Team
Meet our team innovators
Leadership
Saad Dara
Co-Founder and CEODr. Dara is an entrepreneur with a track record of taking research from the lab bench to a commercial scale.
David St. Angelo
Chief Technology OfficerDavid brings over 30-years experience in sustainable technology commercialization, plant construction, technoeconomic analysis, and technical operations leadership.
Annie Liu
Chief Commercial & Strategy OfficerAnnie is a supply chain expert, having spent 20+ years in building and leading teams across stages from incubation to rapid growth and scale-up. Annie was formerly the Executive Director at Ford (Model E) and Head of Supply Chain, Battery and Energy at Tesla.
Walter Sopp
Chief Operating OfficerWalter brings decades of leadership experience across lithium, chemicals, and advanced materials, with a track record of operational excellence, project execution, and successfully scaling companies through periods of rapid growth.
Briac de Chardon
VP Engineering and ProjectsBriac is a leader of technology development projects and has a track record of innovation and IP generation from the idea phase through to commercialization.
Priscila Costa Lima
VP Finance and AdministrationPriscila is a Finance and Accounting Executive with a proven track record in the junior mining/resource industry.
Tobias Wabnitz
Senior VP Business DevelopmentTobias is a battery materials and specialty chemicals executive with more than 20 years of global leadership experience. He has held senior roles at BASF, Aurora Lithium, and EMS-CHEMIE, leading business growth, supply chain strategy, and commercialization initiatives across the lithium value chain.
Grant Boyle
General CounselGrant brings over 15 years of experience as a business lawyer in major projects and clean technology. Grant was formerly with Carbon Engineering, AtkinsRéalis (previously SNC-Lavalin), and McCarthy Tétrault.
Board of Directors
Christina Karapataki
Board DirectorChristina is an investor with experience building companies and commercializing technology in the energy and sustainability sectors. With Breakthrough Energy Ventures, she focuses on decarbonization solutions for the electricity, transportation and manufacturing sectors.
Alfred Lam
Co-Founder and DirectorAlfred is an innovator, company builder and investor with 10+ years R&D experience in electrochemical systems,. He helped incubate and grow Mangrove and is currently a Partner at Chrysalix Venture Capital.
Cristina Lopez
Board DirectorCristina has over 20 years of experience in capital markets, corporate finance and business development. Cristina currently works for the Public Service Pension Investment Board (“PSP”) as Chief Investment Officer for Canada Growth Fund Investment Management (“CGFIM”) a wholly managed subsidiary of PSP.
Richard Reese
Board DirectorRichard joined the Mangrove board in 2017, and offers strategy, business development, operations and finance insight gained over the past three decades as an engineer, general manager and executive.
Advisors
David Wilkinson
Co-Founder and Technical AdvisorDr. Wilkinson is a Professor and Canada Research Chair (Tier 1) at the University of British Columbia. Before joining academia, Dr. Wilkinson was VP-Research at Ballard Power Systems and Moli Energy. Dr. Wilkinson was appointed to the Order of Canada in 2020 for his contributions to electrochemical science and technology.
Arman Bonakdarpour
Co-Founder and Technical AdvisorArman has an extensive R&D background in clean technology sector covering diverse areas such as water treatment, CO2 conversion, advanced batteries and hydrogen energy technologies. His work has led to over 55 peer-reviewed and highly cited scientific publications and a number of patent/patent applications.