Britishvolt, the UK’s foremost investor in lithium-ion battery cell technologies, has appointed Dr Graham Hoare OBE FREng as president of Global Operations, effective June 1, 2021.
In this newly created role, Hoare will report to Britishvolt’s CEO Orral Nadjari, and will be responsible for leading the global functional operations of the business and to seek out future expansion opportunities.
Prior to joining Britishvolt, Hoare was chairman of Ford of Britain and also executive director for Business Transformation. In these positions, he was responsible for leading the restructuring of Ford’s operations in the UK. He previously held a number of other senior engineering positions at Ford in North America and the UK, and also with Land Rover and the BMW Group in Germany.
Graham has been an active member of the highly influential UK Automotive Council for more than a decade, where he is currently chair. This is a huge positive for Britishvolt as the company continues to embed its visionary business model with both UK and global OEMs.
In 2018, he was awarded an OBE (Order of the British Empire) for services to the UK Motor Industry.
“Graham brings significant and wide-reaching industry experience to Britishvolt, further enhancing the expertise of our global leadership team,” said Nadjari. “His career to date proves he is an outstanding automotive industry leader, with extensive engineering and business development skills, which will be invaluable to Britishvolt as our business continues to grow and gain momentum.
“We are delighted to have Graham on the team and are looking forward to working with him as we move to the next phase of our development, powering the future of electrification.”
Hoare added, “Britishvolt’s mission to place itself at the forefront of battery technology is of great importance as we move, collectively, toward net-zero targets. It’s crucial that Britishvolt continues its impressive trajectory and delivers world-class products. Batteries will be at the very center of the energy transition.
“I am hugely excited to join the talented Britishvolt team and look forward to bringing my knowledge and experience acquired in the automotive industry to help play a part in Britishvolt’s future success.”
In 2020, in the midst of the global Coronavirus pandemic, Hoare led the Penlon/Ventilator Challenge UK project, in partnership with other industry leaders, creating a production facility in Ford Dagenham and three other sites across the UK. He oversaw the industrialization process that built more than 11,000 Penlon Prima ES02 ventilators in 105 days for use by the National Health Service for critically ill COVID-19 patients.
Graham is a mechanical engineer, with master’s degree in Engineering Business Management from the University of Warwick, and an Engineering Doctorate from University of Bath.
Britishvolt remains on track to begin construction of its gigaplant located in Blyth, Northumberland, later this year, with production of battery cells due to begin in Q4 2023.
