Management
Karl Steigele
| Chief Executive Officer
Karl Steigele joined Nanosolar in September 2012 as the company’s President and Chief Operating Officer and now serves as the company's Chief Executive Officer. Prior to joining Nanosolar, Steigele was founder and president of Steigele Consulting, Inc., a management consulting firm focused on helping companies to prepare and execute their growth strategies. Mr. Steigele brings close to four decades of international management and consulting experience having been engaged to drive complex organizational and technology-driven change programs and business process improvement projects at Fortune 500 clients including Intel, Hitachi, ABB, Thomson, Siemens, Sony, and McKesson among others, while serving as a senior consultant at IBM Global Services. Karl started his long and rewarding career at IBM where he was plant manager for close to seven years of an IBM printed circuit board plant in Germany. Mr. Steigele holds a German university degree comparable to a Bachelor degree in Production Engineering from the University of Applied Science Heilbronn, Germany, and he earned a Toolmaker degree at the then Daimler-Benz AG (Mercedes).
Ravi Balaji
| Vice President, Cell Operations
Vice President, Cell Operations Ravi Balaji joined Nanosolar in October 2010 as VP of Cell Operations. From 2006 to 2010, Ravi held various senior management positions at Solyndra, lastly as senior director of Operations at Solyndra’s Fab-1, where Ravi was instrumental in ramping up the factory to a production rate of 16 MW/qtr. From 2003 to 2006, he served as director of Program Management at MMC Technology (a division of Maxtor Corp), a manufacturer of disks for the disk drive industry. From 1988 to 2003, Ravi held various process engineering roles in the disk drive- and telecom component industries. Ravi holds a master’s degree in Materials Science from The University of Texas at Austin and a bachelor’s degree in Metallurgy from the Indian Institute of Technology in Chennai, India.
John Bender
| Vice President, Supply Chain
Vice President, Supply Chain John Bender joined Nanosolar in May 2011 as VP of Supply Chain. Prior to joining Nanosolar, Bender was founder and CEO of Bender Consulting, a boutique management consulting firm focused on complex business transformation. Additionally, Bender served for more than 15 years at Hewlett-Packard Company in a wide variety of cross-functional leadership- and executive roles including R&D, manufacturing, supply chain, and vice-president of Corporate Strategy. A noted M&A expert with more than 15 acquisitions to his credit, John is widely recognized for his key role leading Hewlett’s $19.5 billion acquisition of Compaq Computer. Bender holds a bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering from Case Western Reserve University, and has completed executive coursework at Harvard University including The General Manager Program (TGMP). He and his engineering teams hold more than 30 design patents and John is a sought-after speaker at industry conferences and universities.
Mirco Boldt
| VP Panel Operations, Managing Director Nanosolar GmbH
VP Panel Operations, Managing Director Nanosolar GmbH Mirco Boldt joined Nanosolar in December 2008 and now serves as VP of Panel Operations and is also the managing director of Nanosolar GmbH, the fully-automated, panel-assembly factory based in Luckenwalde, Germany. Prior to scaling panel factory readiness to a cost-effective mass producer level at Nanosolar, Mirco Boldt spent more than a decade working for BMW AG in a wide variety of cross-functional leadership roles including manufacturing and factory maintenance and project lead on new BMW motorcycle technology and related manufacturing. He is an accredited electrical engineer and has been published in industry journals on “innovative conveyor technology for future assembly factory.”
Dave Jackrel
| Vice President, Research and Development
Vice President, Research and Development Dave Jackrel leads Nanosolar’s R&D. Prior to joining Nanosolar in 2007, Jackrel completed his postdoctoral research at Stanford University. His studies and work include more than 13 years of experience in photovoltaic research and development including work in thin film solar cells, nano-structured architectures, III-V materials for multi-junction cells, and module packaging. Dave has a bachelor’s degree from Cornell University, and a MS and a PhD in Materials Science and Engineering from Stanford University.
David Wilson
| Chief Financial Officer
Chief Financial Officer
David Wilson joined Nanosolar in November 2012 as the company’s chief financial officer. In his previous position, David was EVP, treasurer and chief financial officer of Alaska Communications (NASDAQ ALSK) where he was a leading driver of strategy, process re-engineering and cost reduction initiatives that secured total shareholder returns that exceeded the sector by 14 times. Prior to Alaska Communications David served as the CFO of Triumph Communications, a subsidiary of Hughes Electronics, and DIRECTV Broadband (formerly Telocity Inc.) where he was appointed CFO, after serving as VP of Finance and Chief Accounting Officer. At Telocity, he helped lead the company through its initial public offering and eventual sale to DIRECTV. David also spent nine years in public accounting at PricewaterhouseCoopers in offices in Europe, Asia and the US. He is a Chartered Accountant and holds a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Birmingham, UK.
