Board of Directors

Patrick Elliott, Chairman

Pat Elliott is a company director with 40 years’ experience in investment and corporate management. His early career was at Consolidated Gold Fields Australia, and covered investment analysis, management and marketing. He later worked in investment banking and became Head of Corporate Finance for Morgan Grenfell Australia and Managing Director of Natcorp Investments. Patrick has a BCom and MBA, and is a CPA. He is on the Remuneration and Audit Committees.

Anthony Kongats, Chief Executive Officer

Anthony founded CAP-XX in 1997. Prior to this, he was managing director of a passive electronic components manufacturer, a management consultant with McKinsey & Company, and held a number of engineering positions in Australia and Europe. Anthony has a BEng (Hons) from the University of New South Wales, a BSc from the University of Sydney, and an MBA from the Australian Graduate School of Management in Sydney.

Bruce Grey, Non-Executive Director

Bruce is a company director with a strong track record of management in engineering and manufacturing companies, and of commercialisation of automotive technology. This was gained during 13 years with Bishop Technology Group, a privately held Australian automotive technology development company, during which licensing agreements were secured with Robert Bosch, Mercedes Benz, Ford, and two Chinese component suppliers. He also secured an equity investment in Bishop from Mercedes-Benz, which was subsequently transferred to ThyssenKrupp Presta Steertec. Bishop’s technology is today present in over 20% of vehicles manufactured worldwide. In 2012 he was appointed to the Australian Federal Government’s Clean Technology Investment Committee.

Steen Feldskov, Non-Executive Director

Steen joins the CAP-XX board with nearly 40 years of experience working in the electronics industry, with approximately half of that time involved in the sale and marketing of electronic components and the remainder in senior management roles for electronics companies. He is currently the Country Manager for the Danish office of Hamamatsu Photonics Deutschland GmbH, a subsidiary of the Tokyo-listed Hamamatsu Photonics K. K. the Japanese manufacturer of optical sensors, electric light sources, and other optical devices.
Steen received a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Southern Denmark and a Bachelor of Commerce degree in Marketing from the Copenhagen Business School, Denmark. Steen is also a Member of the Danish Management Society.

Executive Team

Anthony Kongats, Chief Executive Officer

Anthony founded CAP-XX in 1997. Prior to this, he was managing director of a passive electronic components manufacturer, a management consultant with McKinsey & Company, and held a number of engineering positions in Australia and Europe. Anthony has a BEng (Hons) from the University of New South Wales, a BSc from the University of Sydney, and an MBA from the Australian Graduate School of Management in Sydney.

Mike Taylor, Chief Financial Officer

Mike has over 25 years’ experience in operations and financial management, much of it gained with internationally listed companies. Mike graduated from Kuring-Gai College with a BBus, and from Macquarie University with a MAppFin. He is a Certified Practicing Accountant (CPA).

Alex Bilyk, Vice President Research

Alex is a Chemist with over 25 years’ experience in Research and Development. In the last 17 years he has been focused on industry R&D for materials and device development at both CAP-XX and CSIRO. Alex has worked extensively on improving the operational performance of energy storage devices. He was awarded a PhD from the University of Sydney and his BSc (Hons) from the University of Western Australia.

Pierre Mars, Vice President Applications Engineering & Quality

Pierre works closely with business partners and customers to develop supercapacitor-based energy storage and power management solutions. He has more than 30 years’ experience in electrical engineering and project management with major multinational corporations, including Honeywell. Pierre has a BEng (Hons) and MEngSci (Electrical) from the University of New South Wales, and an MBA from INSEAD in Paris.

Dallas Garratt, GM – Operations

Dallas has significant experience in design, construction and operations, with a strong focus on manufacturing best practices and optimising operational efficiencies. He has held a number of engineering and project management positions within large multinational companies across Australia, Europe and Asia. Dallas has a B.Eng (Hons) in Chemical Engineering from the University of Sydney, and is a Chartered Professional Engineer (CPEng).

Song Hee Lau, GM Sales & Marketing – APAC

Song Lau has more than 30 years in sales and marketing of electronic components with multi-national companies: Vishay Intertechnology, Thomson Passives (acquired by AVX in 1998) and STMicroelectronics (merger of SGS Semiconductor and Thomson Electronics in 1987) and was based in various APAC countries. Previously he spent 10 years with Robert Bosch in Malaysia, reaching the position of Quality Assurance Manager. Song graduated with a B.Eng. (Electrical) from University of Auckland (New Zealand).

Marco Ranalli, GM – Europe

Marco has more than 20 years’ experience in engineering and sales of mechanical and electronic components with large automotive multi-national companies such as Meritor, Faurecia, Gentherm. In his last assignment at Gentherm he was in charge of the complete energy systems global business unit. Marco graduated with a MSc in Mechanical Engineering from the Polytechnical University of Milan (Italy) and has spent most of his professional life in Germany.

Jeff Colton, EVP – USA

Jeff has been an energy storage executive for 30 years with senior executive positions at Ioxus, Inc., General Electric, Sanyo Energy (now Panasonic), Saft Battery, Pentadyne Flywheels and Maxwell Technologies. He has achieved over US$1 Billion in energy storage product revenues with multiple technologies including Li-Ion, Nickel Metal Hydride, Nickel Cadmium, Lithium Manganese Dioxide, Flywheels and Ultracapacitors. Jeff’s most recent role was Sr. VP, Global Sales for Ioxus, Inc. (9 years) a leading manufacturer of ultracapacitors.

Scientific Advisory Board

The Scientific Advisory Board provides science and engineering advice to the Company, in particular answering specific technical questions in relation to the development of CAP-XX products, but also advising on technological developments in the field at large. The current members of the Scientific Advisory Board are as follows:

Warren King, Chair

Dr King is an independent adviser on the management of R&D. He was previously Group Executive for IT Manufacturing and Services at CSIRO, a role that oversaw the operations of seven of its Divisions and 2,000 staff in the physical sciences, covering IT, mathematics, physics, astronomy and molecular science and engineering.

Michel Armand

Dr Michel Armand is an honorary professor at Deakin University and emeritus at University of Montréal in Canada and CNRS in France. Presently also part time at CIC Energigune in Spain. He has, along his career ushered many of the concepts and materials that lead to today’s lithium batteries. A sizable fraction of his present interests goes into the development of new electrolytes for batteries and supercaps. Michel Armand has been the recipient of many international prizes and is doctor honoris causa of Uppsala and Deakin universities.

Calum Drummond AO

Professor Drummond is the Deputy Vice Chancellor Research & Innovation and Vice President at RMIT University. He was previously the CSIRO Group Executive responsible for Manufacturing, Materials and Minerals, Chief of the Division of Materials Science and Engineering at CSIRO, and inaugural Vice President Research at CAP-XX. He is a recipient of the 2018 Ian Wark Medal from the Australian Academy of Science, the 2017 Royal Australian Chemical Institute (RACI) Weickhardt Medal, the 2015 Victoria Prize for Science and Innovation, the 2015 HG Smith Memorial Medal from the RACI, and a 2016 Fulbright Senior Scholarship. Professor Drummond is a Fellow of the US National Academy of Inventors, and a fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering. He was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) in the Queen’s Birthday 2019 Honours List for his outstanding service to science and innovation.

Doug MacFarlane

Professor MacFarlane is the Head of Chemistry and a Professorial Fellow at Monash University. Professor MacFarlane’s research interests include conductive media and electrochemical devices. The high quality of his R&D and teaching contributions has been recognised through the award of a number of prestigious prizes/medals and fellowships, including an ARC Federation Fellowship. Professor MacFarlane is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering.

David McKenzie

Professor McKenzie holds a Chair in Materials Physics at the University of Sydney and has experience in materials for many applications (biological, medical, optical and renewable energy). He specialises in materials prepared in the form of thin layers or coatings and in methods for producing them that use plasmas. Research outcomes have included selective surfaces and a sputtering technology for depositing them. This work resulted in a patented technology that has led to a large renewable energy industry based on evacuated tubular solar collectors in Japan and more recently in China. Professor McKenzie has developed materials for medical applications and has with his colleagues developed new dosimeters for radiotherapy and new surfaces for biosensing and medical diagnostics created from plasmas. Professor McKenzie is an ISI highly cited researcher and is a citation ‘Laureate” in Materials Science in Australia.

Ezio Rizzardo

Dr Ezio Rizzardo is a CSIRO Fellow with a research focus on methods for controlling free radical polymerization of polymers, and his many research achievements in this field have been recognised nationally and internationally. He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering, a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science and a Fellow of the Royal Society. He is listed as one of the world’s 100 most influential chemists, and was recently awarded the prestigious Prime Minister’s Prize for Science and is one of a very select group of scientists who are Fellows of the Royal Society.