Nickel-zinc power solutions for a better world

Tod Higinbotham is CEO of ZincFive. He has a strong track record of successfully growing advanced materials companies in the energy storage, semiconductor, and solar markets. He served as Executive VP/GM for ATMI and led the rapid growth of the company, which was sold for more than $1 billion. Tod was an executive member of the leadership team at Advanced Silicon Materials, a world leader in high-purity silicon materials, the business that was sold to REC to form their solar materials business. He was formerly the CEO of PowerGenix, the company that pioneered the novel nickel-zinc battery technology that has become the core of ZincFive’s solution portfolio.

Marty Heimbigner is an accomplished Chief Financial Officer with deep experience leading both private and public companies through periods of rapid growth, transformation, and successful exits. He has played a key role in multiple IPOs and strategic acquisitions, including serving as CFO of Porch Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: PRCH) and guiding the company through its public-market transition. Known for his ability to connect financial strategy with business vision, Marty brings a holistic, operationally grounded perspective that helps organizations scale with discipline, transparency, and long-term value creation. He is a CPA and holds accounting degrees from Washington State University and a MBA from the University of Washington.

As co-founder of ZincFive, Tim Hysell helped pioneer the development and commercialization of nickel-zinc batteries for demanding power applications. He brings over 30 years of experience building and guiding companies in renewable energy, manufacturing, banking, and medical devices, working alongside global partners including Siemens, Philips, and Hewlett-Packard. Tim also co-founded Pacific West Bank, where he serves on the board.

Hannah-Mei Andrews is an Investment Director at Climate Investment, one of ZincFive’s shareholders. She focuses on deal origination, evaluation, execution and post-investment support of venture capital stage companies. Hannah-Mei joined Climate Investment in 2018 and is a Board member of a number of CI portfolio companies. Prior to joining Climate Investment, she worked in a variety of commercial roles in government cybersecurity and defense. She has an MA from the University of St Andrews, named as one of 2025 Venture Capital Journal’s 40 Rising Stars under 40 and Global Corporate Venturing’s Top 50 Rising Stars in 2023. 

Steven is the founder and president of Ecotopia Consulting, where he advises early-stage climate tech companies. He previously spent a distinguished career in investment banking, including senior leadership roles at Barclays – where he sponsored the Environmental and Social Impact Banking Initiative and co-led the Cleantech Initiative – and at Lehman Brothers, where he chaired the firm’s transaction approval committees and served as Chief Investment Officer of its Private Equity Division. Steven contributes his expertise to several boards advancing decarbonization, sustainability, and social impact. 

Daniel is a highly accomplished leader of multi-billion-dollar organizations with thirty-five years of experience in Data Centers, IT, AI, Renewable and Software industries. He is a start-up enthusiast with a passion for building businesses, accelerating growth and transforming companies. Early in his career he led MGE-UPS Systems through an acquisition by Schneider Electric, where he rose to become a member of the Executive Committee and developed several Business Units including the Data Center Business Unit. In 2017 he was lured back to the start-up world and served as President and COO of Cylance a hyper growth start-up specialized in AI applied to Cybersecurity and acquired by BlackBerry in 2019. 

Evan is a Portfolio Manager at Sender Company & Partners and a veteran investment professional with over 20 years of experience in global capital markets. He also serves as an Advisor to Gray’s Creek Capital partners and previously held senior investment roles at several of the world’s leading hedge funds, including Soros Fund Management, Caxton Associates and Verition Fund Management. His career is distinguished by his deep operational understanding of tech companies and its impact on generating long-term shareholder value. Evan holds a BA in Economics from the University of Chicago.

Tod Higinbotham is CEO of ZincFive. He has a strong track record of successfully growing advanced materials companies in the energy storage, semiconductor, and solar markets. He served as Executive VP/GM for ATMI and led the rapid growth of the company, which was sold for more than $1 billion. Tod was an executive member of the leadership team at Advanced Silicon Materials, a world leader in high-purity silicon materials, the business that was sold to REC to form their solar materials business. He was formerly the CEO of PowerGenix, the company that pioneered the novel nickel-zinc battery technology that has become the core of ZincFive’s solution portfolio.

As co-founder and Strategic Advisor of ZincFive, Tim Hysell helped pioneer the development and commercialization of nickel-zinc batteries for demanding power applications. He brings over 30 years of experience building and guiding companies in renewable energy, manufacturing, banking, and medical devices, working alongside global partners including Siemens, Philips, and Hewlett-Packard. Tim also co-founded Pacific West Bank, where he serves on the board.

Terry has spent three decades working, studying, and investing at the intersection of business and the environment. His focus spans renewable energy, energy storage, and sustainable business practices. Across a multi-sector career, the common threads have been entrepreneurship, network-building, and mobilizing resources to drive positive environmental impact. 

At Green Mountain Energy, Terry analyzed new markets for a leading renewable energy retailer. As Director of Environmental Stewardship at Timberland, he led early adoption of on-site solar and wind generation and helped pioneer some of the first corporate carbon credit transactions. He later founded Helios Climate Ventures, which has invested more than $200 million toward advancing the energy transition. 

Jeff is a former Vice Chair and the former CFO of General Electric (July 2013 – October 2017). In his role he focused on portfolio transformation including the sale of Appliances, executing the merger of GE Oil & Gas with Baker Hughes, the sale of $300 billion of businesses and assets of GE Capital and GE’s acquisition of Alstom, as well as driving down structural costs. Previously, Bornstein served as SVP and CFO of GE Capital for 12 years. During his role GE Capital grew earnings 4X. He also played a pivotal role managing the company through the financial crisis and, subsequently, the on-boarding of the Federal Reserve as Regulator. Bornstein mentored and developed a generation of finance leaders that continue to lead GE, as well as many other public and private companies.

Bornstein joined GE in 1989 with the GE Power Systems’ Financial Management Program. In 1992, he joined the GE Corporate Audit Staff and then became Executive Audit Manager. In 1996, he was named Chief Financial Officer for GE Aircraft Engine Services and Vice President in 1998. In 1999, he was promoted to Chief Financial Officer of GE Plastics and served as their CFO until 2002. Jeff has a wife, Jill, and four sons: Mathew, Andrew, Max, and Alex. He is on the board of Northeastern University and BuildOn. He has also been involved in a number of youth programs. He received his B.S. in Business Administration from Northeastern University.

Ron is a proven global FinTech and payments executive. Most recently, as CEO and Board Director, Ron led the successful turnaround of UniRush LLC, a prepaid financial services company and owner of the renowned RushCard. He initiated a recapitalization process, returned the company to profitability, and grew new customer acquisitions by more than 100% before completing the successful sale of the company to Green Dot in 2017.

Prior to UniRush, he held senior-level positions at MasterCard Worldwide, including serving as Executive Vice President Global Prepaid Solutions for four years. Under his leadership, the prepaid team engineered exponential growth in both revenue and market share for MasterCard’s global prepaid business and championed the company’s financial inclusion and government strategies, and was responsible for creating 7 of the top 10 prepaid card programs, globally.

Prior to his tenure at Mastercard, Ron was EVP Business Development and Strategy at FSV Payment Systems and Senior Vice President at J.P. Morgan Chase/Bank One, where he oversaw Prepaid Card Solutions. Hynes was also a founding Board member of the Network Branded Prepaid Card Association and a Board Director at Access Prepaid Worldwide.

Currently Ron sits on the advisory boards of PayFare, LLC, a FinTech provider of real time pay and banking for gig-economy employers and workers and Amino, a new kind of digital health company that combines big data and technology to connect people to the best care possible.

Marc van den Berg is Global Managing Director in the Investment Team where he leads the firm’s venture capital investment program. Marc joined Climate Investment in 2022 and is a Board member for CI portfolio companies, 75F, Achates, Andium, Qnovo, Svante and a Board observer at Aeroseal. Over his extensive venture capital investing career, Marc has held investment roles at 40 North Ventures, DBL Partners and VantagePoint Venture Partners through the past two decades. In those roles, Marc focused on energy, energy efficiency and industrial investing in support of sustainability initiatives. Prior to his venture capital career Marc spent 25 years in both venture-backed startups and multi-national public companies in Silicon Valley and abroad. Marc is based in San Francisco.

Small company growth stories are a passion for Brent, who has a history of identifying market opportunities and building companies in oil and gas services, construction, beverage, and banking. Sandvik, a Swedish global, public company recently acquired one of Brent’s companies, INROCK, the industry recognized global innovator in horizontal directional drilling (HDD). The technologies allow installation of infrastructure below economic and environmental sensitive surface terrain. INROCK pioneered the first rock drilling projects ever attempted in the HDD industry. Brent is a board member of Dynomax and President of Reve.

Peter earned a 36 year reputation at GE for scaling ideas into working solutions. Among his positions, President of Olympic Sponsorship and Corporate Sales and spearheading a team to develop and implement growth strategies with a select group of GE’s global customers, Peter managed the Sales Force Effectiveness, Corporate Sales and Government Selling programs. Peter continues important work with the GE Healthcare team working on the GE/NFL brain research effort, which he helped initiate. He is also President of the private foundation, ALS Finding a Cure.

Charles is a pioneer in commercializing new energy technologies, including as Chairman and CEO of Ener1, where he helped build a team of 700 full time employees and the infrastructure equipped for large scale development. The company expanded operations to a global platform with revenues growing tenfold and earning a spot on the NASDAQ. Charles also developed and commercialized the company’s battery technology into the hybrid and electric vehicles market, grid-scale energy storage, and consumer electronics applications. He has served on the Electric Drive Transport Association, Electrification Coalition, and the Richard G. Lugar Center for Renewable Energy.

Steven is the founder and president of Ecotopia Consulting, where he advises early-stage climate tech companies. He previously spent a distinguished career in investment banking, including senior leadership roles at Barclays – where he sponsored the Environmental and Social Impact Banking Initiative and co-led the Cleantech Initiative – and at Lehman Brothers, where he chaired the firm’s transaction approval committees and served as Chief Investment Officer of its Private Equity Division. Steven contributes his expertise to several boards advancing decarbonization, sustainability, and social impact.