US algae-based biofuel company Aurora Biofuels announces management changes

5 March 2009

US algae-based biofuel company Aurora Biofuels, Inc. has unveiled a new management structure and has announced an addition to their scientific advisory board, with Dr Mario Tredici, a professor of microbiology at the University of Florence joining a four-member advisory team.The company has also named fuel industry veteran Robert Walsh its new CEO.

With over 25 years in the traditional petroleum industry and recent corporate leadership experience in the advanced biofuels space, Walsh will bring his experience to Aurora as the company continues to develop its proprietary algae technology and expand production of commercial quantities of algal fuel.

With the appointment of Walsh, Matthew Caspari, a founder and the company’s previous chief executive, will become vice president of business development.

‘After years leading companies in the traditional petroleum and biofuels industries, and knowing what it takes to transition from the lab to the market, I see that the exceptionally strong science and engineering at Aurora Biofuels makes us particularly well-positioned for this journey, and I’m excited to join the team,’ said Walsh. ‘Aurora can become the low-cost producer of biofuels, with a readily available, cheap, scalable source of feedstock, the opportunity to produce large volumes, and greenhouse gas reductions which double that of sugar-based advanced biofuels.’

Walsh is a transportation fuels executive with more than 28 years of global petroleum industry experience including 26 years at Royal Dutch Shell. From 2001 to 2005, he was general manager, supply for Shell Europe Oil Products where he was responsible for $30bn in annual revenue. He was most recently president of advanced biofuel company LS9, Inc.

‘Aurora Biofuels’ world class team has made great progress developing advanced, economical algae biotech and process engineering technology,’ said Jim Long, venture partner at Gabriel Venture Partners and chairman of the company’s board of directors. ‘With Bob Walsh joining the team, we can now move quickly towards commercialising this proprietary technology.’

Aurora Biofuels manufactures fuel from algae in a patented production process. Company investors include venture capital firms Oak Investment Partners, Noventi Ventures and Gabriel Venture Partners.

Copyright © 2009 newnet

Tags: algae, biofuel, venture capital

This story was published on Thursday, March 5th, 2009 at 3:11 pm and is filed under North America, biomass/biofuel, companies. You can follow any responses to article entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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