Executive Management

Robert Piconi is co-founder of Energy Vault, Inc., has served as our Chief Executive Officer and as our director since 2022. Mr. Piconi has also served as the chairman of the board for Chronos Imaging LLC since 2017 and as member of the board of directors of Healthcare AI Acquisition Corp (Nasdaq: HAIA) since November 2021. Prior to Energy Vault, Mr. Piconi was founder and CEO of Medical Equipment Solutions & Applications (MESA) Group Holdings, which was acquired by London-based Private Equity firm Permira in 2014, becoming Pantheon Healthcare Group and later Althea Group where he served as its Chief Executive Officer and a member of its board from 2014 to 2016. Prior to Pantheon Healthcare Group, Mr. Piconi served as Group Executive for the Network Software and Security Platform group companies at Danaher Corporation (NYSE:DHR) from 2012 to 2014. Mr. Piconi’s earlier experience included roles of increasing responsibility at large Fortune 500 public companies, including the diversified energy group Amoco Corporation and British Petroleum (NYSE: BP) after its merger with Amoco in 1998, followed by executive leadership roles of increasing responsibility at Bell Labs Lucent Technologies (now Nokia, NASDAQ: NOK) and as President and Chief Operating Officer at Spirent Communications (LSE:SPT) within the telecommunications network infrastructure industry. Mr. Piconi holds a B.S./B.B.A. from the University of Notre Dame and an M.B.A. from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. Energy Vault believes Mr. Piconi is qualified to serve as a member of the Board of Directors due to his extensive executive management and leadership experience across a variety of energy and technology companies. We believe Mr. Piconi is well qualified to serve as a director because of his prior leadership roles in Fortune 100 public companies.

Andrea Pedretti is Energy Vault Inc.’s co-founder and has served as Energy Vault’s Chief Technology Officer since 2022. Since 2016, Mr. Pedretti has also served as Managing Director for pquadrum engineering SA. Prior to Energy Vault, Mr. Pedretti served as a scientific advisor to Synhelion SA from 2016 to 2019. Prior to joining Synhelion SA, Mr. Pedretti was co-founder of Airlight Energy and its Chief Technology Officer from 2007 to 2016. Prior to co-founding Airlight Energy, Mr. Pedretti was company director and Chief Technology Officer at Airlight Ltd. Mr. Pedretti holds a M.S. in Civil Engineering from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH).

Christopher K. Wiese has served as Energy Vault’s Chief Operating Officer since 2022. Mr. Wiese also served as Energy Vault Inc.’s Vice President of Engineering from February 2021 to September 2021. Prior to Energy Vault, Mr. Wiese served as Vice President of Global Procurement for Zebra Technologies Corporation (Nasdaq:ZBRA) from 2015 to 2019. Prior to joining Zebra Technologies Corporation Mr. Wiese served as the Senior Vice President of Engineering at Danaher from 2013 to 2014, and the Chief Operating Officer for Spirent Communications plc from 2007 to 2013. Mr. Wiese began his career at Bell Labs in 1988 and progressed through increasing roles of responsibility within the R&D, Engineering and Supply Chain organizations. Mr. Wiese holds a B.S. and a M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Wisconsin.

Goncagul İçören has served as Energy Vault’s Chief People Officer since 2022. Prior to Energy Vault, Ms. Icoren served as an Executive Director of HR at Amgen Inc. (Nasdaq:AMGN) from 2017 to 2021 and a Regional HR Lead from 2014 to 2017. Prior to joining Amgen Inc., Ms. Icoren served as Vice President of Global Talent Management at Actavis Pharma, Inc. from 2012 to 2014 and Vice President of Human Resources for Europe from 2009 to 2012. Ms. Icoren holds a B.A. in International Relations from Middle East Technical University and an Executive M.Sc. in International Human Resource Management from Cranfield University Cranfield School of Management.

Jan Kees van Gaalen serves as Energy Vault’s Chief Financial Officer. Jan Kees is a highly accomplished global CFO, who has served at five public, mainly energy-focused, companies and brings extensive Wall Street, analyst, and capital markets experience. Prior to joining Energy Vault, Jan Kees served as the interim CFO at OneSpan, a publicly held software company. He was CFO of C&J Energy Services, which specializes in oilfield services with $2bn in revenue. In this role, Jan Kees was responsible for the Finance and IT functions and planned and executed a $450mil revolving facility, prior to the merger with Keane. Prior to C&J, he was CFO at Kennametal, a $2.5bn revenue company with, approximately 12,700 employees and with sales in 62 countries that primarily included manufactured metalworking products, and finished components for aero, oil and gas, mining and road working industries. He helped formulate and initiate the implementation of a $200-300 million modernization plan of the company’s manufacturing facilities. Jan Kees spent his career prior to Kennametal as a global executive in oil & gas, oilfield services, and mining. Jan Kees has lived in the UK, France, Venezuela, Brazil, South Africa, Indonesia and since June 2009 in the US. He holds a MSc, in Economics from Erasmus University in Netherlands and an MBA from HEC Management School in France. He is originally from Holland and currently lives in Florida with his wife Catherine. Jan Kees and Catherine have three children, living in France and the UK.

Josh McMorrow has served as Energy Vault’s Chief Legal Officer since 2022. Mr. McMorrow is responsible for overseeing Energy Vault’s legal, regulatory, IP and compliance functions, as well as all legal aspects of its strategic and commercial partnerships as the company continues to scale its operations and expand its global footprint. Mr. McMorrow joined the Energy Vault leadership team as a Senior Legal Executive with broad international experience in the energy, industrial gas, construction, and chemicals industries. Mr. McMorrow has been recognized as one of the top 100 GCs in three countries (United States, Switzerland, and Germany) as well as being named General Counsel of the Year for Energy. Mr. McMorrow serves on the Supervisory Board, and as a member of the Audit Committee, of Philomaxcap AG. Before joining Energy Vault, he served as Vice President, Secretary and Group General Counsel for Atotech Group from 2019 to 2022, and he also served in a number of roles for Weatherford International from 2014 to 2019 including VP, Chief Commercial Counsel and General Counsel - North America. Mr. McMorrow also spent 8 years with Air Liquide, ultimately as General Counsel of Air Liquide Engineering & Construction for the Americas. Josh McMorrow graduated with Honors from the University of Texas School of Law and completed his undergraduate degree in International Business at Trinity University, graduating cum laude.

Laurence Alexander has served as Energy Vault’s Chief Marketing Officer since 2022. Mr. Alexander has also served as Chairman for Wantley Manor Consultancy Ltd. since 2002 and a board advisor for Chronos Imaging LLC since 2018. Prior to Energy Vault, Mr. Alexander co-founded EarlyWMC Limited and served as its Chairman from 2010 to 2019. Mr. Alexander also served as Vice President Marketing for Danaher Corporation from 2010 to 2015. Prior to Danaher Corporation, Mr. Alexander served as Group Chief Executive Officer for SAB Holdings, LLC from 2009 to 2010. Prior to SAB Holdings, LLC, Mr. Alexander served in roles of increasing responsibility for O2, a brand owned by Telefónica, from 2002 to 2005. Prior to O2, Mr. Alexander served as Chief Executive Officer for Genie, a subsidiary of British Telecom, from 1999 to 2002. Prior to Genie, Mr. Alexander served as Managing Director of Consumer Services and Chief Operating Officer for World Online from 1998 to 1999. Mr. Alexander holds a HND in Business Studies from Greater Brighton MET.

Marco Terruzzin has served as Energy Vault’s Chief Product Officer since 2022. Prior to Energy Vault, Dr. Terruzzin was founder of EVfy, Inc. Prior to founding EVfy, Inc., Dr. Terruzzin served as Director of Energy Storage for RWE Renewables GmbH from 2017 to 2019. Prior to joining RWE Renewables GmbH, Dr. Terruzzin served as Head of Energy Storage Edge Platform for Stem, Inc. from 2016 to 2017. Prior to joining Stem, Inc., Dr. Terruzzin served as Managing Director — Americas for Electro Power Systems S.A. from 2015 to 2016. Dr. Terruzzin holds a M.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering and a Ph.D. in Energy Economics from University of Padua (Italy) and an M.B.A. from the University of Virginia Darden School of Business.

John Jung has served as Energy Vault’s President of Energy Vault Solutions since 2022. Prior to Energy Vault, Mr. Jung served as Operating Partner for Cota Capital Management, LLC from January 2020 to October 2021. Prior to joining Cota Capital Management, LLC, Mr. Jung co-founded BrightNight, LLC and served as its President from May 2019 to October 2019. Prior to BrightNight, LLC, Mr. Jung served as Global Vice President, Energy Storage/Software/Solar for Warstila Corporation from July 2017 to December 2018. Prior to Wartsila Corporation, Mr. Jung founded Greensmith Energy Management Systems Inc. and served as its President and Chief Executive Officer from its inception in April 2009 until it was acquired by Wartsila Corporation in June 2017. Mr. Jung holds a B.A. in Pure Science and Economics from the University of Western Ontario and a M.B.A. in Strategy and Finance from Ivey Business School.

E.B. Jensen serves as SVP, Project Execution and Delivery of Energy Vault responsible for leading global deployments of Gravity Energy Storage Solutions (GESS) and Battery Energy Storage Solutions (BESS) and will play a critical role as we continue to rapidly advance global deployments.

E.B. brings more than three decades of leadership experience in cross-industry engineering, project management and execution. He has worked in consultancy early in his career in several industrial power companies, and as Director of Operations and Business Development at Jacobs Engineering leading a multi-disciplinary group of engineers, project, and construction managers. He then moved to Worley as VP&GM-Power and New Energy where he took part in driving strategy to take the business unit from 350M USD to 3B USD. Prior to joining Energy Vault, E.B. was the Senior Vice President of Power at Mott MacDonald.

E.B. holds a BSc – Mechanical Engineering from California State Polytechnic University and lives in the greater Los Angeles area with his family. Please join us in welcoming E.B. to the Energy Vault Leadership Team.

Kevin Keough serves as Senior Vice President of Corporate Development responsible for working with the executive management team to set the strategic plan and to drive all M&A activities.

Kevin has led corporate development at Danaher, Tektronix, Netscout, and Inet Technologies across a broad range of high growth segments. At these businesses, he was responsible for their long-range growth strategies and driving complementary mergers and acquisitions that accelerated and amplified execution success.

Kevin applied his knowledge of the rigorous Danaher Business System, DBS, to successfully deploy more than $5B of capital to achieve numerous accretive transactions that expanded addressable market sizes, exploited white space opportunities, consolidated attractive segments and added key growth technologies and business assets. 

Kevin holds a degree in electrical engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, Georgia.