Contact

Team

Team

A diverse team rich in industry and startup experience.

Leadership team

James Newman , PE

Chief Executive Officer

Richard Brunton

Chief Technical Officer

Matt Kilker

Chief Operating Officer; US OPS

Irina Zhabko

Director of Finance

Ritaban Banerjee

VP - Product Management

Andrew Waller

Engineering Lead

Steve Gluck

Scientific Advisor

Bernie Mack

Membrane Process Advisor

Ron Leng

Process Advisor

Bob Hultz

Strategy & Business Development

James Newman , PE

Chief Executive Officer

Team

Dr. Matthew Calvert, PhD

Head of R&D and Process Chemistry

Dr. Rhys Carter

Head of Analytical Chemistry & Lab Manager

Dr. Jennifer Wang, PhD

Senior Research Chemist

Brian Sugianto

Senior Process Chemist

Mercedes Bishop

Research & Development Chemist

Dr. Gimhani Perera, PhD

Process Chemist

Dr. Sutaporn Meephon, PhD

Chemist

Emma Soong

Senior Analytical Chemist

Eric Zhou

Analytical Chemist

Chen Liu

Laboratory Technician

Subashini Moonamale

Laboratory Technician

Winnie Kosasih

Laboratory Technician

Dr Simon Zhang

Engineering R&D Team Leader

Sunny Chen

Senior Chemical Engineer

Samrith Kim

Automation & Electrical Team Leader

Venkatesh Souda

Electrical & Automation Engineer

Sachin Pargi

Mechanical Engineer

Jason Ulberg

Mechanical Engineer

Jacky Lai

Chemical Process Engineer

Joshua Kaiser

Mechanical Engineer

Kieran Boyle

In-House Counsel

Michael Grossman

North America Business Development Manager

Melody Chacon

Office Manager & EA

Ellie Bui

Assistant Accountant

Jason Hull

Field Research Facility Operations Manager

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Website design by White Rabbit.

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James Newman, PE

Chief Executive Officer

Professional Engineer (Texas) with over 35 years of experience in multiple facets of the oil & gas service industry including water management, well operations and interventions, and regulatory compliance.

Initial experience focused in Permian Basin, with last fifteen years in multiple basins across the U.S. including the DJ, Eagle Ford, Haynesville, Marcellus, and San Joaquin, as well as the San Joaquin Valley of California, as well as the Middle East.

Active in Society of Petroleum Engineers, Permian & Fort Worth Chapters, and most recently served on SPE U.S. Advisory Council.

Texas Tech Petroleum Industry Advisory Board, Academy of Petroleum Engineering, Southwestern Petroleum Short Course Board. Permian Basin Petroleum Association board member. Served on Colorado Oil & Gas Association board. BSc in Petroleum Engineering, Colorado School of Mines.

Currently serving as Chief Executive Officer of Aquafortus, Inc. the parent company of Aquafortus Technologies, Ltd.

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Richard Brunton

Chief Technical Officer​

Richard brings 15 years of experience in industrial and academic chemistry research to Aquafortus, including a PhD in synthetic organic chemistry from the University of Alberta, Canada.

Richard has been working at the interface of chemistry and engineering at Aquafortus since 2021, taking over leadership of the process chemistry team in 2023 until his appointment as CTO in 2024.

During his time at Aquafortus, he has been instrumental in testing and validating a wide range of technologies that have served to reduce capital and operational costs of the process.

Oversees the optimization and implementation of the current ABX process as well as the development of new Aquafortus technology and applications.

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Matt Kilker

Chief Operating Officer; US OPS

Experienced, technical leader with 15+ year experience in various technical and commercial roles in water and oil & gas service industry.

Matt began his career as a product engineer with GE, specializing in design and support of GE’s HPump System, taking on numerous management, commercial, and technical roles over his eight years with GE. He joined NGL Energy Partners as VP Engineering in 2019 establishing engineering, data management and support in water infrastrucure. He joined Basic Energy Services in 2020, leading Water Logistics and soon thereafter managing Basic’s wholly owned subsidiary Agua Libre Midstream. Upon transitioning that business to Select Water Solutions in 2021, Matt grew Select’s water infrastructure across numerous states, exiting as Business Unit President in March 2024, and joining Aquafortus Inc. as Chief Operating Officer.

Matt is an active volunteer in FFA, mentor, and father of three, and holds a BSc in BioMechanical Engineering from Oklahoma State University.

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Irina Zhabko

Director of Finance

Chartered Accountant, CAANZ. BBus (Accounting) AUT, Auckland, New Zealand.

Oversees and leads the company’s finance function.

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Ritaban Banerjee

VP - Product Management

MEng, Electrical & Electronics Engineering.

Over 10 years of experience in commercial roles, assisting startups.

Assisting Aquafortus with its product strategy and market intelligence.

Masters of Applied Finance. Victoria University of Wellington.

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Andrew Waller

Engineering Lead​

Andrew is a professional chemical engineer with over 33 years’ experience in process improvement in various large-scale industries. He has completed projects in process design, process installation, process commissioning and process optimization across multiple industries.

Andrew joined Aquafortus in 2022 as a chemical process engineer, working on using the lab data from the chemistry and engineering R&D teams to design a scaled up pilot plant.

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Steve Gluck

Scientific Advisor

Highly respected and renowned expert in the water industry, worked for Dow Chemical for over 37 years.

PhD Chemistry, University of Leipzig

8 Patents with over 30 technical publications

Entrepreneur- 2GL Tech LLC, recovery and refinement of valuable materials from wastes

Consultant- 5-8 Companies in new water treatment technologies

Supporting Aquafortus with its R&D and scale-up activities.

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Bernie Mack

Membrane Process Advisor

Water Industry Commissioning Engineer – initially in municipal waste water and involved in the construction of large power plant boiler feed water and condensate polishing systems.

46-year career in international water industry, Ionics, GE and Veolia Water, Middle East, South Africa and both North and South America specializing in membrane applications including Electrodialysis (ED/EDR), Electro deionization (EDI), Ultrafiltration (UF) and pressure driven membrane including Reverse Osmosis and Nanofiltration.

Supporting Aquafortus in membrane process development for Regenerant Recovery.

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Ron Leng

Process Advisor

Highly respected and renowned expert in chemical process engineering, developer of the bonsai method.

Worked for Dow Chemical as a Research Fellow for over 39 years where he held several roles in R&D and Manufacturing. He has extensive experience in scaling both batch and continuous technology from the bench to commercial scale. His expertise includes reaction kinetics, crystallization, filtration, extraction, distillation, and drying as well as supply chain development and technoeconomic evaluation. Ron holds several patents, has authored a number of publications, and is a long-standing member of AIChE.

Assisting Aquafortus’ engineering group in process development and optimization.

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Bob Hultz

Strategy & Business Development

40+ year career as an Executive in the Water Treatment and Oil & Gas industries across the globe.

Led global and regional technical sales in China, Middle East, Africa and the USA.

Supporting Aquafortus develop its commercial strategy.