Sustainable Energy Storage Solutions

Robert Piconi is Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of Energy Vault, responsible for the overall vision, strategic direction and operational performance of the organization.

Robert’s experience includes prior executive leadership roles in Fortune 100 public companies across various industries including Diversified Energy (Amoco/British Petroleum), Telecommunications (Bell Labs, Lucent Technologies, Alcatel), and Security/Network Management Software (Danaher Corporation). Within the private sector, he also founded and managed several innovative healthcare service and diagnostic imaging companies within the European market which were later acquired by private equity funds and/or large industry conglomerates.

In 2020, Mr. Piconi was one of 15 global leaders named by the World Economic Forum as “SDG Champion” for his work advancing sustainability, decarbonization and the circular economy.

Mr. Piconi received a Master’s degree from Northwestern University (Kellogg School of Management) and undergraduate BS/BBA degrees from the University of Notre Dame.

Bill Gross is co-founder of Energy Vault, Inc. and has served as our director since 2017. Mr. Gross co-founded Idealab Studio, LCC and has served as its Chairman and Chief Executive Officer since 2018. Mr. Gross also served as Chief Executive Officer of Idealab, a technology incubator he founded, from February 1996 to December 31, 2017. Mr. Gross has more than 40 years of experience in conceiving and starting new technology companies, including Energy Vault, Inc., Heliogen, Inc. (NYSE:  HLGN), Overture Services, Inc. (acquired by Yahoo), CarbonCapture, Inc., CarsDirect.com/Internet Brands, Inc., Picasa, Inc. (acquired by Google), and Evolution Robotics, Inc. (acquired by iRobot). In addition to continuing to serve as Idealab’s board chairman, a role he has held since 1996, Mr. Gross serves on the boards of directors of numerous companies and is also a member of the Board of Trustees of the California Institute of Technology and of ArtCenter. We believe Mr. Gross is well qualified to serve as a director because of his substantial business, leadership, and management experience.

Theresa Fariello joined the Energy Vault Board of Directors on February 1, 2023. Theresa serves as Executive Vice President of Government Affairs & Global Public Policy for United Airlines (Nasdaq: UAL). In this role, Theresa leads the company’s federal, state, local and international government engagement including environmental affairs, and is based in Washington, D.C.  Under Terri's direction, United has set a course to be 100% green by 2050 by reducing greenhouse gas emissions 100% without relying on traditional carbon offsets and has invested in the future production of over three billion gallons of SAF – the most of any airline in the world. Before joining United, she served as vice president of Exxon Mobil Corporation’s Washington, D.C. office and led the company’s federal and state government affairs operation.
In her 16-year tenure at Exxon Mobil, Theresa advised the company’s senior leadership on key issues before Congress, the Executive Branch and state governments. Prior to joining Exxon Mobil, Theresa served as deputy assistant secretary for International Energy Policy in the Office of International Affairs at the U.S. Department of Energy and held senior leadership positions at Occidental Petroleum Corporation. 

Theresa also served as a Congressional aide to two members of Congress. Throughout her career, Theresa has been recognized for leadership in government relations, including being named to the Washingtonian Magazine’s list of “Most Powerful Women” and The Hill’s “Top Lobbyists.” 
Theresa holds an LLM in International and Comparative Law from the Georgetown University Law Center and a juris doctorate from George Mason University School of Law. She received her undergraduate degree in political science from George Washington University.
Theresa serves as the Chair, Board of Directors, of the Humane Rescue Alliance. She contributes to her community by serving on the boards of a number of groups including the National Archives Foundation, Public Affairs Council, Business Council for International Understanding, the Economic Club of Washington, D.C., the Carlton Club and Ford’s Theatre.

Mary Beth Mandanas has served as a member of our Board of Directors since 2022. Ms Mandanas currently serves as Chief Executive Officer for Onyx Renewable Partners L.P., having begun this role in January 2022. Since July 2021, Ms. Mandanas has served as an Independent Director, Audit Chair, on the Board of TortoiseEcofin Acquisition Corp III. From August 2020 to August 2021, she consulted and served as Chief Investment Officer for Sol Systems, LLC, a renewable energy infrastructure and impact investment company based in Washington, DC. Previously, from the fall of 2015 to May 2020, Ms. Mandanas held the position of Executive Vice President, Chief Strategy Officer, of CleanChoice Energy, Inc., a company engaged in renewable energy retail supply and community solar, where she led strategic planning and was responsible for raising capital, banking/investor relations and establishing protocols for risk management and financial reporting. Prior to joining CleanChoice Energy in 2015, Ms. Mandanas worked in corporate and investment banking for more than 20 years, principally focused in the power and utility sector and executing across multiple facets of corporate finance/strategic advisory transactions, which included capital raising, structured financings, liability/interest rate/commodity risk management, treasury operations, capital allocation strategies, dividend policy and mergers and acquisitions. From 2013 to the fall of 2015, she served as Head of the Power/Utility Group in Corporate Banking at RBC Capital Markets, LLC, where she helped form the renewable tax equity business and grow the renewable loan portfolio. Prior to RBC Capital Markets, Ms. Mandanas served as Managing Director in Citigroup’s North American Power/Utility Corporate and Investment Banking Group from 2007 to 2013. From 1998 to 2007, Ms. Mandanas held various roles at Credit Suisse in the Power and Utility Investment Banking Group and in the Leveraged Finance/Financial Sponsors Group. She has worked across many industries, including companies in the power and utilities, textiles, chemicals, general industrials and education sectors. Additionally, Ms.Mandanas also spearheaded various diversity initiatives at Credit Suisse and was successful in establishing an annual leadership conference for female clients. Prior to joining Credit Suisse, she was a Vice President at NationsBank in New York. Additionally, Ms. Mandanas served on the Board of Trustees for the Business Partnership Foundation for the University of South Carolina for five years. Ms. Mandanas earned her M.B.A degree from Vanderbilt University and graduated, magna cum laude, with a B.S. from the University of South Carolina. We believe Ms. Mandanas is well qualified to serve as a director because of her significant experience and knowledge in finance, risk management, investment banking, business and work with companies involved in renewable energy and other areas of the energy industry.

Thomas Ertel has been a member of our Board of Directors since 2022.He was a Partner at Ernst & Young, LLP, an accounting firm, from June 2002 until his retirement from full-time employment in June 2017. Prior to that, Mr. Ertel spent 25 years, including 13 years as Partner, with Arthur Andersen, LLP, an accounting firm. Since October 2017, Mr. Ertel has served as Senior Vice President and Chief Accounting Officer of Strada Education Network, a nonprofit organization that strengthens America’s pathways between education and employment. From December 2017 through September 2021, he served as a director on the board of directors of Blackbaud, Inc. He holds a BS in Accounting from Ball State University and has maintained an active CPA license in the State of Indiana since 1980. We believe Mr. Ertel is well qualified to serve as a director because of his management skills and because of his knowledge and experience in accounting and corporate transactions.

Larry Paulson has served as Novus’s non-executive Chairman since its inception. Mr. Paulson co-founded Novus Capital Corporation and has served as its Chief Executive Officer and a director since its inception in March 2020 until its business combination with AppHarvest, Inc. in January 2021. Mr. Paulson has served as a managing member of Novus Capital Associates, LLC since its formation in October 2020. He has also served as principal and founder of Rancho Santa Fe Solutions, a wireless industry consulting company he founded in February 2010. From 2013 to January 2020, Mr. Paulson was with Qualcomm (Nasdaq:QCOM) where he served as Vice President of Product Management (2013-16), Vice President and President India and SAARC (2016-2018) and Vice President Sales NA and Australia (2018-Jan 2020). Prior to Qualcomm, he served as Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer of Brightpoint, Inc., a provider of worldwide distribution and integrated logistics services to the wireless communications industry, from 2011 to 2013. Prior to that he served with Nokia (NYSE:NOK) from 1987 to 2009 where he had numerous roles including global Senior Vice President and General Manager CDMA Product line. Mr. Paulson holds a BA in Communications from Point Park University. We believe Mr. Paulson is well qualified to serve as a director because of his more than thirty years of global senior management positions in the tech industry with expertise in wireless communications.

Stephanie Unwin is the Chief Executive Officer of Horizon Power, a fully integrated Australian power utility. Since assuming this role in 2019, she has led the company through a rapidly changing energy landscape and has successfully positioned the company for long-term growth while accelerating decarbonization projects across Western Australia. Prior to her role at Horizon Power, Ms. Unwin served in multiple executive-level roles at Synergy, Western Australia’s largest energy generator and retailer to industrial and consumer customers, including General Manager of Retail, General Manager of Commercial and Chief Transformation Officer. Ms. Unwin also brings to Energy Vault’s Board of Directors significant experience serving other boards of publicly-listed companies, including Alacer Gold Corp, Zenith Energy, Integra Mining Limited and several non-listed joint ventures. She is currently a Board Member of Energy Networks Australia. Throughout her career, Ms. Unwin has been recognized as a dynamic leader within the energy and renewables sectors, including being named one of Western Australia’s most influential business leaders in Business News’ Power 500. Ms. Unwin received undergraduate degrees in economics and law from Murdoch University.

Robert Piconi is Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of Energy Vault, responsible for the overall vision, strategic direction and operational performance of the organization.

Robert’s experience includes prior executive leadership roles in Fortune 100 public companies across various industries including Diversified Energy (Amoco/British Petroleum), Telecommunications (Bell Labs, Lucent Technologies, Alcatel), and Security/Network Management Software (Danaher Corporation). Within the private sector, he also founded and managed several innovative healthcare service and diagnostic imaging companies within the European market which were later acquired by private equity funds and/or large industry conglomerates.

In 2020, Mr. Piconi was one of 15 global leaders named by the World Economic Forum as “SDG Champion” for his work advancing sustainability, decarbonization and the circular economy.

Mr. Piconi received a Master’s degree from Northwestern University (Kellogg School of Management) and undergraduate BS/BBA degrees from the University of Notre Dame.

Michael Beer serves as Chief Financial Officer and Head of Corporate Services at Energy Vault Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: NRGV). Michael also currently serves on the Board of Directors at UK-based venture builder, Cambridge Future Tech (CFT) and is a Partner at Vest Coast Capital. Prior to Energy Vault, Michael served as CFO of FreeWire Technologies and Head of Financial Strategy & Investor Relations at Luminar Technologies (NASDAQ:LAZR). Before Luminar, Michael spent seven years at Citi (NYSE:C) in Hong Kong & Singapore, overseeing the transportation, logistics and infrastructure research franchise across Asia. From 2006-2008, he covered the North American transportation sector at Bear Stearns in New York. Michael has been a frequent contributor to CNBC, Nasdaq TradeTalks, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times and Barron's, among others. Michael received undergraduate degrees in Finance and Entrepreneurship from the Eller College of Management (University of Arizona) and completed his MBA at the Wharton School (University of Pennsylvania).

Laurence Alexander has served as Energy Vault’s Chief Marketing Officer, Chief of Staff, and Head of Investor Relations since 2022. Mr. Alexander has also served as Chairman for Wantley Manor Consultancy Ltd. since 2002 and a board advisor for Chronos Imaging LLC since 2018. Prior to Energy Vault, Mr. Alexander co-founded EarlyWMC Limited and served as its Chairman from 2010 to 2019. Mr. Alexander also served as Vice President Marketing for Danaher Corporation from 2010 to 2015. Prior to Danaher Corporation, Mr. Alexander served as Group Chief Executive Officer for SAB Holdings, LLC from 2009 to 2010. Prior to SAB Holdings, LLC, Mr. Alexander served in roles of increasing responsibility for O2, a brand owned by Telefónica, from 2002 to 2005. Prior to O2, Mr. Alexander served as Chief Executive Officer for Genie, a subsidiary of British Telecom, from 1999 to 2002. Prior to Genie, Mr. Alexander served as Managing Director of Consumer Services and Chief Operating Officer for World Online from 1998 to 1999. Mr. Alexander holds a HND in Business Studies from Greater Brighton MET.

Marco Terruzzin, Ph.D. has served as Energy Vault’s Chief Commercial and Product Officer since 2022. Prior to Energy Vault, Dr. Terruzzin served as Director of Energy Storage for RWE Renewables from 2017 to 2019. Prior to joining RWE Renewables, Dr. Terruzzin served as Head of Energy Storage Edge Platform for Stem from 2016 to 2017. Prior to joining Stem, Dr. Terruzzin served as Managing Director — Americas for NOHA (former Engie EPS) from 2015 to 2016. Prior to NOHA, Dr. Terruzzin was Managing Director APAC for Evolutions Markets, based in Beijing. Dr. Terruzzin holds an M.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering and a Ph.D. in Energy Economics from University of Padua (Italy) and an M.B.A. from the University of Virginia Darden School of Business.

Akshay Ladwa serves as Energy Vault’s Chief Development and Operations Officer. Prior to this role, Akshay served as the Chief Engineering Officer of Energy Vault Solutions from 2022 - 2024. Akshay’s experience includes executive management roles in Energy Storage, Integration, project management and Engineering (BrightNight, Wärtsilä, and Greensmith), Mechanical Systems Engineer (GE Energy Storage), and PV System Design and Development Engineer (Solar). Akshay holds a Masters of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Laurence Technological University, and a Bachelors of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from Visvesvaraya Technological University

Wes Fuller serves as Head of Global Sales at Energy Vault, responsible for managing the global sales team and driving business development to foster and strengthen the company’s power sector customer relationships. 

With over 11 years of industry sales experience, Wes has worked with utilities, IPPs, and large energy users across the globe. Prior to joining Energy Vault, Wes served in sales leadership positions at industry-leading organizations such as Powin, Sunfolding, Schneider Electric, and Siemens. 

Wes holds a Bachelor of Science in both Electrical Engineering and Mathematics from Colorado State University. 

Christopher K. Wiese has served as Energy Vault’s President of EV Labs since 2024. Prior to this role, Chris acted as Energy Vault’s Chief Operating Officer from 2022 - 2024. Mr. Wiese also served as Energy Vault Inc.’s Vice President of Engineering from February 2021 to September 2021. Prior to Energy Vault, Mr. Wiese served as Vice President of Global Procurement for Zebra Technologies Corporation (Nasdaq:ZBRA) from 2015 to 2019. Prior to joining Zebra Technologies Corporation Mr. Wiese served as the Senior Vice President of Engineering at Danaher from 2013 to 2014, and the Chief Operating Officer for Spirent Communications plc from 2007 to 2013. Mr. Wiese began his career at Bell Labs in 1988 and progressed through increasing roles of responsibility to Vice President of Wireless Engineering and Supply Chain Networks. Mr. Wiese holds a B.S. and a M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Wisconsin, and Doctoral studies at the Steven Institute of Technology.

Goncagul İçören has served as Energy Vault’s Chief People Officer since 2021. Prior to Energy Vault, Ms. Icoren served as an Executive Director of HR at Amgen Inc. (Nasdaq:AMGN) from 2017 to 2021 and a Regional HR Lead from 2014 to 2017 covering markets in Turkey, Middle East, Latin America, and Canada. Prior to joining Amgen Inc., Ms. Icoren served as Vice President of Global Talent Management at Actavis Pharma, Inc. from 2012 to 2014 and Vice President of Human Resources for Europe from 2009 to 2012in Switzerland. She held various HR leadership and consultancy roles acrossa whole suit of employee lifecycle management initiatives such as change management, M&As, learning and development, talent acquisition, talent management, staff relations, compensation and benefits, employee engagement across the globe. Ms. Icoren holds a B.A. in International Relations from Middle East Technical University, Turkey and an Executive M.Sc. in International Human Resource Management from Cranfield University Cranfield School of Management, UK.

Kevin Keough serves as Senior Vice President of Corporate Development responsible for working with the executive management team to set the strategic plan and to drive all M&A activities.
Kevin has led corporate development at Danaher, Tektronix, Netscout, and Inet Technologies across a broad range of high growth segments. At these businesses, he was responsible for their long-range growth strategies and driving complementary mergers and acquisitions that accelerated and amplified execution success.
Kevin applied his knowledge of the rigorous Danaher Business System, DBS, to successfully deploy more than $5B of capital to achieve numerous accretive transactions that expanded addressable market sizes, exploited white space opportunities, consolidated attractive segments and added key growth technologies and business assets.
Kevin holds a degree in electrical engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, Georgia.

Richard Espy serves as the Chief Information & Security Officer at Energy Vault, responsible for developing and executing the overall information strategy of the company. Emerging big data, IoT, analytics, and artificial intelligence technologies are central to Energy Vault’s innovative storage solutions and renewable energy enablement.    

Richard has a track record of advancing technology and delivering software products that achieve information superiority. His experience includes prior roles as a co-founder and executive leader in companies across various industries and technologies, including Artificial Intelligence/Data Analytics (Ubiety), Home Security (HomeAware), Cloud Computing/Management (cloudtamer.io and WolkOps), Cybersecurity (Stratus Solutions and Booz Allen Hamilton), and Network/Application Performance (OPNET Technologies).    

Richard also served his country as a United States Marine and later as a consultant managing global technology operations for the DoD, NSA, and other Intelligence Agencies.   

Richard holds a B.S. in Information Systems Management, Computer Science and a M.S. in Information Technology, Information Assurance from the University of Maryland Global Campus. 

Greg brings to Energy Vault over 30 years of experience in various operating and strategic leadership roles of increasing responsibility across publicly traded companies as well as CEO/CxO leadership roles in private equity and venture backed companies. His career has been focused in fast-paced, dynamic technology-driven industries (i.e., telecommunication, networking, and software) with leadership roles overseeing P&Ls that have varied in size from sub $100 million to multi-billion-dollar businesses, all with global customer and R&D footprints.

Before joining Energy Vault, Greg was a Partner at X4 Advisors, a consulting firm specializing in go-to-market strategies for service providers, channels, and investors in the technology, media, and telecommunications (TMT) space. Prior to that, he was the Chief Revenue Officer at TPx (Siris Capital), a leading managed service provider focused on cloud cybersecurity and UCaaS. He also served as CEO of Relay2, a global provider of IT services including cloud management, managed virtual access points, and edge application delivery. His earlier telecommunications experience included President and General Manager roles at publicly traded companies, Alvarion ($424 million 4G WirelessAccess, Tel Aviv, NASDAQ: ALVR) and ADC Telecommunications ($3.2 billion global broadband, NASDAQ: ADCT ), as well as venture backed Pedestal Networks that was acquired by UT Starcomm in 2006.   

Greg holds both BS and MS degrees in Engineering Management from Missouri University of Science and Technology, as well as Executive Education certificates from Northwestern’s Kellogg Graduate School of Management. Greg currently resides in California with his family.

Andrea Pedretti is Co-founder of Energy Vault and has served as the company’s Chief Technology Officer since 2017.  

Mr. Pedretti is a noted engineer and experienced entrepreneur who has served as co-founder and CTO of several technology companies. Mr. Pedretti holds over 40 patents for a variety of civil engineering and energy applications and is the inventor and technology lead for Energy Vault’s Gravity Energy Storage Solution.

Since 2016, Mr. Pedretti has also served as Managing Director for pquadrum engineering SA. Prior to Energy Vault, Mr. Pedretti served as a scientific advisor to Synhelion SA from 2016 to 2019.  Mr. Pedretti holds an M.S. in Civil Engineering from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH).