Leadership
Jorge Diaz Schneider
CEO
Jorge joins ION from Albemarle Corporation, where as Vice President of Advanced Energy Storage Materials and Lithium Recycling, he established a global business unit for high-energy-density battery materials.
Previously, at LORD Corporation, he commercialized thermally conductive resins and adhesives for EV battery pack assembly and other e-mobility applications across Europe, North America, and Asia. As General Manager for Asia Pacific, based in Shanghai, he led significant business expansions in e-mobility and automotive product lines.
Jorge has held various leadership roles in the manufacturing and insurance sectors. He holds an MS in Applied Economics and a BS in Electronics Engineering from Del Valle University in Guatemala, and an MBA from the University of Maryland.
Greg Hitz
CTO & Board Director
As founder of Ion Storage Systems, Dr. Hitz led development of the groundbreaking multilayer garnet structure at the heart of ION’s battery. Greg now sets the vision for the company’s technology growth, oversees intellectual property and data science efforts, and leads technology roadmapping. He has fostered a culture focused on excellence, integrity, and rapid learning cycles across all activities. Greg has built a world-class team dedicated to delivering no-compromise customer solutions with highly scalable manufacturing. His leadership has also been key in developing new company capabilities and cultivating them into high-performance core competencies. He holds a PhD in Materials Science & Engineering and a bachelor’s in Chemical Engineering from the University of Maryland.
Eric Lind
Chief Commercial Officer
Eric is a seasoned energy storage professional with over 30 years of experience in engineering, sales, marketing and business development roles in the battery industry. Eric has served in executive positions in both technical and business disciplines with large Fortune 500 energy companies as well as smaller regional and early-stage organizations. Eric’s expertise centers around providing “voice of the customer” input to new product and business creation.
Prior to joining Ion, Eric was the Senior Vice President for Sales and Business Development for Ultralife Corporation, where he was responsible for revenue growth of the battery and energy product line across government and defense, medical, industrial, oil and gas, and other specialty markets. Additionally, Eric has held positions of increasing responsibility with Duracell, ConocoPhillips, and VARTA Microbattery as well as a few early-stage companies. Eric received his B.S.E. in Biomedical Engineering and Electrical Engineering from Duke University and his M.B.A. with a concentration in Marketing from the University of Connecticut.
David McKenery
President and General Counsel
David joined ION in late 2024 as its first President and General Counsel. With experience in key areas such as intellectual property, mergers and acquisitions, technology transactions, corporate governance, strategy, and organization development, David is poised to help lead ION during its next phase.
Prior to joining ION, David was Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Chief Administrative Officer of a private equity-backed, publicly traded manufacturing company. He served the manufacturer of connected products during a decade that was marked by transformational growth.
David holds a J.D. and a B.S. from Duquesne University.
Dr. Elizabeth Santori
VP, Research and Development
Dr. Santori has conducted battery R&D and testing across multiple technologies, for both the US Government and within the private sector. In her previous role with the USG, Dr. Santori managed application testing for custom prismatic Li-ion cells, which will directly translate to the evaluation of ION’s solid-state cells for the critical requirements of the U.S. military. As a Staff Scientist at Lockheed Martin, she worked on the development of an advanced grid scale battery, leading technical cross-company efforts in battery testing and materials evaluation. Dr. Santori served as a Fellow at ARPA-E in the U.S. Department of Energy, identifying technology opportunities beyond current investments and assisting leadership in launching new funding areas in solar and electrochemical technologies. Dr. Santori received her Ph.D. in Chemistry from Caltech in 2012.
Neil Ovadia
VP, Corporate Strategy & Finance
Neil Ovadia is the VP of Corporate Strategy & Finance at ION Storage Systems and joined the company in 2020. An industry expert with 20 years of operations experience working in both early-stage and publicly traded companies, Neil contributes his extensive experience in finance, operations, corporate strategy, relationship building, supply chain, manufacturing, and project management.
Spending most of his career in startup environments, Neil has excelled in bringing structure and growth through short- and long-term strategies while maintaining tempo, corporate objectives and identity.
Prior to ION, Neil most recently served as VP of Strategic Sourcing at Eos Energy Storage Systems and was responsible for all supply chain and logistics as well as new product introductions, unified program management and scheduling.
Board Members
Todd Crescenzo
Chairman
Todd is the Managing Partner at Clear Creek Investments (“CCI”). CCI is a California based investment manager that has an energy (transition), food, and water sectoral focus and invests through a lens of innovation and sustainability across both private and public markets. Todd’s responsibility includes managing the day-to-day activities of the firm and identifying, managing, and monitoring portfolio investments on behalf of CCI’s limited partners. Prior to founding CCI, Todd served as the Chief Investment Officer of a multi-family office overseeing an investment team managing assets across both private and public markets. He brings over twenty years of principal investing, portfolio management, and business experience to CCI and their portfolio companies from various global financial institutions.
Todd is a CFA Charterholder, holds a BA, Industrial Relations from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a MA, International Business from the University of California at San Diego. He sits on the boards of the San Diego Habitat Conservancy, Encinitas Education Foundation, and the Sharp Healthcare System’s Investment Committee. Todd enjoys being in the ocean and mountains with his family.
Dr. Eric Wachsman
Executive Chair and Founder
Dr. Wachsman, Ion Storage Systems Founder and Executive Chair, and former CEO, also serves as Director of the Maryland Energy Innovation Institute, and the Crentz Centennial Chair in Energy Research in the Departments of Materials Science and Engineering, and Chemical Engineering at University of Maryland (UMD).
Eric is President of The Electrochemical Society, and a Fellow of The Electrochemical Society and the American Ceramic Society, a member of the World Academy of Ceramics, and Editor-in-Chief of Ionics, Editor of Science Reports, Energy Technology, and Energy Systems, and an expert in solid state ion conductors and devices, with more than 270 publications and 22 patents. Eric has over 30 years’ experience leading large multidisciplinary sponsored contracts, including DOE ARPA-E, EERE, and NASA solid state battery contracts, from guiding the multi-investigator team effort to achieving performance metrics and technical deliverables.
In his role as Executive Chair he will provide company vision and scientific expertise, and as a UMD Distinguished University Professor he will focus on advancing solid state battery performance using state-of-art facilities at UMD, and in so doing meet and exceed performance metrics for next generation batteries.
Mark Fields
Director
Mark G. Fields is a Partner at Alsop Louie Partners (“ALP”), serving since 2017. ALP is a San Francisco-based early-stage venture capital firm. Prior to joining ALP, Mark was CEO & President, and board member at Wickr, Inc., an end-to end encrypted communications platform which was acquired by Amazon in 2021.
Prior to Wickr, Fields was a Managing Director at CME Group. During his time at CME, Fields and team took CME public, did over $20Bn of M&A, and founded CME Ventures, CME Group’s corporate venture capital group. At CME Ventures, Fields and his team led investments and served on the boards of Wickr, 1Qbit, Dwolla, Powerlytics, Ripple, and Nervana. In 2015, Fields was recognized as one of Crain’s Chicago Business Tech 50.
Fields currently serves on the Board of Directors at Ion Storage Systems, Ascent Technologies, Baton Systems and as an observer at Nabaco. Fields holds a BA in Economics from Rutgers University and an MBA from Pepperdine University.
Joseph Goodman
Director
For over two decades Joseph has been committed to accelerating the energy transition through technology, finance and hands on construction. Starting at GE his pioneering work laid out pathways to decarbonize under market forces. He developed the offshore wind asset management playbook and designed built and tested solid oxide fuel cells. To develop a whole systems perspective of the energy transition Joe went on to work at Arup, Georgia Tech and RMI. Notable accomplishments include leadership of a DoE sponsored incubator for solar technologies and startups, catalyzing the community scale solar and storage market, and expanding the decarbonization landscape for heavy industry with Amory Lovins. Since 2019 Joe has been deploying and refining his whole systems view of the energy transition through public and private equity/venture finance.
Board Advisors
Venkataraman Thangadurai
Founder and Science Advisor
Dr. Venkataraman Thangadurai is full professor of chemistry at the University of Calgary, Canada. He has over 25 years of experience in solid state materials science and technology. His current research activities include discovery of novel solid electrolytes and mixed conductors for all solid state batteries, solid oxide fuel cells, solid oxide electrolysis cells, and electrochemical gas sensors. He has published 190 scientific papers in international refereed journals and 4 patent applications. In 2016, he received the prestigious Keith Laidler Award from the Canadian Society of Chemistry for his outstanding contributions to physical chemistry.
Nitin Parekh
Board Advisor
Nitin is a seasoned executive with both Fortune 500 and high growth entrepreneurial companies. He has created and run business units within large corporations, driven business development at both global corporations and start- up companies, led the acquisition of public and private multi-million-dollar enterprises, and done Corporate Venture investing.
Currently at IBM he is responsible for developing and managing multi-million $ commercial research and development collaborations globally, including strategic alliances, joint venture creation, intellectual property licensing and joint development agreements. Nitin also drives the corporate venture investments in Quantum computing and sustainability and is one of the faces of IBM Quantum in the book “The Quantum Decade”.
Previously he led Xerox PARC’s hardware and cleantech business development activities, including strategic research/co-development engagements, IP licensing and spinouts.
Nitin serves as Director on the Boards of Ion Storage Systems and Openwater.In, is a Board Observer at Volcat (JV for Plastics recycling between Under Armor, Technip Energies and IBM), and a Venture Advisor with Tokyo Electron Venture Capital. He has previously been a Board Advisor to companies in Sweden and France in the solar and semiconductor sectors.
Nitin holds BS and MS Chemical Engineering degrees from University of Wisconsin, Madison and Stanford University respectively, and an MBA from UCLA.
Andrew Konigsberg
Board Advisor
Andrew Konigsberg is an accomplished business professional with forty plus years of experience, including three decades as a management consulting partner with Deloitte LLP, advising market leading energy and infrastructure companies throughout five continents and more than thirty-five countries. During his successful career with Deloitte, Andy served as a senior leader advancing the Firm’s annual revenues to nearly US$50 billion and 300,000 professionals globally. Andy is known for his expertise in business development, technology and business strategy, corporate governance, and performance management.
Since 2016, Andy has served as an independent strategic advisor to institutional and private equity investors active in sustainability and energy. He presently serves as Chair of the Eco-Entrepreneurship Advisory Council at the Bren School of Environmental Science & Management at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Andrew holds an MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of Management.
