Nanosolar

About Us

Based on the economics of roll-to-roll printing, Nanosolar’s mission is to deliver the most cost efficient solar electricity.

Our first product, the Nanosolar Utility Panel, can enable competitively-priced peak power and installed system economics at utility-scale.

Our People

Our people are our most important asset, from all our employees to our management, our board of directors, and our network of investment partners.

Our Engineers and Scientists

Our engineers and scientists are on the frontline of where things happen at Nanosolar. 

Our Executive Management

Geoff Tate
Chief Executive Officer
Geoff Tate joined Nanosolar in March 2010 as the company's CEO. Geoff served as CEO of Rambus, Inc from 1990 to 2005. Tate previously held the position of Senior Vice President and corporate officer of Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), holding various general management positions over the course of ten years. Tate has a BS in Computer Science from the University of Alberta, an MBA from Harvard, and completed the MSEE course work at Santa Clara University.

Becky Baybrook
Vice President, Human Resources
Becky Baybrook joined Nanosolar in June 2010 as VP Human Resources. Prior to Nanosolar, Becky was VP, Global HR & Administration for Silicon Storage Technology, Inc., a semiconductor company. From 2002 to 2008 she was VP, Human Resources for PDF Solutions, Inc. with multiple offices in Asia & Europe. Earlier, Becky worked for 3Com and then for Vitria Technologies in significant HR generalist roles. She began her career working for Knight-Ridder, Inc. a media company where she was VP, Human Resources on the corporate staff. Becky holds a bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Westmont College and a PhD in Organizational Psychology from University of South Florida.

Eugenia Corrales
Executive Vice President, Engineering & Operations
Eugenia Corrales joined Nanosolar in May 2010 as EVP Operations and Engineering. Prior to joining Nanosolar, Corrales was founder and CEO of Sunmodular, a manufacturer of heat transfer solutions for photovoltaic modules. Prior to starting Sunmodular, she was Vice President of Engineering for SolFocus, a manufacturer of high-concentration photovoltaic systems. From 1999 to 2007, she held multiple executive positions at Cisco Systems, last as Vice President of Product Operations. Prior to Cisco, she held multiple leadership roles in product development and manufacturing at Hewlett Packard, where she worked for eleven years. Corrales holds a bachelor’s degree in Physics from Grinnell College and a master’s degree in Manufacturing Systems Engineering from Stanford University.

Olaf Dany
Vice President of Operations, Panels & Managing Director, Nanosolar GmbH
Olaf Dany previously led Swiss automotive supplier SAIA-Burgess as a plant manager, with responsibilities including a factory with 250 employees. Prior to this, Dany held a series of production and logistics management positions at Panasonic, Philips, 3M, and other global industrial suppliers. He has more than 25 years of experience with production volumes ranging from a lot size of one to several hundred million. Dany hold an M.S. in Electrical Engineering and is trained in the Toyota Production System (Kanban, Kaizen, Lean production), JIT, and TQM.

Stephen Huh
Acting CFO & VP, Financial Planning
Stephen Huh joined Nanosolar in March 2010. Prior to joining Nanosolar, he was the Corporate Controller at Formfactor, a design and manufacturer of semiconductor wafer probe cards. During his six years at Formfactor, he served in various other roles, including manufacturing controller and head of corporate financial planning and analysis. Previous to Formfactor, he worked three years in finance and accounting at DirecTV Broadband / Telocity, three years at Seagate Technology, and three years at Ernst and Young, LLP. Huh earned an MBA from the Leavey School of Business, Santa Clara University and a BS in Business/Economics from the University of California at Los Angeles.

Dave Jackrel
Vice President, Research and Development
Dave Jackrel leads Nanosolar’s R&D. Prior to joining Nanosolar in 2007, Jackrel completed his Postdoctoral research at Stanford University. His studies and work include more than 13 years experience in photovoltaic research and development including work in thin film solar cells, nanostructured architectures, III-V materials for multi-junction cells, and module packaging. Dave has a BS from Cornell University, and an MS and a PhD in Materials Science and Engineering from Stanford University.

Brian Sager
Vice President of Corporate Development
Brian Sager co-founded the company in 2002 and manages the company's government programs, strategic partnerships, and intellectual property portfolio. Prior to Nanosolar, he led a high-growth biotechnology practice at Ernst & Young where he advised private and public companies at all stages of growth on corporate finance issues, R&D portfolio management, and technology licensing. Sager earned a Ph.D. in biochemistry from Stanford University and did his postdoctoral work at Harvard University.

Brian Stone
Vice President of Worldwide Sales & Marketing
Brian Stone leads Nanosolar’s worldwide sales and marketing. Prior to joining Nanosolar in December 2008, Stone spent three years at SunPower Corporation and PowerLight Corporation as Vice President of Marketing, as the combined companies grew from $200 million in sales to $1.5 billion. Prior to SunPower, Stone was an executive in residence (EIR) at Mohr, Davidow Ventures. Prior to MDV, Stone played a leading role at Siebel Systems, Inc. for 6 years, including as general manager of the public sector business unit and director of the energy product line. Stone earned an MBA from the Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley and a BA from the University of Pennsylvania.

Ali Zamanpour
Vice President, Quality & Reliability
Ali Zamanpour joined Nanosolar in June 2010 as VP of Quality and Reliability. Prior to joining Nanosolar, Ali was VP of Quality and Reliability at Abound Solar in Colorado. Prior to Abound, Ali was director of worldwide hardware quality and reliability at Cisco Systems for 5 years. In addition, he has held multiple leadership roles in semiconductors and disk drive manufacturing operations, product and test engineering at Texas Instruments, Silicon Systems, Volterra, Massana and Digital equipment corporation. Ali holds a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in electrical engineering from University of Utah.

Our Board of Directors

Geoff Tate, see above.

Bill Gurley
Benchmark Capital
Bill Gurley joined Benchmark Capital in 1999 after spending two years as a partner with Hummer Winblad Venture Partners. Before entering the venture capital business, Bill Gurley spent four years on Wall Street as a top-ranked research analyst, including three years at CS First Boston focusing on the personal computer hardware and software business. His research coverage included such companies as Dell, Compaq, and Microsoft, and he was the lead analyst on the Amazon IPO. In both 1995 and 1996, Bill Gurley was a member of the Institutional Investor All-American Research Team. Prior to his investment career, Bill Gurley was a design engineer at Compaq Computer, where he worked on products such as the 486/50 and Compaq's initial multi-processor server. Before Compaq, he served in the technical marketing group of Advanced Micro Devices' embedded processor division.

Erik Straser
MDV
Erik Straser leads MDV's cleantech investment team. Prior to MDV, Erik worked at Interval Research Corp., a technology incubator funded by Paul Allen, and at Los Alamos National Laboratory as a technical staff member. Straser serves on the advisory council of the Stanford Precourt Institute for Energy Efficiency as well as on the advisory boards of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program (STVP), Stanford's BASES, NVCA Cleantech Council, and Cleantech Venture Network. Straser earned a bachelor's degree in engineering from Harvey Mudd College and both doctoral and master's degrees from the Stanford University School of Engineering.

Carl Redfield
Independent Director
Carl Redfield served as Senior Vice President, New England executive sponsor of Cisco from September 2004 until May 2008. From February 1997 through September 2004, Mr. Redfield served as Cisco's Senior Vice President, Manufacturing and Logistics. From September 1993 until February 1997, Mr. Redfield served as Vice President of Manufacturing of Cisco. Mr. Redfield is a member of the board of directors of VA Software Corporation, an online media, software and e-commerce company, and Infinera, a manufacturer of high capacity optical transmission equipment. Mr. Redfield holds a B.S. in Materials Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and has completed post-graduate studies at the Harvard Business School.

The Nanosolar Culture

Though we've grown since we started in a small laboratory in 2002, we still maintain a small company feel.  At lunchtime, almost everyone eats in the office café, sitting at whatever table has an opening and enjoying conversations with Nanosolar people from all different departments, executives and operators alike.

Our commitment to innovation depends on everyone being comfortable sharing ideas and opinions. That means that each employee is a hands-on contributor, and everyone wears several hats. Because everyone realizes they are an equally important part of our success, no one hesitates to question anything.

Our hiring policy is aggressively non-discriminatory and favors ability over experience. The result is a staff that reflects the global audience that our products serve. We have offices around the globe and dozens of languages are spoken by Nanosolar staff.  As we grow worldwide, we continue to look for those who share an obsessive commitment to creating the ultimate solar power technology and having a great time doing it.

A Green Company

We recognize our responsibility as a global citizen and specifically as a green-energy technology manufacturer.  We continually strive to reduce the environmental impact of the work we do and the products we create. 

Protecting the environment is critical to the conservation of precious natural resources and the continued health of our planet. 

We are constantly working to minimize our impact on the environment.

In fact, we believe our production and solar-cell technology is the industry's most energy efficient.  We use very little in thermal budget and electricity compared with other manufacturing technologies.  

The energy payback time of our cells is measured in months, not years as with conventional solar technology.

We have an active recycling program both for our office and production facilities as well as for our products which are designed to be recyclable.