Board of
Advisors and Directors

CEO of WiTricity. Before WiTricity, Gruzen co-founded Austin-based Corsa Ventures. Before Corsa, he was Senior Vice President of the Consumer and Small Medium Business Product Group at Dell, led the company’s global notebook computer business, and previously led the global notebook businesses of Hewlett Packard and Compaq.

Managing Partner at Stage 1 Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm. Baum is an experienced general partner with 35 years in the IT industry, including 25 years in technology finance and 10 years in entrepreneurial operating management roles.

Co-Founder of Cellular One, the major-market cellular industry pioneer, and Air Waves Wireless Electricity.

Professor of Engineering at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, where there are more than 40 Ph.D. and postdoctoral researchers on campus working on wireless charging. Covic leads industrial and EV wireless power research efforts, is a pioneer in inductive power transfer, and actively collaborates in WiTricity research.

Principal at Future Shape, a global investment and advisory firm. Fadell is the founder and former CEO of Nest (acquired by Google), and former SVP of Apple’s iPod Division, where he led the development of the first 18 generations of the iPod and first three generations of the iPhone.

Hakoranta serves as the Executive Vice President and Chief Licensing Officer at InterDigital, Inc. She previously led patent licensing at Nokia, where she most recently served as Senior Vice President, Head of Intellectual Property and Litigation. She is a globally recognized intellectual property professional and licensing executive with a particularly deep knowledge and understanding of licensing standard essential patents.

Kahn is an internationally recognized scholar on retailing, variety-seeking, brand loyalty, product assortment and design and consumer decision-making. She is currently the Patty and Jay H. professor of marketing at The Wharton School at The University of Pennsylvania. She has published more than 75 articles in leading academic journals.

McNabb is the former President and CEO of Electrify America LLC. He served as COO of Volkswagen of America, Inc. for over 3 years.

McNabb also served as President and CEO of Maserati North America for 4 years, then transitioned to a Commercial Director for an additional 3 years.

President and CEO of InterDigital, the mobile and video technology research and development company. Merritt is an expert in intellectual property and leads one of the most successful technology licensing businesses of all time.

Larry Paulson is CEO and member of the board of directors at Novus Capital Corporation. Novus Capital Corporation is a special purpose acquisition company with a focus on smart and innovative technologies. Paulson has more than 30 years of global experience in the wireless telecom industry.

Professor of Physics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), MacArthur Fellow and WiTricity founder. Soljačić and his team developed the foundational technology for wireless power transfer over distance via strongly-coupled magnetic resonators and founded WiTricity in 2007.

President of Climeon Japan, a clean energy company. Watanabe is a 36-year veteran of Mitsubishi Corporation, having last served as the chief strategist and SVP of Mitsubishi Energy Group.