5E Advanced Materials Inc., Houston, on March 21 reported the appointment of Susan Seilheimer Brennan as the company’s new CEO commencing April 24, 2023. The company’s Principal Executive Officer, Anthony Hall, will begin an immediate process, aided by Chairman David Salisbury, to transition the CEO function to Brennan.
5E is a boron and lithium company with US government Critical Infrastructure designation for its 5E Boron Americas (Fort Cady, Calif.) Complex. The company said Brennan has an extensive global leadership background, particularly in the battery technology and electric vehicle industries.
Most recently, as the CEO of NYSE-listed Romeo Power, she was responsible for leading an organization that developed a suite of battery technology products designed for commercial vehicles. She also led the successful sale of Romeo Power to Nikola Corp., a provider of zero-emissions transportation and energy infrastructure solutions.
Prior to her role at Romeo Power, she was the COO of Bloom Energy, a fuel cell technology company, that completed a successful IPO after the leadership team grew the business to almost $1 billion.
She has also served as Director of Manufacturing Operations for Ford Motor Co. and Vice President of Manufacturing for Nissan North America. She has worked in chemical process development at Hoechst Celanese.
Brennan holds a B.S. from the University of Illinois-Champaign-Urbana and an MBA from the University of Nebraska at Omaha. She is a Non-Executive Director of Senior PLC, Founder and Board member of the Southern Automotive Women’s Forum, and a former advisor of The Pathways Group at Stanford University. She is also an advisor to the Dean of Engineering at University of California at Long Beach, as well as Ambassador for the US Department of Energy’s flagship C3E program – Clean Energy, Education, and Empowerment.