About The Event

Nicolas Sauvage (SEP2018) is the President of TDK Ventures, with $350M AUM. TDK Ventures has invested in 37 startups, including unicorns like Groq, Ascend Elements and Silicon Box. Recognized on the Global Corporate Venturing Powerlist for five consecutive years, Nicolas has authored articles on Corporate Venturing and hosts the Corporate Venturing Insider podcast. Nicolas serves on the boards of Analog Inference, AutoFlight, Faction, Mach49, Metalenz, Virewirx, and TDK Ventures. Nicolas has been awarded the Corporate Director Certificate from Harvard Business School.

Anil Achyuta is the Investment Managing Director at TDK Ventures, and also Investment Director for Fund EX1. He is passionate about the energy and healthcare sectors. He believes these are the most impactful areas in building a sustainable future, a mission that is directly in line with TDK Ventures’ goals.

Of his eleven investments, he has secured two exits: GenCell IPO’d on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (GNCL:IT), and Origin, which was acquired by the #1 3-D printing company in the world, Stratasys, for $100M.

Prior to TDK Ventures, Anil held leadership roles at Fortune 500 companies including L’Oréal, Johnson & Johnson, GlaxoSmithKline, and Draper.

Anil was voted one of the Rising Stars in 2021 by Venture Capital Journal and was ranked the #2 Rising Star in 2021 out of 20,000 corporate venture managers globally. He was also voted as one of the Emerging Leaders of 2022 by Global Corporate Venturing. He is a published author in polymer science, neural engineering, microfluidics, and tissue engineering with 11 peer-reviewed publications, two book chapters, and six US patents.

He has a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Northeastern University and received his M.B.A. from the University of Florida Warrington College of Business.

Anil was born and raised in Bangalore, India in a family of teachers, and speaks fluent Kannada, Hindi. He loves sports and music. He was a former cricket player, and currently plays tennis, table tennis, racquetball, and cricket occasionally. He loves playing guitar and listening to classic rock.

Meghan Sharp is Global Head and Chief Investment Officer of Decarbonization Partners, a BlackRock and Temasek JV investing in the next generation of innovative decarbonization solutions and businesses to accelerate global efforts to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. Decarb Partners invests in climate technology companies in the late-VC / early-growth equity stage. In this role, she oversees a global team of 25+ professionals where she leads the overall vision and investment strategy for the business and its funds.

Dr. Sharp is responsible for deal origination, investment execution, and value creation activities for Decarbonization Partners’ portfolio companies, along with capital formation efforts and strategic partnerships Decarb Partners Fund I raised $1.40bn in capital and has been actively deploying capital since 2022. Prior to joining Decarb Partners in 2022, Dr. Sharp served as Global Head of BP Ventures, leading BP’s global corporate venture capital activities. During her leadership, the team made investments across the decarbonization sector including advanced mobility, bio and low carbon products, power and storage, and carbon management.

Dr. Sharp has significant experience in venture capital and operating experience, which includes her time serving as COO of Beyond Limits, a pioneering artificial intelligence company with applications for the energy transition. Meghan holds a PhD in microbial genetics from the University of California, San Francisco, an MBA from Columbia University, and post-doctoral experience from the University of Chicago and the Carnegie Institute, Stanford.

Nicolas Sauvage (SEP2018) is the President of TDK Ventures, with $350M AUM. TDK Ventures has invested in 37 startups, including unicorns like Groq, Ascend Elements and Silicon Box. Recognized on the Global Corporate Venturing Powerlist for five consecutive years, Nicolas has authored articles on Corporate Venturing and hosts the Corporate Venturing Insider podcast. Nicolas serves on the boards of Analog Inference, AutoFlight, Faction, Mach49, Metalenz, Virewirx, and TDK Ventures. Nicolas has been awarded the Corporate Director Certificate from Harvard Business School.

Tara leads cross sectoral analysis for North America, with a focus on long term decarbonization trends. Tara’s research at BNEF has covered economic, policy and company trends in US solar and renewables, as well as power markets.

Prior to BloombergNEF, Tara was a manufacturing engineer at an international carmaker. Her research experience includes anlyzing consumer preferences for electrification in developing countries and life cycle impacts of agricultural systems.

She is based in Boston.

Tina Tosukhowong is an Investment Director at TDK Ventures. She leads the cleantech and the advanced-material investment areas.

Her background spans two decades as an operator in biotech and material industries, as well as a deep-tech investor in multiple industries. Prior to joining TDK Ventures, she led the Corporate Ventures practice at GC Ventures America, a corporate ventures arm of PTT Global Chemical, where she invested in cleantech, biotech, and advanced materials.

Prior to her venture career, Tina spent a decade in the biotech and material industries and held numerous roles in research & development, scale up & technology transfer, application development, and business development.

Tina holds a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering and a Certificate in Management of Technology from Georgia Institute of Technology. She is also a graduate of Harvard Business School’s Private Equity and Venture Capital program.

Tina has been recognized by the Global Corporate Venturing as Top 50 Emerging Leaders in 2021 and 2023.

Brigid a Managing Partner, Planetary Health, at RA Capital. Brigid’s primary responsibility at RA is to lead investments in private companies that are developing innovative solutions to address climate change and environmental sustainability. Prior to joining RA, Brigid was the Head of Venture Investments for BHP Ventures, the internal venture capital unit within the world’s largest mining company, where her investment mandate was to help the decarbonization of BHP’s operations and to improve the sustainability of resource extraction. Brigid was responsible for starting the venture fund and led investments in multiple sectors, including advanced analytics platforms, biomining and bioremediation, novel chemical leaching, long-duration energy storage, traceability of products, carbon removal, and green steel. Prior to BHP, Brigid was at In-Q-Tel (IQT), the strategic investment arm of the CIA and the US Intelligence Community; she co-founded IQT’s Australian subsidiary, served as its Managing Director, and built an international program to support a global innovation initiative through investing in the Asian-Pacific region. Brigid holds a BS in Chemistry (Hons) from the Commonwealth Honors College at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst (2002) and a PhD in Materials Science and Engineering from Johns Hopkins University (2009).

Jonathan (Jon) Glass serves as the acting Deputy Director for Commercialization at the Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E), the U.S. Department of Energy’s transformative energy technology R&D funding arm. He brings over twenty years of executive experience in business development, venture capital, technology commercialization, new business creation and IP licensing. From 1998 to 2014, Jon served in multiple executive roles at General Electric. He was the senior managing director for business development at GE Licensing, a managing director at GE Equity, and a managing director at GE Capital’s commercial lending business. After GE, Jon co-founded two technology start-up companies, Wise Labs and Vener8 Technologies, where he led strategic partnership, product development and revenue generation activities. Most recently, Jon was the Director of Venture
Accelerations at National Grid Partners, where he oversaw the NextGrid Alliance, a network of over 80 power utilities to foster industry-wide innovation and collaboration to accelerate the energy transition. Jon received an MBA, with honors, from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and an AB, magna cum laude, from Harvard College. He is a co-inventor on two US patents and previously served on the Research Advisory Committee of the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI).

Bernd Heid is the Co-Founder and Leader of the McKinsey Platform for Climate Technologies (MPCT), the global leader of the McKinsey Hydrogen Service Line and global leader of Commercial Vehicles Sector, has 20+ years of consulting experience and 12+ years within the hydrogen sector. He is an advisory board member of Center for Hydrogen Innovation (CHI) for Singapore hosted by the National University of Singapore (NUS), and a co-founder of the Hydrogen Council and strategic partner to the Hydrogen Council.

Bernd has extensive experience in hydrogen mobility and alternative powertrain solutions. He leads McKinsey’s partnership with the Hydrogen Council and has been instrumental in shaping hydrogen strategies through his work on various reports, such as the Hydrogen Scaling-up report, the Hydrogen Cost roadmap, and the Hydrogen Insights report. Bernd has also contributed to the development of regional and national hydrogen roadmaps for countries including France, Korea, Europe, and the U.S. He chaired the H2 Mobility Germany Initiative and has been involved in numerous hydrogen and fuel cell strategy projects for key players in the automotive and energy industries. His expertise spans across innovation strategies for alternative powertrains (including fuel cells and battery electric vehicles), assessments of energy storage and Li-Ion battery technology, as well as value chain optimization for battery manufacturers. Bernd has also led projects focused on CO2 strategy and hydrogen combustion engines.

Robert Stoner is the president of The Kendall Square Project, an energy technology development and investment firm based in Cambridge. He recently stepped down as director of the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI), and founding director of the MIT Tata Center for Technology and Design. A physicist, Rob is the inventor of numerous computational and ultrafast optical measurement techniques who earlier in his career built and led successful technology firms in the semiconductor, IT, and optics industries. He currently chairs the External Advisory Committee of the corporate venture capital firm EniNext, and serves on the Innovation Advisory Committee of Rio Tinto, in addition to the Science and Technology Committee of the Alliance for Sustainable Energy which oversees the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory, NREL. Before coming to MIT, Rob lived and worked in Africa and India while serving in a variety of senior roles within the Clinton Foundation, including as the CEO of the Clinton Development Initiative, and director of the Clinton Climate Initiative for Africa.

David Delfassy, Investment Director, leads capital deployment from TDK Ventures’ Fund EX1 which focuses on accelerating energy transition and decarbonization.

David joins TDK Ventures from Ahren Innovation Capital, a deep technology globally focused investment firm, where he led the development of the firm’s decarbonization thesis and invested in venture and growth stage business across sectors including sustainable aviation fuels, green hydrogen, carbon dioxide removal, alternative proteins, and high-performance computing. Before Ahren, David was an investor at MTech Capital where he invested in early-stage Insurtech businesses across North America, Europe, and Israel. Prior to investing, David was a strategy and management consultant with McKinsey & Company based in Geneva, Switzerland, where he advised leaders of global businesses on corporate strategy and management. David started his career as a Flight and Ground Test engineer with Airbus in Toulouse, France.

David holds a degree in Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science from Duke University, with a specialization in Aerospace Engineering. At Duke, David was a researcher in Professor Earl Dowell’s Aeroelasticity group and conducted research on folding wings.

David is a dual national of the U.S. and France and greatly enjoys learning about and experiencing different cultures through food, language, music, and traditions.

Yan Yan is an Investment Analyst with TDK Ventures, supporting its investment practices in cleantech, advanced material, and bio-based materials.

Prior to joining TDK Ventures, she was an engagement manager at ADL Ventures. Her roles at ADL included sourcing, evaluating, and supporting new climate tech ventures, which allowed her to look into a wide range of climate tech topics, including grid hardening/wildfire prevention, gas system decarbonization, and advanced building materials. Prior to ADL Ventures, she was a TATA Technology Design Fellow at MIT, looking into biosynthetic natural gas-production optimization for emerging markets.

Yan Yan holds a Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry and a Masters in Mechanical Engineering from MIT.

She is an avid home cook and hopes to one day write a cookbook about the food that she grew up with. She is passionate about climate tech investment and building a tighter climate community to connect climate tech innovators with peers, investors, corporates, and regulators.

Dr. Christina Chang is a Partner at Lowercarbon Capital, the VC firm backing kickass companies that make real money unf**king the planet. Most recently, Christina was a Fellow at the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) within the U.S. Department of Energy, where she developed new research directions for sustainable manufacturing of commodities. Prior to ARPA-E, Dr. Chang was founder and CEO of the sustainable steel startup Abraze Engineering. Dr. Chang has a PhD in Physical Chemistry from Harvard, an MSc in Sustainable Energy Futures from Imperial College London, an MPhil in Chemistry from the University of Cambridge, and an A.B. in Chemistry from Princeton.

Kate Walsh joined LanzaTech in May 2024 and serves as its VP Investor Relations & Tax. Kate has 15 years of public company investor relations and finance experience, primarily within the energy industry. Most recently, Kate was Senior Vice President of Investor Relations and Corporate Communications at Enviva Inc. Other previous roles include Vice President of Investor Relations & Tax at EnLink Midstream, LLC, and Director, Tax & Investor Relations at Niska Gas Storage Partners LLC, which has since become Rockpoint Gas Storage, a portfolio company of Brookfield Asset Management.

Ms. Walsh holds a Chartered Professional Accountant designation from CPA Canada, and a Bachelor of Commerce degree in accounting from Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Anthony is a Consultant Manager at Cleantech Group and is based in the U.S. He has led projects for global corporations across geographies and industries to understand the details, implications, and trends in emerging technologies; develop adoption and investment strategies; and evaluate market opportunities; in order to grow their businesses while achieving their sustainability and emissions reduction goals.

Prior to joining Cleantech Group, he worked for 10 years as an Analyst at Lux Research focusing on emerging materials and manufacturing technologies, market trends, and emerging companies, and sizing current and future markets for such technologies.

Anthony holds a M.S. in Materials Science from Carnegie Mellon University and a B.A. in Chemistry and Physics from Harvard University.

Dr. Shreya Dave is the Co-Founder & CEO of Via Separations, an MIT spinout dedicated to reducing emissions in industrial manufacturing. Via is a venture-capital-backed company that was recognized as one of C&EN’s 10 startups to watch in 2019, and has received awards from ARPA-E, NSF, and MassCEC. Shreya was awarded Technology Review’s 35 Innovators under 35 in 2018. Shreya holds Bachelors, Masters’ and Doctoral degrees from MIT in Mechanical Engineering and Technology & Policy. She also enjoys serving on MIT’s Corporate Development Committee, formerly the board of directors for Greentown Labs, and teaching in MIT’s product design and development course, 2.009.

Natalie is a climate investor and finance professional with over 12 years of experience in sustainable infrastructure investing, principal investing, corporate strategy and capital advisory, with expertise in structuring creative financing solutions for climate tech companies.

Scott Clavenna is co-founder and CEO of Latitude Media, where he is leading its strategy and expansion into news, industry research, and events on the frontiers of climate technology. He occasionally contributes interviews and commentary pieces to the news site.

Most recently, Scott Clavenna served as Chairman of Wood Mackenzie Power & Renewables, where he contributed to the strategic guidance of Wood Mackenzie’s work in the global energy transition. Prior to Wood Mackenzie, Mr. Clavenna was the co-founder and CEO of Greentech Media and helped develop it into the leading source of integrated news, industry research, conferences, and executive councils in the clean energy economy. Greentech Media was acquired by Wood Mackenzie in 2016 and in the subsequent 4 years achieved all the goals of the acquisition while expanding its reach and breadth through its integration with acquired organizations and Wood Mackenzie’s power markets and energy transition groups.

As Senior Vice President of Corporate Development at Commonwealth Fusion Systems, Ally Yost drives the company’s strategic partnerships and fundraising, including leading its Series B funding, one of the largest private funding rounds in history. In addition to her role at Commonwealth Fusion Systems, Yost advises climate tech and deep tech startups on entrepreneurship strategy and capital formation, and also advises on innovation ecosystem development and industry policy.

Prior to joining the company, Yost was a founding team member and Principal at The Engine, the venture capital fund spun out of MIT, focused on early-stage investing in Tough Tech startups. While there, she focused on investments in climate tech, and infrastructure, including leading The Engine’s investment in Commonwealth Fusion Systems. She also co-founded The Engine’s entrepreneurial curriculum focused on Tough Tech commercialization dedicated to scientists transitioning to entrepreneurs.

Yost worked with another MIT spin-out, Accion Systems, leading the R&D and manufacturing of key thruster components for the company’s novel electric propulsion for satellites. She also worked as a research scientist with GoogleX and on spacecraft propulsion for NASA.

Yost earned a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the University of New Hampshire, where she was also captain of the Division 1 women’s soccer team, and a Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Yan Wang is William Smith Foundation Dean’s Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Since joining WPI, Wang has been very active in research. Currently, his lab focuses on the study of new electrodes and materials for energy storage, including lithium ion batteries, supercapacitors, flow batteries, battery manufacturing, battery safety and recycle, and fundamental electrochemistry. This research can lead to energy storage with high energy density, high power density, long life, low cost, and high safety. In addition to fundamental research, Wang has commercialized the technologies developed in his lab.​

Derek Warnick is CFO and co-founder of Electric Hydrogen, a company manufacturing the world’s most efficient and low cost electrolyzers to produce green hydrogen at truly global scale. Electric Hydrogen has 380 employees and has raised over $800M to date.
Prior to Electric Hydrogen, Derek spent the last 15 years of his career, since leaving the World Bank, focused exclusively on the intersection of clean energy and finance, including most recently at Breakthrough Energy Ventures, the cleantech venture capital
firm founded by Bill Gates. Derek received his MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management (2009) and his BS from Georgetown University.

Aaron Pressman has been covering technology and business since before the dot com bubble. After many years writing for magazines including Fortune, Wired, and Businessweek, in 2021 he came home to the Boston Globe, where he covers tech news both local and global and writes the weekly “Innovation Beat” newsletter.

Nicolas Sauvage (SEP2018) is the President of TDK Ventures, with $350M AUM. TDK Ventures has invested in 37 startups, including unicorns like Groq, Ascend Elements and Silicon Box. Recognized on the Global Corporate Venturing Powerlist for five consecutive years, Nicolas has authored articles on Corporate Venturing and hosts the Corporate Venturing Insider podcast. Nicolas serves on the boards of Analog Inference, AutoFlight, Faction, Mach49, Metalenz, Virewirx, and TDK Ventures. Nicolas has been awarded the Corporate Director Certificate from Harvard Business School.

Nicolas Sauvage (SEP2018) is the President of TDK Ventures, with $350M AUM. TDK Ventures has invested in 37 startups, including unicorns like Groq, Ascend Elements and Silicon Box. Recognized on the Global Corporate Venturing Powerlist for five consecutive years, Nicolas has authored articles on Corporate Venturing and hosts the Corporate Venturing Insider podcast. Nicolas serves on the boards of Analog Inference, AutoFlight, Faction, Mach49, Metalenz, Virewirx, and TDK Ventures. Nicolas has been awarded the Corporate Director Certificate from Harvard Business School.

Geetha Dholakia is a Portfolio Program Manager at TDK Ventures. She is responsible for strategic engagements between Portfolio Companies and global TDK business groups. She is committed to identifying, enabling and nurturing nascent technical ideas to grow into successful business collaborations that improve lives and build a sustainable world.

She brings many years of scientific, technical program management and business development experience. In prior technology management roles, she has worked at NASA Ames Research Center, supporting NASA’s $200 million SBIR/STTR program and in enabling partnerships, business development and technology transfer of NASA Ames’ vast technology landscape. As a scientist, her deep research focus was in two areas, one at the cross-section of physics, materials science and electrical engineering in studying nanoscale systems and another in instrumentation for space missions.

She has a Ph.D. in Physics from the Indian Institute of Science and a Masters in Physics from Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, driven by a lifelong curiosity to understand how nature works.

Shigeki Sato is a Corporate Officer, Senior Vice President, and Director of TDK Corporation. He is also TDK’s General Manager of Technology & Intellectual Property HQ and Chief Technology Officer. He has been with TDK since 1989, holding key leadership positions across various business and technology divisions, including General Manager of the Advanced Process Technology Center, Senior Manager of Multilayer Product Business Unit of Magnetics Business Group, and General Manager of the Ceramic Capacitors Business Group. In 2019, Shigeki-san was appointed Corporate Officer and CEO of the Electronic Components Business Company, later becoming Senior Vice President and Director of TDK Corporation in 2021.

Sato-san is currently in charge of promoting the Company’s research and development as well as planning and implementing the Company’s intellectual property strategies as Chief Technology Officer and General Manager of Technology and Intellectual Property HQ.

Igor Arsovski is the Chief Architect, Fellow and Head of Hardware at Groq. He is a system-on-a-chip (SoC) implementation expert. Previously at Google, Igor was responsible for the SoC technology strategy for Google Cloud, leading the custom physical design effort for the TPU. Prior to Google, Igor was CTO of the IBM/GF/Marvell ASIC Business Unit, responsible for setting ASIC strategy for a 900+ person team, and personally optimizing 500+ of today’s best-known enterprise networking and machine learning ASICs. Igor is an IBM Master Inventor with over 100 patents, 30 IEEE papers and presentations at premier system (AI HW Summit, Linley Conference, ML and AI Dev Com) and circuit (ISSCC, VLSI, CICC, ECTC) conferences, and currently serves on the VLSI Technology Program Committee.

Geetha Dholakia is a Portfolio Program Manager at TDK Ventures. She is responsible for strategic engagements between Portfolio Companies and global TDK business groups. She is committed to identifying, enabling and nurturing nascent technical ideas to grow into successful business collaborations that improve lives and build a sustainable world.

She brings many years of scientific, technical program management and business development experience. In prior technology management roles, she has worked at NASA Ames Research Center, supporting NASA’s $200 million SBIR/STTR program and in enabling partnerships, business development and technology transfer of NASA Ames’ vast technology landscape. As a scientist, her deep research focus was in two areas, one at the cross-section of physics, materials science and electrical engineering in studying nanoscale systems and another in instrumentation for space missions.

She has a Ph.D. in Physics from the Indian Institute of Science and a Masters in Physics from Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, driven by a lifelong curiosity to understand how nature works.

Shigeki Sato is a Corporate Officer, Senior Vice President, and Director of TDK Corporation. He is also TDK’s General Manager of Technology & Intellectual Property HQ and Chief Technology Officer. He has been with TDK since 1989, holding key leadership positions across various business and technology divisions, including General Manager of the Advanced Process Technology Center, Senior Manager of Multilayer Product Business Unit of Magnetics Business Group, and General Manager of the Ceramic Capacitors Business Group. In 2019, Shigeki-san was appointed Corporate Officer and CEO of the Electronic Components Business Company, later becoming Senior Vice President and Director of TDK Corporation in 2021.

Sato-san is currently in charge of promoting the Company’s research and development as well as planning and implementing the Company’s intellectual property strategies as Chief Technology Officer and General Manager of Technology and Intellectual Property HQ.

Michael Pocsatko is a Corporate Officer, Senior Vice President, and serves as the General Manager of Corporate Marketing & Incubation at TDK Corporation in Tokyo, Japan. As the GM of CM&I, he leads business development in collaboration with internal and external partners and innovators, by incubating ideas, developing new products, and deploying solutions to enhance TDK’s global portfolio, and creating internal startups. Michael also serves as the Managing Director at TDK Management Services GmbH in Munich, Germany, to provide essential HR, Corporate Communications, Management System, and Corporate Marketing & Incubation services to TDK Corporation, Japan.

With his leadership skills, strategic insight, and unwavering commitment to innovation and customer satisfaction, Michael plays a pivotal role in shaping TDK’s reputation as a pioneering force in the industry, driving the company towards a future marked by growth and positive social impact.

Shuichi Hashiyama is a TDK Corporate Officer and General Manager of Corporate Strategy HQ. Hashiyama-san has been an integral part of TDK Corporation since 1990, building a diverse career across multiple strategic functions within the company. With over three decades of experience, he has played pivotal roles in research and development, sales, marketing, and corporate strategy.

Before becoming a Corporate Officer, Hashiyama-san served as General Manager of the Energy Systems Business Group, a group within the Energy Solutions Business Company, from 2019 to 2021. Prior to that, he led the Automotive Sales Department within the Electronic Components Sales & Marketing Group from 2015 to 2019. His earlier roles included positions in the New Business Promotion Group, Europe Sales & Marketing Group, and Corporate R&D Center.

Nicolas Sauvage (SEP2018) is the President of TDK Ventures, with $350M AUM. TDK Ventures has invested in 37 startups, including unicorns like Groq, Ascend Elements and Silicon Box. Recognized on the Global Corporate Venturing Powerlist for five consecutive years, Nicolas has authored articles on Corporate Venturing and hosts the Corporate Venturing Insider podcast. Nicolas serves on the boards of Analog Inference, AutoFlight, Faction, Mach49, Metalenz, Virewirx, and TDK Ventures. Nicolas has been awarded the Corporate Director Certificate from Harvard Business School.

Elena Watts is a Portfolio Programme Associate with TDK Ventures. She is focused on exploring and facilitating collaborative synergies between TDK Ventures portfolio companies and global TDK teams with the aim of building mutual value partnerships.

Prior to working at TDK Ventures, Elena worked at the bridge of academia and industry at Cambridge Enterprise, the technology transfer office for the University of Cambridge. Here she helped academics to achieve positive impact from their research through commercialisation.

Elena has a number of passions, one of which is a deep curiosity for how the world works. She has a master’s degree in chemistry with nanotechnology, and a PhD in Materials Science from Imperial College London.

Chiaki Yoshikawa, the Startup Liaison at TDK Ventures, embodies a pivotal link between startups and TDK Corporation. With a rich background spanning 12 years in sales and marketing across TDK’s Tokyo and United Kingdom offices, Chiaki brings a wealth of experience to her role. Her dedication to fostering synergy between startups and TDK is evident through her proactive approach in advocating for these emerging ventures within the corporation.

At the heart of Chiaki’s role lies a commitment to creating an “equal-win” scenario for both startups and TDK Corporation. By continuously exploring new opportunities, Chiaki ensures that startups not only benefit from TDK’s expertise and resources but also contribute to the innovation ecosystem within the corporation. Her efforts extend beyond mere promotion, as she actively engages various teams within TDK, encouraging collaboration and partnership with portfolio companies.

Through regular presentations highlighting the progress and achievements of ongoing synergy projects, Chiaki reinforces the value derived from the collaboration between startups and TDK Ventures teams. This transparent approach not only keeps stakeholders informed but also fosters a culture of innovation and mutual growth.

Chiaki’s background in economics from Gakushuin University equips her with a strategic mindset, enabling her to identify opportunities that maximize the value for both startups and TDK Corporation. Her passion for promoting innovation extends beyond the workplace, as evidenced by her interests in camping and snowboarding with her family, reflecting a balanced approach to life.

Chiaki Yoshikawa serves as the catalyst for fostering collaboration and driving mutual success between startups and TDK Corporation, embodying the spirit of a true advocate for innovation and growth.

Anirban Roy began his career in 1995 with ABB, and then joining the passive components division of Siemens in 1997, a company that later became EPCOS, before its merger with TDK in 2008. Over the years, he has lived and worked in five different countries across three continents, contributing to TDK’s global success. For the past two decades at TDK UK, Mr. Roy has held diverse roles, leading product marketing initiatives across multiple business groups, including empowered role of Product Marketing of Temperature and Pressure Sensors to Capacitors, Magnetics, Multilayer Ceramic Capacitors and Piezo & Protection Devices Business Groups. More recently, over the past two years while he was in the UK, he focused on New Business Development, which gave him an opportunity to promote all TDK products. Currently, as part of the Global Sales Development team at TDK Corporation of America (TCA), Mr. Roy oversees Industrial & Home Appliances markets.

Tal Murthy graduated with a doctorate, pursued research fellowship at Harvard University in cancer science/technology and studied business. He developed and led the robotics pipeline for biodefense programs as a part of Harvard center of excellence for homeland security. Tal has over fifteen years of industrial and business experience. He managed multiple projects with cross functional groups in technology, business, M&A and held different roles at corporate organizations including fortune 500 companies. In the last four years he has been working at TDK in the Industrial sector of Global Segment Development division managing the Healthtech, Robotics and emerging markets.

Thao is a Portfolio Program Associate at TDK Ventures, where she is working closely with the Portfolio Program Manager to enable strategic engagements between Portfolio Companies and global TDK business groups. Thao is dedicated to identifying and building the bridge between deep-tech entrepreneurs with industry experts at TDK to create a collaborative ecosystem that fosters creativity and accelerates breakthrough solutions.

Prior to TDK Ventures, Thao was a Technology Manager at Clark Street Associates, where she led deep tech clients in pursuing non-dilutive government funding. In this role, Thao leveraged her technical background to dive into clients’ core technology and develop approaches to address critical defense and commercial needs. Her most impactful project resulted in $30M in federal funding for a healthcare client to commercialize a COVID-19 testing platform.

Thao holds a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a BSE in Chemical Engineering from Arizona State University. In her spare time, she enjoys cooking, foraging, hiking, and spending time with her family.

Michael Chinn is Deputy General Manager of Electronic Components Sales and Marketing at TDK Corporation. He qualified with a Master’s in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from The Queen’s University of Belfast, is a Chartered Member of the Institute of Engineering and Technology (IET) and is certified as a company director by the Institute of Directors. Michael has held various positions throughout TDK’s global organization during his 30+ year career with the company in engineering, marketing and sales. In recent years, Michael headed TDK’s global sales development activities in the ICT market segment. He currently oversees TDK’s electronic components global sales development activities as well as sales and marketing in the Americas, India and with TDK’s global distribution channel partners.

Janaki is a Portfolio Program Associate at TDK Ventures. She works with the TDK Ventures Team on strategic engagements and building partnerships between Portfolio Companies and TDK business groups. She strongly believes in the potential of deep tech to transform lives and in supporting founders towards creating a sustainable future.

Prior to TDK Ventures, Janaki has worked at the Agency for Science Technology and Research (A*STAR), Singapore, in both scientific research and technical program management roles. She also volunteered with and advocated for a community of early career researcher peers during this time. Through these experiences, she developed a better understanding of the research and development ecosystem and the importance of building partnerships at all levels.

Janaki holds a DPhil (PhD) in Materials Science from the University of Oxford, UK, and a Bachelor of Engineering from the National University of Singapore. Outside of work, she has been learning Indian classical music (performing as a vocalist) and enjoys piecing together puzzles, sketching and graphic design.

As Senior Product Manager at Metalenz, Janet leads a team of engineers focused on working with customer specifications, market, and technical knowledge to develop meta-optic solutions across consumer device, automotive, and robotics markets.

She has a demonstrated history of developing disruptive technologies for mass markets in major international companies. After beginning her career working on display optics R&D at Panasonic, she then worked for 10+ years at Osram Sylvania as Development Engineer for the light engines in LED light bulbs for the consumer market, taking the technology from the early stage of market disruption to commoditization. She then pivoted to Technical Product Manager of the Sylvania IoT portfolio before joining Metalenz.

Janet holds a master’s degree in physics from Télécom Physique Strasbourg, France, and a Ph.D. in optics from the College of Optics and Photonics/CREOL at the University of Central Florida.

Jeff Herman is the CEO and co-founder of Fabric8Labs. He founded the company with the goal to enable high-volume manufacturing through a novel electrochemical process. Fabric8Labs’ Electrochemical Additive Manufacturing (ECAM) process produces complex, dense metal parts without post-processing at the atomic level, enabling micron-scale feature resolution, complex internal features, high-purity materials, and rapid scalability to support mass manufacturing. Jeff holds over 20 patents, was selected for Forbes 30 under 30, and is a graduate of Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.

Lie Shi has been the CEO of AM Batteries since July 2023. Prior, Shi served as President of Celgard, a world-renowned battery separator company that invented and commercialized a solvent-free process to produce microporous membranes for lithium-ion batteries. Over his twenty-six-year stint at the company, he worked his way from technical manager, leading its lithium battery material development, to Vice President of R&D, to Chief Technology Officer, to Chief Operations Officer, and ultimately, ascending to President. He also served as the Global Head of Separator Business Development for Asahi Kasei Corporation, Celgard’s parent company. Shi received his B.S. in Physics from Kyoto University, Japan, M.S. in Physics from the University of Michigan, and an MBA from the University of North Carolina – Charlotte.

Geetha Dholakia is a Portfolio Program Manager at TDK Ventures. She is responsible for strategic engagements between Portfolio Companies and global TDK business groups. She is committed to identifying, enabling and nurturing nascent technical ideas to grow into successful business collaborations that improve lives and build a sustainable world.

She brings many years of scientific, technical program management and business development experience. In prior technology management roles, she has worked at NASA Ames Research Center, supporting NASA’s $200 million SBIR/STTR program and in enabling partnerships, business development and technology transfer of NASA Ames’ vast technology landscape. As a scientist, her deep research focus was in two areas, one at the cross-section of physics, materials science and electrical engineering in studying nanoscale systems and another in instrumentation for space missions.

She has a Ph.D. in Physics from the Indian Institute of Science and a Masters in Physics from Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, driven by a lifelong curiosity to understand how nature works.

Steven is the founder and CEO of Novalith Technologies, a lithium chemicals production company, which is leveraging cutting-edge technologies to address critical challenges facing the lithium industry. By reducing the environmental impact and cost of lithium chemicals production, Novalith will both enable and accelerate the transition to an electric future and contribute towards the fight against climate change.

Over his career, Steven has worked in the oil & gas, mining & minerals, and clean-technologies sectors. He founded and operated a global chemical engineering company, which specialised in the design & supply of process plant and equipment, including equipment for the lithium and battery chemicals industries. Steven specialises in commercialisation and scale-up of novel technologies and has worked with several clean tech start-ups to develop and commercialise their novel technologies in battery materials, hydrogen and other sustainable technologies.

Cameron Dales is president and co-founder of sodium-ion grid storage company, Peak Energy. Prior to Peak, Cam was an operating partner at Eclipse Ventures and was CCO of lithium-ion battery company, Enovix, where he led commercial strategy and execution from founding to public offering.

His first start-up was Symyx Technologies, which became a public company that developed high throughput robotic tools for the discovery of advanced materials. He started his career at Lockheed, where he developed spaceflight qualified hardware for several satellite programs.

Cam holds engineering degrees from Cornell and Stanford and is a named inventor on over 100 patents.

Arun Vinayak has been at the forefront of India’s EV sector for over a decade. As Ather Energy’s co-founder and Chief Product Officer, he helped create and launch one of India’s best electric 2W company that’s set to IPO in India.

After spending 7 years at Ather, he realised while EVs matched ICE vehicles in driving experience, issues on the energy side such as long charging times, poor charging infrastructure, and short battery life persisted, and focused on solving these challenges with his next venture: Exponent Energy.

Exponent is a full-stack energy company that delivers 15 minute rapid charging through its battery packs and charging network. Exponent’s vision is to simplify energy for EVs, making them seamless and accessible to all.

Exponent’s rapid charging is affordable & scalable as it uses commercial grade LFP cells, enabled by innovation in the BMS, charging algorithms, thermal management and charging network.

Anil Achyuta is the Investment Managing Director at TDK Ventures, and also Investment Director for Fund EX1. He is passionate about the energy and healthcare sectors. He believes these are the most impactful areas in building a sustainable future, a mission that is directly in line with TDK Ventures’ goals.

Of his eleven investments, he has secured two exits: GenCell IPO’d on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (GNCL:IT), and Origin, which was acquired by the #1 3-D printing company in the world, Stratasys, for $100M.

Prior to TDK Ventures, Anil held leadership roles at Fortune 500 companies including L’Oréal, Johnson & Johnson, GlaxoSmithKline, and Draper.

Anil was voted one of the Rising Stars in 2021 by Venture Capital Journal and was ranked the #2 Rising Star in 2021 out of 20,000 corporate venture managers globally. He was also voted as one of the Emerging Leaders of 2022 by Global Corporate Venturing. He is a published author in polymer science, neural engineering, microfluidics, and tissue engineering with 11 peer-reviewed publications, two book chapters, and six US patents.

He has a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Northeastern University and received his M.B.A. from the University of Florida Warrington College of Business.

Anil was born and raised in Bangalore, India in a family of teachers, and speaks fluent Kannada, Hindi. He loves sports and music. He was a former cricket player, and currently plays tennis, table tennis, racquetball, and cricket occasionally. He loves playing guitar and listening to classic rock.

Geetha Dholakia is a Portfolio Program Manager at TDK Ventures. She is responsible for strategic engagements between Portfolio Companies and global TDK business groups. She is committed to identifying, enabling and nurturing nascent technical ideas to grow into successful business collaborations that improve lives and build a sustainable world.

She brings many years of scientific, technical program management and business development experience. In prior technology management roles, she has worked at NASA Ames Research Center, supporting NASA’s $200 million SBIR/STTR program and in enabling partnerships, business development and technology transfer of NASA Ames’ vast technology landscape. As a scientist, her deep research focus was in two areas, one at the cross-section of physics, materials science and electrical engineering in studying nanoscale systems and another in instrumentation for space missions.

She has a Ph.D. in Physics from the Indian Institute of Science and a Masters in Physics from Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, driven by a lifelong curiosity to understand how nature works.

Nicolas Sauvage (SEP2018) is the President of TDK Ventures, with $350M AUM. TDK Ventures has invested in 37 startups, including unicorns like Groq, Ascend Elements and Silicon Box. Recognized on the Global Corporate Venturing Powerlist for five consecutive years, Nicolas has authored articles on Corporate Venturing and hosts the Corporate Venturing Insider podcast. Nicolas serves on the boards of Analog Inference, AutoFlight, Faction, Mach49, Metalenz, Virewirx, and TDK Ventures. Nicolas has been awarded the Corporate Director Certificate from Harvard Business School.