Company Profile and Background

Board of Directors

• Faiz Francois Nahab Ph.D.
• Helmut Gierse
• Sebastian Goldner
• Roman Kotlarzewski
• Manfred Limbrunner
• Antonio Bossi
• Ali Naini

• Faiz Francois Nahab Ph.D.
  Chief Executive Officer

  Faiz Nahab has over 35 years of executive management experience in company restructuring and expansion. For more than 20 years he served as consultant to major international companies on technical and high technology projects with focus on product sales, marketing and product development. He has a strong background in project management including project finance and control. As entrepreneur Dr. Nahab successfully developed a medical infrastructure company and developed an expert team for installing and commissioning of industrial equipment and machinery covering areas such as clean and waste water projects, cement and urea factories. The main business of his companies is based in the Middle East with involvement in country infrastructure construction in partnership with major international partners as MSD, Siemens AG, Carl Zeiss and others.

  He still holds various Directorships at companies in the pharmaceutical, medical and technology sector, some of them as CEO and Chairman. Dr. Nahab had academic undergraduate education in Electronics at Southampton, postgraduate PhD at Kent University UK in Electronics and full membership of MIEEE.

• Helmut Gierse
  Chairman

  Helmut Gierse has over 30 years of international industry experience covering the fields of factory automation, process industry and power generation. His experience comes from his work in R&D, production, sales and marketing.

  His expertise has been gained from a range of industry positions at the management level, most recently as the CEO and President of the Siemens Group in Automation and Drive in Germany. Helmut Gierse is currently an independent industry consultant.

  Helmut Gierse studied Electronic Engineering at the Universität Erlangen in Germany. He speaks German, English, French and Spanish.

• Sebastian Goldner
  Chief Technical and Operations Officer

  Sebastian Goldner has more than 10 years’ experience in the design and construction of mobile, marine and stationary fuel cell applications. His experience is based on various leadership positions in sales & marketing, project management and development. Currently, Mr. Goldner is as the CTO and COO responsible for the technical development, the production and the customer projects.

  Sebastian Goldner studied engineering computer science with a focus on electrical engineering at the University of Paderborn. As part of his studies, he completed his diploma thesis at Infineon Technologies in Munich.

• Roman Kotlarzewski
  Group Finance Director

  Roman Kotlarzewski is an Associate of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales. Mr. Kotlarzewski has over 30 years of industry experience including significant private and public company experience also on an international level via financial leadership roles within the Boots Company PLC, Standex International Corporation and BASF AG. Mr. Kotlarzewski occupied the position of CFO Europe at the private company goetzpartners Corporate Finance, was CFO with the startup Carfrogger GmbH and is Director at the Globe Business College Munich.

  Kotlarzewski studied Modern Languages and Economics at Northumbria University and speaks English, German and French.

• Manfred Limbrunner
  Director Governmental Affairs and Communication

  Manfred Limbrunner joined Proton Motor in November 2000 as a design engineer and project manager for various mobile and maritime projects. In his early years he was also in charge of the systems engineering and the homologation of the Fuel Cell Hybrid Systems of Proton Motor. As Proton Motor developed further he formed and led the design department, played a significant role in implementing the quality management system and rotated in October 2009 to the product management position, until he was appointed as CTO in March 2011.
  By November 2016 he took over the newly founded Mobility Business Unit and now he is responsible for the Sales and Marketing at Proton Motor.
  Appointed to Director Sales and Marketing in February 2018 and to Director Governmental Affairs and Communication in October 2022.

  Prior to joining Proton Motor, Manfred Limbrunner worked for 5 years in the pulp & paper plant engineering business. His main duties and responsibilities were in the design of complex plant sub assembly groups, supervising their mounting through external suppliers, plant engineering, customer support, supervising the mounting team as well as the project management.

  Manfred Limbrunner studied mechanical engineering with a focus on design at the University of Applied Science in Kempten and started his career at Hoerbiger Fluidtechnik GmbH in 1995.

• Antonio Bossi
  Non Executive Director

  Antonio Bossi has over 25 years experience in corporate finance, equity capital markets and M&A including over seven years with ING Barings and ABN AMRO working across a number of sectors. He is currently a Corporate Finance Director at Arden Partners having previously spent 18 years with Stockdale Securities and its predecessor company, which became part of Shore Capital in 2019. Antonio Bossi is an Italian national and an engineer by education (Politecnico di Milano).

• Ali Naini
  Non Executive Director

  Mr Naini is a co-founder and Managing Director of Turquoise International Limited (“Turquoise”), www.turquoise.eu, one of Europe´s longest established financial advisers and investors in climate technologies. His experience includes: the set up and management of the two ERDF-backed Low Carbon Innovation Funds; work with a variety of ClimateTech companies (including Proton Motor, where he was previously the deputy chairman for two years from 2008 to 2010); 10 years as co-founder and chairman of Controlled Power Technologies (hybridisation of passenger vehicles) from establishment to trade sale; and 10 years as exclusive financial advisor to Anglo Platinum on ClimateTech matters including its fuel cell JV with Johnson Matthey and establishment of a corporate venturing fund. Previously, he worked in energy project finance and privatisation at Close Brothers, Flemings and PwC, on projects such as Thailand’s first IPP solicitation programme and the Northern Ireland electricity privatisation. He holds a Master’s and a 1st class Bachelor’s degrees from the London School of Economics

You want to learn more about Proton Motor