Chief Executive Officer

About Metalplant

Metalplant uses special hyperaccumulating plants to mine metals from soils, a process known as phytomining or biomining. Our focus metal at the moment is nickel, and we have active farms producing biomass for conversion to pure nickel products, but are expanding to other critical minerals like rare earth elements.

Our mission is to use the power of plants and photosynthesis to undermine capital and chemical intensive industrial mining applications that are destructive to the environment, with direct deforestation of tropical islands for nickel laterite mining as our main target for disruption.

Multi-billion dollar capex HPAL nickel plants can’t compete with nature’s actual nickel plants, which can take soils with levels of nickel as trace as 0.1% and concentrate the nickel to 1-2% nickel in the plant’s biomass, and then to 10-20% nickel when the biological material is removed.

That 10X+ concentration is powered by the sun through photosynthesis and captures carbon, while other processes are powered by coal and emit many tonnes of carbon dioxide per tonne of nickel produced.

We have active farmland in the native rangeland of our plants in Albania, where we grow nickel-rich biomass, which is then harvested, processed, and converted to nickel products, with a target product of battery-grade nickel sulfate.

Metaplant has a genetics editing program funded by the US Dept Energy ARPA-E that is on track for a more than doubling of nickel yields and a sterilization of the plants that would allow us to scale up our optimized species outside their native range, to anywhere in the world with applicable soils, including the US.

Metalplant is a deep tech company whose work spans multiple disciplines across the chain from the farm field to nickel battery precursor, with a current focus on helping mature this technology and bring it to market.

Where we are right now

We are hiring a CEO to take Metalplant’s operations to the next phase, which involves commercialization of the technology, upscaling and deployment of larger farms, and bringing a new patent-pending method of direct biomass to battery-grade nickel sulfate into production.

The company has existing partners and potential partners lined up across the field, and your job as CEO is to fully expand upon those and bring in new partners ready to buy offtakes of nickel for the next decade, plan the scale-up process, and then execute on it.

The company has brought in a new PhD CSO who will report to you and brings with her domain expertise across the domains of agriculture, phytomining, government relations, and carbon accounting. We are currently hiring for a Director of Science to execute on the program, and are working on timing to allow the new CEO to approve new candidates and possibly bring in any other talented individuals that you know can execute on the vision.

The founders are still on board, but want to bring in a leader with experience for this next phase of the business, which involves expanding strategic partnerships with nickel producers, supply chain partners, and nickel buyers. The next phases of the company involve growing operations, onshoring our tech to the United States, and then to additional countries where we have known opportunities.

The role

Being the CEO of a deep tech company does require a basic understanding of the underlying science, but our team, partners, and consultants are all experts across their fields who can handle their domain-specific tasks. As CEO, your job is to help set them up for success and drive the larger strategies relating to the commercialization of the technology, including timing the upscaling, capital needs, and partnerships.

You would drive fundraising, build out the senior team you need for growth, set the company’s operating rhythm, represent Metalplant to the outside world, and keep its technical and commercial promises tied to what is actually happening in the field, the lab, and the pilot work.

A lot of it is translation. Scientists need to know which results actually change commercial decisions and how their work interacts with business milestones. Operating teams need clear priorities that respect seasons, land, weather, and logistics. Government funders need reporting discipline and credible milestones. Investors need to understand the business needs and timelines. The CEO is the person making those threads add up to one company.

What you’d own

• Capital: seed round, Series A, project finance, strategic capital, and the grant portfolio
• Executive team: hiring out your desired executive suite
• Board, investor, and government relationships
• Corporate strategy: which partnerships make sense, revenue lines to accelerate, where to deploy capital, when to scale
• Company operating cadence: priorities, decisions, meeting rhythm, and accountability across workstreams, time zones, and verticals
• Commercial direction: nickel offtake, buyer qualification, corporate partnerships
• Coordination with the COO, CSO, & CTO: operations readiness, the R&D roadmap, and results that change company decisions
• Diligence readiness: dataroom, financial model, risk register, partner materials
• The external voice: press, conferences, policy, and strategic partners

First year

• Seed financing closed, and a clear Series A path
• Executive team is meaningfully built out, or actively closing
• ARPA-E program on track, with reporting and milestone discipline in place
• A multi-year roadmap connecting cultivation, genetics, hydrometallurgy, nickel sulfate qualification, and commercial scale-up
• At least one serious offtake or forward-purchase path moved beyond casual interest
• Operating cadence working across science, operations, commercial, grants, and finance

Backgrounds that tend to fit

People who have built or led companies seeking to disrupt incumbent players, while operating in the same ecosystem. Someone who is detail-oriented and enjoys when the product proves itself in the real world against tight specs. You love being in control of the full chain of operations leading up to the product, so you make sure it is dialed in. You have experience with companies that operate across a span of activities that all come together into a final product, such as mines, farms, industrial plants, climate projects, energy infrastructure, battery materials, or any other biology-centric production. Former CEOs, COOs, Presidents, GMs, and project-development leads all fit if they can carry the parts of the job they are weaker on by hiring well, and can build out a supportive team around them.

Mining and metals experience helps, especially experience with the battery material supply chain and ecosystem around nickel and other critical metals. Agriculture experience would help you understand the process of producing the raw nickel biomass and running operations. The exact background matters less than being someone who can execute on this multifaceted operation.

If you are willing to learn the system quickly, hire people deeper than you in expertise, and understand how to ask the right questions to make smart decisions in their areas of expertise, then you can succeed in this position even if you are not a scientist. You just need to be technically curious enough to understand and connect the dots across work with plant scientists, metallurgists, farmers, permitting authorities, battery-materials buyers, and investors, and bring it all together for success.

Traits that matter

• High agency with a drive to understand and solve complex problems
• Ability to drive technical experts towards optimal business outcomes
• Comfort with ambiguity and partial data, and an ability to form a hypothesis, test it, get feedback, iterate, and improve.
• Real respect for hard tech’s timelines, realities of operations, and being able to adapt when something doesn’t go as planned
• The ability to get up to speed, see the vision, expand upon it, and raise the capital needed to make it a reality
• Ability to create a collaborative work culture that rewards excellence and where people enjoy working.
• Can delegate well, but also has an innate ability to get things done when needed
• Good risk judgment under pressure
• Willingness to travel to farms, labs, partners, investors, and conferences

Compensation

Competitive base for stage with equity-heavy components tied to the company’s milestones, expansion, financing, and successful partnerships.

Location

US or Europe preferred, flexible for the right person. Regular travel to Europe, and potentially globally, to visit the farm, meet with partners, and plan for expansion.