LanzaTech Global, Inc., an innovative carbon capture and transformation company, has hired Aura Cuellar as EVP of growth and strategic projects, according to a news release.
LanzaTech is pioneering a new circular carbon economy. The company captures carbon emissions and pollution from industries and uses a specialty microbe to convert them into the building blocks used to make everyday materials, including sustainable fuels, packaging, and textiles. This process patterns after traditional refining methods but offers a way of refining carbon that has already seen a primary use rather than processing virgin fossil carbon.
The company has a strong project pipeline in addition to three operating commercial scale plants and an anticipated three more coming online before the end of 2023. In October 2022, LanzaTech announced a strategic funding partnership with Brookfield Renewable to build additional commercial facilities. The funding will be provided through the Brookfield Global Transition Fund, which is the largest private fund in the world focused on the energy transition. Brookfield is LanzaTech’s preferred capital partner for project opportunities in Europe and North America and following initial investments totaling $500m, Brookfield could commit to making an additional $500m available for investments in the strategic partnership if sufficient projects are available at the agreed milestones.
With the appointment of Cuellar, who has a record of running and implementing large scale capital projects for the refining and chemicals sectors, LanzaTech installs a global executive with seasoned project management, construction, and commercial negotiation experience to accelerate deployment of projects and capital in partnership with Brookfield.
The creation of a team around Cuellar is expected to fast track growth and bring additional revenue to the newly listed company by accelerating capital deployment from Brookfield.
Prior to joining LanzaTech, Aura Cuellar most recently served as Vice President of Energy Transition for Shell in the United States. Originally hired into an engineering position, Cuellar advanced her 24+ year tenure at Shell across various senior executive roles in downstream manufacturing. Cuellar brings a proven successful track record of strategy development and implementation, strategic commercial partnerships formation for creating sustainable revenue pipelines, and management of an annual capital projects portfolio of $500m.
“LanzaTech continues to set an example for decarbonization, matching innovation with ambition,” said Natalie Adomait, managing partner, and CIO of Transition Investing at Brookfield. “With Aura at the helm of this infrastructure initiative, we look forward to continuing the work Brookfield has begun with LanzaTech on our journey toward a circular carbon economy.”
“As the world’s first public carbon transformation company, we are doubling down our efforts to accelerate the commercial deployment of our technology,” said Jennifer Holmgren, CEO of LanzaTech. “We have found the right leader in Aura and the right partner in Brookfield Renewables. Together we can get more steel in the ground and start solving our carbon emissions problem today. This is what the world needs us to do.”
