following his PhD from Imperial College in 2002 in Engineering Materials, Gene has held senior management and board level positions in public clean-tech energy companies for over 15 years. Gene has considerable experience in building and leading world-class teams at Ceres Power and AFC Energy where he took concepts and turned them into a commercial reality.
Gene is a founding director of LiNa Energy.

Dr Richard Dawson
Founder CTO
Richard has a PhD in Electrochemical Engineering from Imperial College and a degree in Mechanical Engineering from Cambridge.
Richard is the principal author of many scientific papers and patents and is an expert at managing industry and academic research programmes. Richard is a founding director of LiNa Energy and oversees all technical innovation.

James Morrish
CFO
James joined from PwC where he spent over 20 years advising both large corporates and SMEs on investment appraisal, acquisitions, divestments, M&A and restructuring. During this time James worked on projects for clients across the globe in a variety of sectors including automotive, aerospace and consumer goods. James brings commercial finance expertise to support LiNa’s strategic development on the journey to commercialising our technology.

Will Tope
CCO
Will comes to LiNa Energy with more than 10 years of global experience in the energy industry working for ExxonMobil. During this time he worked in a variety of commercial roles across business development, strategy, and trading where he focused on grid-scale batteries.
Will leads the planning, development and implementation of strategies to commercialize LiNa Energy’s technology, forming partnerships with customers across target storage and transport markets. Will has a Masters in Chemical Engineering from University of Bath.

Mark Boland
Founder Company Secretary
Mark has a honours degree in English and French Law from the University of Essex and the University of Paris (Nanterre). He worked in the editorial department of the Financial Times for 15 years, before moving to Deloitte’s tax and incentives consultancy, advising clients on sources of non-dilutive funding.
Mark is a founding director of LiNa with special responsibility for coordinating the company’s grant-funded projects.

Niall O'Keeffe
Non-executive director
Niall has spent almost 20 years investing in industrial and energy companies, having managed the largest dedicated industrial and energy portfolio in Europe as a partner at US blue-chip hedge fund, Citadel. He is the co-founder of FIFTHDELTA, a global long-short equity fund trading industrial and technology stocks.

Dr Tom McColm
Founder Non-executive Director
Tom, a founding director of LiNa Energy, is an experienced clean-tech equity specialist with a strong track record in both public and private equity fund raising. Prior to moving into the finance sector in the City of London, he worked on technology development for Ceres Power and fuel cell groups at Imperial College and St Andrews University.
Tom has a PhD from Berkeley in materials engineering.

Andreas Bäckström
Director of Product Development
Andreas is a design engineer with many years expertise and leadership in developing novel energy technologies.
In his previous role as Head of Design at AFC Energy, he led the team which designed the world’s first large-scale stationary alkaline fuel cell system.

Joana Azevedo
Cell Development Manager
Joana leads LiNa Energy’s battery cell development program, managing the teams tasked with improving of current cell performance as well as the research and development of future generations of LiNa battery cells.
With over 7 years of experience in materials science and a Masters in Chemical Engineering from NOVA University in Lisbon, Joana is one of LiNa Energy’s first employees originally joining as research scientist in 2018.

Kris Barr
Director of Operations
Kris leads the Cell Development, Facilities and Engineering departments driving LiNa’s technical programme.
Kris holds a BEng in Chemical Engineering from the University of Teesside,. He has successfully worked in start-up environments and led the design, patent, installation and commissioning of a first-of-its-kind biomass-to-fuel technology valorising waste streams in India’s sugar cane market.
After a brief stint in the pharmaceutical sector, Kris joined LiNa as Engineering Team Lead in Jan 2021.

Aisha Ford
People and Finance Manager
Aisha has over 15 years of financial management and reporting experience in the private sector for both large corporates and SME’s. Specialising in risk management and implementation of robust policies and procedures, Aisha has worked across a variety of sectors including construction, financial services, waste management, public relations and real estate.
Aisha leads the Finance and People teams at LiNa with responsibility for financial reporting and processes as well as evolving our people agenda as the team grows.

Daniel Matthews
Director of Engineering
Matthews brings a wealth of experience to the team having previously led engineering departments, technical teams and business development initiatives. He’s worked across a range of new and emerging technologies for industrial and consumer products ranging from data centre infrastructure to high-performance computing, IoT enablement and nuclear energy. Matthews is passionate about shaping and influencing alternative energy storage solutions and is keen to challenge the status quo through sustainable technology.

Jeetej Jandu
Director
Jeet is a highly experienced trade professional having worked globally with various governments and private sector entities. He is presently Trade Specialist at the Department for International Trade in the UK. His fields of expertise include automotive and advanced engineering and manufacturing, entrepreneurship and trade links with India, with a particular focus on the development of batteries and clean energy.

Lina Emilsson
Lina brings a wealth of experience with her, from previous battery start-up and industrialisation ventures and also having worked with Northvolt and Britishvolt.
An expert in product planning, factory, equipment and QC lab requirements, as well as customer qualification plans and industrialisation of new cell manufacturing and testing facilities.
Lina is passionate about leveraging clean technology to develop innovative green and circular business models. She holds an MSc in Chemical Engineering from KTH Global Development Hub.

Rick Dauch
Rick is a proven and highly respected leader in the mainstream automotive and commercial vehicle industries, with decades of board-level experience. Most recently, he was CEO of Delphi Technologies plc, leading its sale to BorgWarner for $3.3bn in 2020.
Rick has considerable manufacturing and commercial expertise and will support the LiNa team implement and achieve its strategic goals of commercialising its solid-state sodium battery technology.