About Us

Chief Executive Officer

Susan Stone is CEO at Blue Current, a startup designing high-performing solid-state batteries that safely and sustainably power the EV and consumer tech industries. As an award-winning entrepreneurial leader, she specializes in growing companies with disruptive technologies to commercially scale and transform the industries they serve. Stone was previously CEO of solar technology company Ubiquitous Energy. Prior to her executive leadership in climate tech, she was the founder and CEO of Sierra Wasatch Capital, an early stage venture capital firm. Stone managed early stage investing for Riverhorse Investments, Inc., worked at JPMorgan in New York, as well as Houlihan Lokey in Los Angeles. Stone is a former investment banker in mergers & acquisitions. She holds an MBA from Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business and a bachelor’s degree from Yale University.

Kevin joined Blue Current as Chief Technology Officer in 2018, and has a significant background in electrochemistry, with a focus on battery and fuel cell technologies. Prior to Blue Current, he was on the research team at Ford Motor Company, focusing on research and development of battery materials and fuel cell systems. He is named in over 12 peer reviewed scientific publications and 9 patents. Kevin received his Bachelor’s degree from Drexel University and his PhD in chemical engineering from UC Berkeley, where his thesis focused on lithium-sulfur batteries containing solid polymer electrolytes.

Richa Pandey is Vice President of R&D at Blue Current, bringing over a decade of leadership in deep tech R&D with expertise in climate tech and materials science. Prior to joining Blue Current, she led the R&D team at Ubiquitous Energy, a solar startup spun out of MIT. Richa is a prolific inventor with 20+ patents, 10 peer-reviewed publications, and over 1,500 citations. She has been recognized for her technical contributions and leadership with honors by the Silicon Valley Business Journal and the American Solar Energy Society. Richa is known for her strategic technical leadership and people-centered approach to building and scaling high-performing, cross-functional teams. She holds a PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of Minnesota and a bachelor’s degree from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur

Scott Mullin is Vice President of Cell Engineering at Blue Current. He has over 10 years of experience researching solid-state battery materials and developing them for scale-up. Scott was previously an R&D manager at Seeo Inc. developing all-solid-state batteries and played a key role in the technical developments that led to Seeo’s acquisition by Bosch. He also developed a unique metal 3D printing technology at Holo Inc and scaled the process to fast-turnaround, high-precision parts for surgical robotics. He has a PhD in chemical engineering from UC Berkeley and a BS in chemical engineering from the University of Oklahoma. Scott has 9 patents on materials and processes, and over a dozen publications

Veeral leads Business Development at Blue Current and brings more than 20 years of experience commercializing breakthrough deep-tech technologies. He has secured multiple multimillion-dollar partnerships with global industry leaders including Samsung, LG, 3M, AGC, NSG, ENEOS, and Andersen Corporation.

Prior to Blue Current, Veeral served as Head of Business Development at physical AI startup RoboForce, where he led go-to-market strategy, partnerships, and supported fundraising efforts. He previously spent nine years at Ubiquitous Energy as Vice President of Strategy, leading the commercialization of transparent solar window technology. Earlier in his career, Veeral spent 11 years at Nanosys, Inc., where he held leadership roles across materials development, product management, and business development.

Veeral holds an MBA from the Berkeley Haas School of Business and bachelor’s degrees in Materials Science and Economics from UCLA. He is an author on more than 15 granted patents and is a frequent speaker at international tradeshows and conferences.

Tamara Salatian is Vice President of Operations at Blue Current, bringing more than 17 years of experience in environmental health and safety, facilities management, and workplace operations. She oversees the company’s EH&S, facilities, physical security, real estate, and workplace operations, building and scaling the teams that support Blue Current’s R&D and pilot manufacturing environment. Prior to joining Blue Current, Tamara spent nearly nine years at Denali Therapeutics, rising to Senior Director of Facilities, Global EH&S and Engineering, and has held additional EH&S leadership roles at BSI EHS Services and Solutions and the University of California, Los Angeles. She serves as a Delegate and Board Member for the Women’s Committee at the National Safety Council. Tamara holds a Master’s and Bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry from California State University, Northridge, and is a Certified Safety Professional (CSP) and Certified Facility Manager (CFM).

Nitash Balsara is co-founder and serves as an advisor and board member at Blue Current. He is the Charles W. Tobias Professor of Electrochemistry in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, and is a faculty scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Prior to Blue Current Nitash co-founded SEEO, an early solid-state battery company that was acquired by Bosch. He has over 280 scientific publications and 13 issued patents. Nitash received a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, a master’s degree from Clarkson University, PhD from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and two post-docs at the University of Minnesota and Exxon.

James Hamilton is Senior Vice President and Distinguished Engineer at Amazon. He works on technology across the company focused on making complex systems scale, work reliably, and operate both safely and cost effectively. He has over 200 patents granted over 15 years at Amazon, 12 at Microsoft, and 10 at IBM. He has held leadership roles on Ada and C++ programming language compiler teams, SQL Server and Db2 database engine development teams, high-scale cloud services, network router engineering, cloud server design, datacenter power distribution systems, datacenter mechanical systems, robotics, and logistics systems. In his spare time, he circumnavigated the world in a small boat, enjoys Formula 1 and NFL football, and is interested in just about all engineering disciplines.​

Ms. Brady is the Managing Partner and Co-Founder of Piedmont Capital Partners, LLC, which builds companies resulting from Technology Innovations from Academia. Their portfolio consists of 3D Manufacturing, Energy, Biotech and Software companies. She is also Managing Partner and Co-Founder of a second Venture Capital Fund with Robert Long called Piedmont Capital Investments, LLC. This fund focuses on Transformational Technologies in early-stage ventures. She serves on the boards of five portfolio companies. Prior to joining Piedmont Capital Partners, LLC, Ms. Brady was Vice President of Investments with Wells Fargo Advisors. She began her career with Bank of America as Vice President of Commercial Lending.

Ms. Brady has been and remains active in professional and civic groups. Currently, she serves on the Board of Directors for the two public companies, Comcast Corporation and Travel and Leisure Company. She also serves on the following non-profit boards; the Bryan Foundation, Piedmont Triad Partnership, UNC Shuford Program in Entrepreneurship and Shift_ed. Ms. Brady’s past board service includes the boards of Wyndham Worldwide Corporation, Wyndham Destinations, Cone Health, Greenhill Center for NC Art, Community Foundation of Greater Greensboro including Board Chair, Co-Founder and Initial Chairman of the Board for the Future Fund Endowment, Co-Founder and Board of Directors for the Women to Women Endowment and Co-Chairman of the Task Force to launch the Steven Tanger Center for the Performing Arts.

Ms. Brady received her Bachelor’s Degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1986 with a double major in Industrial Relations and Economics.

Ms. Brady and her husband, Jim, reside in Greensboro, NC and have 3 grown children.

Jon Chisholm is the managing director for Koch Disruptive Technologies (“KDT”), leading the energy investment vertical. From 2014 to 2022, he was the Vice President of Koch Minerals and Trading, LLC (“KM&T”), responsible for business development, strategy and investments. Mr. Chisholm started his career at Koch Industries (“Koch”) in 2005 and has worked in various companies across Koch, including Flint Hills Resources, Koch Fertilizer, Koch Carbon and KM&T. He currently serves on the board of directors for Compass Minerals and Blue Current. Mr. Chisholm earned a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration with a major in finance from Oklahoma State University.

Samuel J. Palmisano is the Chairman of the Center for Global Enterprise, a private, non-profit, nonpartisan research institution devoted to the study of the contemporary corporation, global economic trends, and their impact on society. He is also an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and served as a co-chair of the Council on Competitiveness’s National Innovation Initiative. From 2003, through 2011, he was the chairman, president, and chief executive officer of IBM. Under his leadership, IBM achieved record financial performance, transformed itself into a globally integrated enterprise, and introduced its Smarter Planet agenda. Mr. Palmisano is a graduate of Johns Hopkins University and has received many honorary awards from other academic institutions as well such as Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, London Business School, and Columbia Business School.

Joseph M. DeSimone is co-founder and serves as an adviser and board member of Blue Current. He is the Sanjiv Sam Gambhir Professor of Translational Medicine and Chemical Engineering at Stanford University. He was Co-founder and current Executive Chair of Carbon. Joe has published over 350 scientific articles and has nearly 200 issued patents in his name – with more than an additional 200 patents pending. He is a member of the National Academies of Medicine, Sciences, and Engineering. He is one of only 25 individuals elected to all three U.S. National Academies — the National Academy of Sciences, Medicine, and Engineering. In 2016, President Obama presented him with the National Medal of Technology and Innovation.