Leadership

Sanket Gandhi is a chemical engineer with over 20 years of experience across the biopharmaceutical, biopolymer, and oil, gas, and mining industries. After earning his Master’s in Chemical Engineering from Stevens Institute of Technology, he worked at Organon Inc. and MannKind Corporation, where he contributed to pharmaceutical development and an inhalable insulin platform for diabetics.

In 2011, he founded HPPE to create sustainable biopolymers, later restructuring it into Integrity Bio Chem and Fermworx to address industrial and regulated markets. Sanket now serves as CEO of Crysalis BioSciences, focusing on low-carbon chemicals and sustainable aviation fuel.

Eric has over a decade of experience in biofuels, natural products, catalysis, and end-to-end bioprocess development in both government run national laboratories and in industry. He has over 36 peer reviewed publications, and is the inventor on multiple patents currently being used in biomanufacturing.

He has won numerous awards notably; an R&D 100 award in 2017, the Federal Laboratory Consortium for Technology Transfer award in 2017, was appointed a Distinguished Member of the Research Staff at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in 2021, and won the University of Washington’s Early Career Impact Award for Chemical Engineers in 2023 among others.

Dan leads integrated operations and finance strategy and execution for the Company. He is also leading multiple collaborations with key stakeholders to drive economical and deliverable decarbonization in industrial and transport sectors.

Dan was Chief Strategy & Sustainability Officer at NXT Clean Fuels, developer of SAF/RD production. Previously, he led the development of sustainable alternative energy platforms for Pilot Flying J, Berkshire Hathaway subsidiary. Dan was also the former CFO of World Energy, one of the first producers of SAF in the world. Dan has been active in the global energy sector for 30+ years in operating companies and financial institutions, which included Exxon, Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank and MUFG. Dan earned an MBA from Yale University and BS in Chemical Engineering from Cornell University.

Gene Cotten brings 35+ years of extensive experience in project design, engineering, and execution across the gas, oil, and renewable energy industries. He has held senior executive roles at major energy companies and served as a senior advisor specializing in energy acquisition and technical due diligence.

Over the past decade, Gene has conducted scoping evaluations for more than 20 renewable diesel projects, focusing on technology selection, site evaluation, project scope definition, and cost estimation.

Previously, he was President at NXTClean, overseeing technical process design and project execution, and Vice President at International Alliance Group. Gene also led the growth of Valero, where he led operations of multiple refineries and many multi-billion-dollar capital projects. At Valero, Gene led multiple refinery acquisition and turnarounds, managed most of the plant operations and was also senior plant manager for plant optimization and strategic development.