The USA company that revealed in July its portland cement no CO2 replacement had met international standards has appointed a new COO
Bringing a wealth of expertise in operational and strategic finance, investment, fundraising, and the leadership and expansion of company operations. Lottie arrives at a pivotal moment for Brimstone, as the company seeks to scale up and commercialize its breakthrough carbon-negative process for producing cement.
“Lottie’s impressive track record in finance and operational leadership, along with her experience in scaling businesses, makes her an invaluable asset to our team,” said Cody Finke, co-founder and CEO of Brimstone. “We’re honoured and excited that she’s joined us in our mission to decarbonize the cement industry.”
The Oakland, California–based startup has developed a new process to make industry-standard cement using basalt and other calcium-bearing silicate rocks, in lieu of limestone. These replacement rocks are rich in calcium oxide — a key ingredient in cement-making — but, crucially, they don’t contain any carbon atoms.
Silicate minerals make up over 80 percent of the earth’s crust, said Brimstone CEO Cody Finke, who noted that the company’s innovations lie in processing common rocks to produce both cement and SCMs.
Lottie previously served as Vice President of Finance at the autonomous vehicle technology company, Aurora Innovation. As the first finance hire, she led the finance and accounting function and partnered with the co-founders and senior leadership team through key “build the company” achievements, including securing over $700 million in funding, executing successful M&A deals, and establishing the company’s operational finance foundation that allowed for ambitious scaling and growth. Prior to Aurora, Lottie worked in the financial services sector at JP Morgan, GE Capital, and Primus Asset Management.
As COO of Brimstone, Lottie oversees day-to-day company operations while providing direction for strategic finance, fundraising, and scaling. Her primary focus will be streamlining operational processes that enable the business to scale optimally, developing revenue-generating strategies, and driving the commercialization roadmap to ensure Brimstone continues its upward trajectory of success.
In July, Brimstone announced that its decarbonized cement meets or exceeds ASTM C150 standards, the industry definition for ordinary portland cement (OPC). This certification unlocks the potential for easy adoption and broad commercialization, proving that Brimstone’s OPC meets the key safety and regulatory requirements needed to build. As the first and only company to develop a process for producing industry-standard OPC without emissions, Brimstone’s achievement creates a viable pathway to eliminate the cement industry’s climate footprint (currently 7.5% of global CO2 emissions).
Brimstone is advancing towards construction of its pilot plant on land acquired near Reno, Nevada, advancing site selection for a larger, commercial-scale plant, and negotiating with potential offtake partners to reserve cement from future production
About Brimstone
Founders Cody Finke and Hugo Leandri met at Caltech, where they began working on solutions to some of the world’s most overlooked environmental problems.
The cement industry has long been considered one of the most challenging to decarbonize, with most emissions coming from its main ingredient, limestone.
Cody and Hugo believed that in order to successfully decarbonize cement, their product would need to be chemically and physically identical to the ordinary portland cement that builders everywhere know and trust. The process would need to be carbon-neutral or negative, and cost-competitive at scale.
The Brimstone team developed a breakthrough carbon-negative process that produces the same cement and supplementary cementitious materials used today.
These materials have the same quality and performance builders have used for over 150 years, but with a key difference: on net, our process removes carbon dioxide out of the air instead of putting it in.
Discover more about Brimstone HERE
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