- Highly qualified nominees, Elizabeth Lowery, Sherif Marakby, Richard Fezell, and Julie Blunden, to join Board
- New directors add significant ESG leadership credentials and automotive OEM industry experience as well as deep expertise in financial reporting and risk management and in scaling rapidly growing, emerging energy companies through market expansions and customer acquisition
Reno, Nev., Feb. 28, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- American Battery Technology Company (ABTC) (OTCQB: ABML), an American critical minerals and lithium-ion battery recycling company, today announced a slate of four new director candidates, Elizabeth Lowery, Sherif Marakby, Richard Fezell, and Julie Blunden, for the company’s upcoming fiscal year 2022 annual meeting of shareholders.
"I am extremely proud to welcome these four distinguished board candidates, each of whom brings a unique and complementary set of necessary skills and experiences that will help continue to drive us through our evolution to a commercial scale manufacturing and operations company within the battery metals industry,” said Ryan Melsert, CEO of the American Battery Technology Company. “Following an extensive, six-month vetting process led by a prominent third-party board services advisory firm, we have nominated four highly qualified and diversely accomplished candidates who bring significant leadership experiences from across the automotive OEMs, global renewable and clean energy, finance, and sustainability industries."
More information on the four new candidates for the board follows:
Elizabeth Lowery, a proven sustainability executive and corporate attorney in both the public and private sectors. As a former Managing Director at TPG Capital, she played a key role to develop the firm’s formal Environmental, Social, & Governance (ESG) strategy, advising portfolio companies on related issues, including diversity and inclusion and improving gender diversity on portfolio company boards. She played a lead role in the launch of the TPG Rise fund, the impact investing platform of TPG, which is one of the largest ESG-based funds in the world.
In addition, Lowery held numerous executive roles during a 20-year tenure at General Motors Company (“GM”), including General Counsel for GM North America and Corporate Vice President of Environment, Energy, and Safety Policy. In these roles, she led the development and implementation of GM’s global environment, energy, and safety policy strategies and initiatives and co-chaired the US Climate Action Partnership Transportation Subcommittee where she directed efforts to position GM as a solution provider to address climate change.
She has served on several non-profit boards, including Chair of the World Environment Center, and the Alliance for Automobile Manufacturers. She began her career as an attorney in the private sector after graduating Magna Cum Laude with a Juris Doctorate from Wayne State University and a B.B.A from Eastern Michigan University.
Sherif Marakby, brings significant operating experience in the automotive OEM industry from a 31-year career in the transformation, electrification, and technology innovation and AV development fields. Most recently, Marakby served as Executive Vice President, Corporate R&D of Magna International, one of the largest Tier 1 suppliers to the automotive industry in the world. Previously, he served as Uber’s Vice President of Global Vehicle Programs where he built a team that integrated self-driving technology into vehicles, partnered with Volvo cars for an autonomous vehicle program, and was responsible for business development with OEM partners.
During a close to 30-year career at Ford Motor Company, Marakby held a variety of product development positions, beginning with Chief Engineer and rising to President & CEO of Ford’s Autonomous Vehicle LLC, where he oversaw the development and launch of five new vehicles, including the all-electric Ford Mustang Mach-E and the Ford Fusion Hybrid. Additionally, during his tenure at Ford, Marakby served as the Director of Small Cars & SUVs globally overseeing two million vehicles and more than $40 billion of annual revenue in over 70 countries. In his role as Vice President of Electrification and Autonomous Vehicles, he was responsible for over $11 billion of electrification and $4 billion of autonomous vehicle development.
Marakby has a Master in Electronics Engineering from the University of Maryland College Park, and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Michigan.
Richard Fezell, spanning a distinguished 35-year career as a former auditor and senior partner at Ernst & Young (EY), Fezell held multiple leadership roles at the industry, regional, and executive committee levels for EY providing deep knowledge of financial reporting, risk management, and market-leading growth strategies to large public multinationals as well as smaller private companies.
While serving as the Americas Vice Chair for Markets, Fezell oversaw growth for a $15 billion audit practice. Notably, Fezell also served as the Americas Leader for EY’s alliance with Microsoft at the forefront of transformation and digitalization across all three aspects of the Microsoft platform.
Fezell is a CPA and graduate of Westminster College in Pennsylvania.
Julie Blunden, who has more than three decades of executive experience advising rapidly growing, emerging energy companies on their transition to sector leaders in the power generation, retail power, solar, and energy storage industries, brings extensive consumer and retail channel development in the U.S., Europe, and Asia Pacific. As the former Chief Commercial Officer (CCO) of EVgo, she was responsible for leading market and competitive intelligence and analysis to allocate billions of dollars in capital investment as well as leading public policy. In this role, she also grew customers by more than 100% and developed the operational processes and the organizational structure to enable market development and customer acquisition and care for the largest U.S. public fast charging network for electric vehicles. She also has helped raise significant capital to scale market expansion, manufacturing, and customer acquisition in executive leadership roles at several renewable power and clean energy companies. These include Executive Vice President at SunPower, President of Green Mountain Energy, and Chief Strategy Officer of SunEdison. In addition, she serves as Chief Executive Officer, President and Director of ClimateWorks Foundation. She has experience completing three IPOs, including serving as an architect of the SunPower S-1 registration statement which provided the investment community with a framework to open U.S. capital markets to solar manufacturers worldwide.
Additionally, Blunden currently serves on the Board of Advisors for Plus Power, a U.S. developer of central station energy storage facilities, holds a position as Board Chair for New Energy Nexus Catalyst, and is a Board Member of New Energy Nexus Ventures. She has served as Vice Chair of the Solar Energy Industries Association, a member of the Board of Directors at the National Energy Storage Association, and was a former Executive in Residence for the Global Energy Management Program at the University of Colorado Denver’s Business School. Blunden has an engineering and environmental studies degree from Dartmouth College and a Master of Business Administration degree from Stanford’s Graduate School of Business.
ABTC and its board recruitment advisors evaluated numerous factors to reconstitute the Board, including industry expertise across automotive OEMs, renewable and clean energy, finance, and sustainability industries, providing oversight for ABTC’s next phase of growth. The immense previous IPO and public investments experiences of these board members will be pivotal to driving to completion the company’s re-IPO process as it continues the uplisting of its shares on the Nasdaq exchange.
In connection with the Annual Shareholder Meeting, ABTC plans to file preliminary proxy materials on Schedule 14C with the Securities and Exchange Commission and hold a vote to ratify the new director nominations.
“We are proud to continue to achieve significant milestones as we accelerate the construction of our first integrated lithium-ion battery recycling facility, the design and validation of our low-cost and low-environmental footprint demonstration system for the manufacturing of battery grade lithium hydroxide from domestic US sedimentary claystone resources, and the formalizing of partnerships with our peers both upstream and downstream of our operations,” continued Melsert.
Additional details on the resignations of incumbent directors are available on Form 8-k filed today.
About American Battery Technology Company
American Battery Technology Company, which recently changed its name from American Battery Metals Corporation, is uniquely positioned to supply low-cost, low-environmental impact, and domestically sourced battery metals through its three divisions: lithium-ion battery recycling, primary battery metal extraction technologies, and primary resources development.
American Battery Technology Company has built a clean technology platform that is used to provide a key source of domestically manufactured critical and strategic battery metals to help meet the near insatiable demand from the electric vehicle, electrical grid storage, and consumer electronics industries. This ESG-principled platform works to create a closed-loop circular economy for battery metals that champions ethical and environmentally sustainable sourcing of critical and strategic materials.
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the safe harbor provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, are "forward-looking statements." Although the American Battery Technology Company's (the "Company) management believes that such forward-looking statements are reasonable, it cannot guarantee that such expectations are, or will be, correct. These forward-looking statements involve a number of risks and uncertainties, which could cause the Company's future results to differ materially from those anticipated. Potential risks and uncertainties include, among others, interpretations or reinterpretations of geologic information, unfavorable exploration results, inability to obtain permits required for future exploration, development or production, general economic conditions and conditions affecting the industries in which the Company operates; the uncertainty of regulatory requirements and approvals; fluctuating mineral and commodity prices, final investment approval and the ability to obtain necessary financing on acceptable terms or at all. Additional information regarding the factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements is available in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended June 30, 2021. The Company assumes no obligation to update any of the information contained or referenced in this press release.
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American Battery Technology Company
Media Contact:
Tiffiany Moehring
tmoehring@batterymetals.com
720-254-1556
