About NovoHydrogen
We are led by the conviction that zero-carbon hydrogen is a key piece of the decarbonization puzzle.
Experience
We have the right networks, expertise, and project experience.
Leadership
We are early movers in the renewable hydrogen space.
Our team has seats at important industry organizations that play a critical role in driving forward the future of green hydrogen.
Matt McMonagle, CEO & Founder
Matt brings a successful, diverse, and entrepreneurial background to NovoHydrogen with nearly a decade of experience in renewable energy. He founded NovoHydrogen to decarbonize industry, transportation, and power. Prior to founding NovoHydrogen, Matt was the first non-founder employee at Dimension Renewable Energy. He served as a Vice-President responsible for all aspects of the firm’s energy storage projects as well as supporting policy, origination, real estate, and corporate fundraising. These efforts contributed to a significant infusion of capital in spring 2021 from the Partners Group. Before Dimension, Matt was an integral part of the ForeFront Power leadership team, where his accomplishments included: driving energy storage strategy across the US, international expansion into Mexico and structuring tax equity for solar and energy storage assets. Prior to ForeFront Power, he was Chief of Staff for the Commercial & Industrial business unit of SunEdison reporting directly to the CEO of the group. Matt has dedicated his career to sustainable endeavors. He is passionate about deploying complex and innovative technologies that will decarbonize our society.
Matt completed a Master of Science in Sustainable Engineering from Villanova University in 2013. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Physics from Cornell University, where he graduated cum laude while also excelling as a Division-1 athlete.
Manka Khanna, Chief Commercial Officer
Manka is the Chief Commercial Officer at NovoHydrogen, prior to which she worked for Shell for over a decade. She brings rich experience across strategy and competitive intelligence, business development and project development. As a business developer, she identified regional growth targets for Shell’s upstream business, and as a Strategic Relationship Manager, she was accountable for supporting Shell’s relationship with its high value partners and advising internal leadership on partner value proposition. She has led and actively contributed across a wide range of business and functional projects, including partner deep dives, new country entries, high capital project development and energy transition. She is passionate about sustainability, the scope for decarbonization, and the increasing role of renewable energy in our society.
Manka has an MBA in Sustainability from the Yale School of Management. She also holds a Bachelors of Technology in Petroleum Engineering from the University of Petroleum and Energy Studies, India
Lexi Zimmerman, Senior Director of Origination & Marketing
Lexi Zimmerman is a passionate change agent who is most interested in how technology can enable companies to achieve ambitious sustainability goals. At NovoHydrogen her focus is on origination and developing target markets within industry, transportation, and power. She is solution oriented and seeks to collaboratively build long-term decarbonization plans based on the client’s sustainability priorities, budget, timeline, and manufacturing locations. Prior to assuming her current role at NovoHydrogen, Lexi served as a Business Development and Innovation Manager at UL. Her focus was on collaboratively discovering and prioritizing unmet industry needs within sustainability and launching novel solutions to meet those needs. UL is a global leader in applied safety science and is at the forefront of developing best practices in certification, testing, and inspection for the safe production, storage, distribution and use of hydrogen (e.g UL 2264A).
Lexi completed her Masters in Sustainability Leadership from the University of Cambridge in 2018. She also holds a bachelor’s degree in Environmental Studies from the University of Michigan.
Kate Hopkins, Chief Development Officer
Kate brings over a decade of on-the-ground wind and solar energy development experience to NovoHydrogen, including 2+ GW of utility-scale projects developed and over 700 MW built. She serves as NovoHydrogen’s Chief Development Officer having worked throughout the United States in a variety of electricity markets across diverse communities. Kate is passionate about the convergence of community needs and decarbonizing the economy, ensuring broad stakeholder involvement in the projects she develops. At Tradewind Energy she was responsible for all aspects of project development including landowner outreach and site acquisition, permitting strategy, community engagement, coordination with engineering, energy resource, and transmission subject matter experts, and all critical path items to ensure project construction readiness. In addition to project development, Kate has experience in project M&A including due diligence and the de-risking of projects, optimizing performance, and structuring partnerships. Kate received a Master’s in Business Administration from the University of Missouri, Kansas City (UMKC) before joining the Business Development team at FlexGen, an industry-leading battery energy storage integrator and software provider. At FlexGen, she was responsible for the full sales cycle from market identification to customer origination and acquisition, including contract negotiation and handover to the execution team. She received recognition for executing over 1 GWh of battery equipment contracts including the company’s largest single order.
In addition to the MBA from UMKC received in 2018, Kate holds a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from the University of California, San Diego where she graduated cum laude in 2008.
Mark Purser, Head of Finance
Mark is the Head of Finance at NovoHydrogen. He brings over 15 years of investing and financial operations experience in the energy transition infrastructure and project finance sectors. Prior to NovoHydrogen, Mark was an early employee at Generate Capital where he established and led the FP&A business function. He reported directly to the CFO and served as a strategic advisor, overseeing financial analysis, budgeting, and capital planning for a diverse portfolio of sustainable infrastructure projects. He later served as Vice President on the investment team, leading origination and underwriting across diverse sectors, including waste-to-value, wastewater treatment, carbon capture storage and utilization, and industrial decarbonization. He played a vital role as an advisor to partner companies, offering guidance on project development, capital formation, and managing growth. Prior to his time at Generate Capital, Mark managed capital planning and tax equity modeling on the FP&A team at NRG Energy’s vertically integrated residential solar business. He has also held roles at NRG and ICF International conducting wholesale power market forecasting and asset valuations.
Jena Lococo, Chief of Staff
Jason Harris, Senior Project Development Director
Wesley Lien, Senior Director, Business Development
Ankita Bhat, Business Development Analyst
David Gardner Dale, Sr. Business Development Associate
Jackson Becce, Sr. Business Development Associate
Matt Williams, Technical Director
Anikó Lövey, Real Estate Specialist
Keith Mursch, Controller
Josh Newman, Project Finance Director
Josh Tedder, Engineering Manager
Board
Catherine Budzynski
Catherine Budzynski is Chief Legal Officer at Ohmium, a green hydrogen company designing PEM electrolyzers. She has extensive public and private company experience with a proven record of success in both corporate and nonprofit settings. Catherine started her career at Skadden before going in-house to Aflac. At Aflac, Catherine held various leadership roles, including head of the Corporate Transactions Legal team and then Head of Legal and Corporate Secretary for Aflac Global Ventures, Aflac’s $250 million global venture fund.
Catherine is an active board member of her local United Way, where she serves on multiple committees. She holds an MBA from Auburn University (Phi Kappa Phi), a J.D. from Boston University School of Law (magna cum laude) and a B.A. from The University of Pennsylvania (magna cum laude).
Yousef AbuGharbieh
Yousef AbuGharbieh is the Chief Operating Officer at Modern Energy, partnering with Modern Energy’s portfolio companies to help them grow and de-risk their operations as they scale.
He also serves as a Board Member of Pave Power, a fleet electrification platform.
He is a former Engagement Manager at McKinsey & Company
AbuGharbieh holds a JD and MBA from Yale Law School and the Yale School of Management and a BA from Duke University, where he graduated as a Robertson Scholar.
Joseph Malchow
Joseph Malchow is a partner at Hanover, a Silicon Valley venture capital investment fund that focuses on funding, building, and growing technology companies from the earliest stages. He focuses on emergent software, computing infrastructure, and energy technologies. Joe serves on the Board of Directors of Enphase (NASDAQ: ENPH), a global energy technology company pioneering microgrid, solar, and storage technology. Joe served on the board of Archaea (NYSE: LFG), the nation’s largest producer of renewable natural gas, until its acquisition by BP, p.l.c. in 2023. In 2021, he helped bring breakthrough pure-silicon Li-Ion battery company Enovix (NASDAQ: ENVX) to the public markets. Additional representative investments include Solugen, Sourcegraph, HopIn, Flatfile, Retool, RelateIQ, Carta, Material Security, and Mattermost. Joe holds a J.D. from Stanford University and an A.B. from Dartmouth College. He lives with his family in Portola Valley, California.
Values
We value being humble, diligent, and open to solving complex problems.
Our Promise
We prioritize transparency, straightforward communications, and sticking to the facts.
