Eric Giler
Chief Executive Officer, Board Member
Eric joined WiTricity in 2008 as Chief Executive Officer, and is a member of WiTricity’s Board of Directors. Prior to WiTricity, he was the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Groove Mobile, a provider of mobile music commerce platforms, from April 2006 until its acquisition by Live Mobile, Inc. in March 2008. Eric was the founder and served as the Chief Executive Officer and President of Brooktrout Inc., a provider of telecom software and hardware platforms, from 1984 until its acquisition by EAS Group, Inc. in October 2005. Under Eric’s leadership, Brooktrout grew to over $150M in annual revenue, and had a successful IPO in 1992. Eric serves on the boards of directors of SoundBite Communications and Muse Research, and on the National Board of Directors of the American Electronics Association (AeA). In addition, he has served on the board of the Massachusetts Telecommunications Council since its founding, most recently as Chairman. He is the author of eight patents. Eric holds a Bachelor’s of Science degree from Carnegie-Mellon University and a Master’s degree in Business Administration from Harvard Business School.
Marin Soljačić, Ph.D.
Board Member, Founder
Marin is a founder of WiTricity Corporation (2007), and was the leader of of the MIT research team that developed both the theoretical basis and experimental validation of this novel method for wireless power transfer. He has been a Professor of Physics at MIT since 2005. He received a BsE degree in Physics and Electrical Engineering from MIT in 1996, and earned his PhD. in physics at Princeton University in 2000. In 2000, he was named an MIT Pappalardo Fellow in Physics, and in 2003 was appointed a Principal Research Scientist in the Research Laboratory of Electronics at MIT. His main research interests are theory of electromagnetic phenomena, focusing on wireless power transfer, nanophotonics, and non-linear optics. He is a co-author of 87 scientific articles and 15 patents, and has given more than 40 invited talks at conferences and universities around the world. He is the recipient of the Adolph Lomb medal from the Optical Society of America (2005), and the TR35 award of the Technology Review magazine (2006). The work on wireless power transfer that he spear-headed has been singled out as one of the most important technological developments of 2007 by The New York Times, BBC News, Scientific American, the Technology Review, and Discover Magazine. In September of 2008, he was named a MacArthur Fellow and awarded a MacArthur “Genius Grant.”
Katie Hall, Ph.D.
Chief Technology Officer
Katie joined WiTricity in 2007 as Chief Technology Officer. Prior to joining WiTricity, Katie was a founder of Wide Net Technologies, Inc., which developed unique optical communication and sensing systems for both government and industry. From 1999-2003, Katie was Chief Technology Officer, co-founder and Director at PhotonEx Corporation, where she led teams developing the industry’s first commercially available 40 Gb/s wavelength division multiplexed core optical transport system. From 1993-1999, she was a Staff Member, Senior Staff Member and Assistant Group Leader of the Optical Networks Group at MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory. Katie began her career in 1984 at AT&T Bell Laboratories as a member of the Lightwave Systems Research Department. She holds eleven United States patents and has published over 100 journal articles and conference papers. She has been an Associate Editor of IEEE Photonics Technologies Letters, has served on the Board of Directors of the Optical Society of America (2004-2006), on the Board of Governors of the IEEE Lasers and Electro-Optics Society (1998-2000), and is a Research Affiliate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Katie holds a B.A in Physics from Wellesley College (1984), and an M.S. (1990) and Ph.D. (1993) in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT.
Morris Kesler, Ph.D.
Chief Engineer
Morris joined WiTricity in 2007 as Chief Engineer. Prior to joining WiTricity, he was a founder of Wide Net Technologies, Inc., which developed unique optical communication and sensing systems for both government and industry. His work at Wide Net Technologies included the simulation, design and testing of secure high-speed communications systems for fiber and free space applications, and the development of novel nano-photonic devices for communications and sensing. From 2000 to 2003, Morris held the position of Consulting Engineer at PhotonEx Corporation, where he was responsible for transmission engineering and testing and played a key role in the development of the PhotonEx 40 Gb/s optical transport system. Morris spent ten years with the Georgia Tech Research Institute where he led research programs in electromagnetic scattering, antenna arrays, novel antenna structures and photonic band-gap structures. He held the position of Principal Research Engineer when he left. Morris was a post-doctoral fellow at the IBM Zurich Research Laboratory where he studied semiconductor quantum well lasers. He holds two patents and has published over 40 technical journal and conference papers. He holds a B.S. (1984), M.S. (1984), and Ph.D. (1988) from MIT in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.
David Schatz
Vice President of Sales & Business Development, AIMM (Automotive, Industrial, Medical, Military)
David joined WiTricity in 2008 as Director of Business Development and Marketing. Prior to joining WiTricity, David was V.P. of Corporate Development at Cognex Corporation (NASDAQ:CGNX), the world’s leading supplier of machine vision systems. David joined Cognex in 1983, soon after the company was founded and during the infancy of the machine vision and robotics industry. As VP of Marketing at Cognex, he was architect and implementer of Cognex’s OEM business model, which positioned the company for its successful IPO in 1989. As V.P. of Corporate Development, he led the acquisition and integration of 12 companies, contributing to the growth of Cognex to over $220M in annual revenues. David serves on the Advisory Boards of EnergyClimate Solutions, and Reify Corp., and is co-author of seven patents. David holds a B.S. (1979) in Mechanical Engineering from Carnegie-Mellon University, and an M.S. (1983) in Management from the Sloan School, MIT.
Steve Chen
Vice President of Sales & Business Development, Consumer Electronics
Steve joined Witricity in 2012 as Vice President Business Development and Sales Consumer Electronics. Steve brings over 25 years of technical sales and technology licensing experience, including leadership positions in several start up environments targeting consumer and personal computer applications. These companies include Tessera, where he headed sales and licensing for its optics, imaging software and MEMS technologies for consumer camera modules; Lilliputian Systems, a developer of a revolutionary micro fuel cell on a chip for consumer portable power applications; and Rambus, a technology licensing business model pioneer in high speed CMOS signaling technologies for DRAM and other integrated circuit chip to chip communication applications. Steve has a bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering from Stanford University.
Joanne Bryce
Chief Financial Officer
Joanne Bryce serves as WiTricity's CFO and Assistant Secretary and is responsible for all financial operations, human resource, and administrative functions of the company. With over twenty years of finance and accounting experience in start-up companies, Joanne was previously CFO and Treasurer of Jingle Networks, an advertising supported directory assistance service. Prior to Jingle, Joanne was Controller for Narrative Communications Corp., a venture backed rich media advertising solutions company where she led the finance role in the sale of Narrative to AtHome Corporation in December, 1998. Joanne also served as Controller for Aimtech Corporation, a computer based training software company. Joanne began her career at Arthur Andersen & Co and is a Certified Public Accountant, licensed in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. She holds a BS from Babson College in Wellesley, MA.
Andre Kurs
Staff Scientist, Founder
Andre is a founder of WiTricity Corp. (2007), and was a member of the MIT research team that developed both the theoretical basis and experimental validation of this novel method for wireless power transfer. He received his PhD. in Physics at MIT and an A.B. in Physics from Princeton University (2005). He is the co-author of three scientific articles, and was first author of “Wireless energy transfer via Strongly Coupled Magnetic Resonances” published in the journal Science.
Lee Barbieri
Board Member
Mr. Barbieri is the Managing Partner of Stata Venture Partners. Stata Venture Partners is a private equity fund that invests in early stage, new business opportunities around the world. They have strategic investments in a wide array of technologies. Prior to the formation of Stata Ventures Mr. Barbieri served as the CEO of Tomey Corporation between 1994 – 1999 and the VP Sales/Marketing from 1991 – 1994. Tomey is a leading Medical Device manufacturing company with design, manufacturing and sales offices around the world. Between 1981 and 1991 Mr. Barbieri worked in a variety of management capacities between Operations, Engineering and Sales/Marketing at General Scanning and Teradyne Laser Systems. General Scanning produces Optical-scanning products for wide array of technology companies. Teradyne Laser Systems produces laser marking, trimming and memory repair equipment for the semiconductor industry. Mr. Barbieri has served as a board member for technology and financial related companies over the last 15 years.
Anil Khatod
Board Member
Anil Khatod is Managing Director of Argonaut Private Equity, a global venture and private equity firm managing more than $5.5 billion. Anil is also the founding partner of firm's international investment practice. Since joining Argonaut in 2006, Anil has invested more than $1 billion in technology, medical devices, cleantech, infrastructure, and financial services companies in the US, India, China and Israel. Anil currently serves on the boards WiTricity, TeraDiode, Memjet Technologies, OmniGuide, Achronix Semiconductor, Siklu Networks, Kiran Solar Energy, VenturEast, and Crown Biosciences. Anil also serves on the global board of trustees of TiE, the largest global network of entrepreneurs.
Anil joined Nortel Networks in 1982 where during the rapid growth phase of the company he served as executive vice president and group president of the company with joint P&L responsibility for more than $25 billion in annual revenue. During his years at Nortel, he led several business groups including being President of Optical Networks, Wireless Networks and Data business groups. Anil also served as the Chief Marketing & Strategy Officer of the company. In this role, Anil led or participated in more than a dozen acquisitions including Alteon Web Systems and Shasta Networks. He was also responsible for the Nortel's corporate venture fund which included investments in companies such as Research in Motion and Juniper Networks.
In 2001, Anil joined Atlas Venture as a venture partner and just prior to joining Argonaut, Anil was the CEO of AirDefense a market leader in wireless network security which was acquired by Motorola.
Anil holds a bachelor and masters degree in business administration from the University of Rajasthan, India and he is a Chartered Accountant from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India.