Sandeep Nijhawan

Sandeep Nijhawan, Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder of Electra, a clean iron company, has been at the forefront of deep-tech and venture innovation for over 20 years. He has led international enterprises and garage-based start-ups alike, consistently turning early-stage ideas into globally impactful companies. He was named to the 2024 TIME100 list of the most influential climate leaders in business.

In five years, under Sandeep’s leadership, Electra has grown from a garage-based start-up to a team of over 130 people. The company currently operates a pilot-scale clean iron production facility in Boulder, Colorado, with preconstruction underway for a new demonstration plant in Jefferson County, Colorado.

Before founding Electra in 2020, he served as an operating partner at True North Venture Partners and as president of two cleantech startups focused on electrochemistry: AquaHydrex, a developer of electrolyzers for the hydrogen economy, and Staq Energy, which specialized in distributed energy storage solutions. Earlier in his career, Sandeep was senior vice president at Intermolecular, where he accelerated R&D for advanced materials in electronics; he also founded and served as CEO of LED start-up Siorah Incorporated, and successfully incubated the LED business at Applied Materials, taking it from concept to commercialization.

Sandeep holds a PhD in Mechanical Engineering and a Master of Science in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Minnesota; an MBA from the International Institute for Management Development (IMD) in Lausanne, Switzerland, and a Bachelor of Technology from the Indian Institute of Technology in Kanpur, India.