Meet the Team
Executive Team
Ben Turner, Chief Executive Officer
Ben joined Origen in 2019 after a successful career in investment banking with UBS and Adelphi Capital. He is responsible for leading the business and developing the strategy with a focus on the commercialisation of the technology.
Dustin Pool, Chief Commercial Officer
Dustin brings global experience in engineering, operations, strategy and financial analysis. He holds a B.S. in Petroleum Engineering from the University of Texas and an MBA from Columbia Business School. Dustin heads up Origen’s Strategy and Business Development in North America.
Connect with Dustin on LinkedIn
Sam Davidson, Chief Operations Officer
Sam Davidson joins as COO having worked as Director of Operations for a number of scale-ups and turnarounds in the energy and carbon management space. He is spearheading the build-out of the organisational structure and operating model to ensure Origen is well-placed to build on the increasing momentum.
Seref Ataser, Finance Director
Seref is a finance professional pursuing a career in cleantech development and the mitigation of climate change.
Connect with Seref on LinkedIn
Engineering and Technical
Tim Kruger, Founder
Tim is a cleantech entrepreneur and a recognized authority on removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Alongside his work at Origen, Tim runs an initiative at the University of Oxford, exploring technologies to counter the threat of climate change.
Jozef Kohl, Process Engineering Team Leader
Jozef joins Origen as Process Engineering Team Leader having previously worked for Carmeuse Europe as Process Engineering Manager (Europe). Jozef will be leading the Engineering team to deliver the pilot plant and support its optimisation. Looking forward, he will spearhead the development and delivery of further kilns based on our oxy-fuel flash calciner technology as a route to zero carbon lime production to enable giga-scale carbon removal.
Jamie Steel, Project Engineer
With a Master’s Degree in Chemical Engineering and a solid work history in the cement and lime industries, Jamie’s role is crucial to the efficiency of the day-to-day running of our On-site projects in order that they complete to cost, budget and time.
Apolo Prado, Senior EC&I Engineer
Apolo joins Origen as Senior EC&I Engineer. Apolo brings over twelve years of experience in industrial control, product design, and systems integration. We are excited to have Apolo on board to expand our engineering capabilities!
Apolo will manage the development and implementation of EC&I systems on Calciners for the production of zero-carbon lime. Further managing the development and implementation of EC&I systems on R&D equipment especially the delivery of Technology Roadmap projects.
Wadoud Hazineh, Senior Process Engineer
Wadoud Hazineh is a chartered chemical engineer with over 10 years of experience in plant design, scale-up and commissioning across a variety of sectors. With engineering degrees from the University of Manchester and the University of Strathclyde, Wadoud is responsible for the process engineering and application of the Origen technology.
Christine Bertrand, CFD Engineer
Christine has a strong scientific background in Computational Fluid Dynamics [CFD] modelling, with 30 years of experience at companies such as Blue Circle Industries, Lafarge and Total. She is responsible for the development and scale-up of Origen’s calcination technology.
Connect with Christine on LinkedIn
Robert Petchey, Senior EC&I Engineer
Rob joins the technology team as Senior EC&I Engineer. Rob will be responsible for the delivery of EC&I requirements for our Engineering and R&D projects. He is a Chartered Instrument Engineer, with over 10 years of experience in Design & Installation across multiple industrial sectors. Before joining Origen, Rob was an EC&I lead for an Engineering firm, carrying out instrumentation project design across various industries whilst managing a team of designers.
Rob is eager to develop Origen products to support global CO2 reduction. We are super excited to have Rob on board to expand our engineering capabilities. He is a true family man, who loves to spend his time with his 3 children. Rob loves to take his two eldest children camping, bouldering and connecting with nature!
Strategy and Commercialisation
Mira Nagarajan, Strategy Senior Associate
Mira Nagarajan joins the Origen family as Strategy- Senior Associate. Mira’s background is in strategy consulting and software, she has long been passionate about climate tech and the importance of carbon removal technology. Before joining Origen Mira worked for Zendesk, she was a founding member of the Corporate Strategy team at Zendesk focused on identifying growth opportunities for the company.
Mira is excited to bring all her skills and experience to Origen, where she’ll join the Commercial team to continue scaling our impact. She is an avid crossworder and completes the NYTimes crossword every day. In her free time, she enjoys running and hiking in the beautiful Bay Area.
David Berliner, Senior Strategy & Project Finance Lead
David is a Climate Finance guru and joins us as our Senior Strategy & Project Finance Lead. He will be developing analyses to support commercial strategy derived from a mix of technical research, market/competitor intelligence, policy understanding and project economic analysis.
David previously worked as Head of Deal Structuring at Vancity Community Investment Bank, where he created and led a Clean Energy project finance team. David has also been honoured with various prestigious accolades, such as the Canada Clean 50 Award (2017), Corporate Knight’s Magazine Top 30 under 30 Sustainability Leader and CIX Cleantech Top 10 (2015) to name a few.
Research and Development
Richard Tamblyn, Head of Research & Development
Richard Tamblyn is our Head of Research & Development and will be leading our Research & Development workstreams and will support advance our Carbon Dioxide removal solution. Richard will play a pivotal role moving forward in ensuring we achieve our vision ‘The atmosphere, restored’.
People and Operations
Adila Butt
Adila Butt MCIPD is our Head of People, focusing on our people growth strategy to ensure we attract the best talent and have an engaging place to work. Adila is passionate about embedding a robust people framework to drive a positive culture within Origen and aims to embody the company values in everything that we do!
Connect with Adila on LinkedIn
Laura Harris, Executive Assistant
Laura joined the team in October 2021 taking up the role of Executive Assistant to Chief Executive Officer. Previously working as a PA/EA for 15 years in both start-up and global businesses she brings with her the expertise and knowledge to assist Ben and his wider team allowing them to focus on the growth of Origen.
Jonty Smith, Project Manager
We are stoked to have Jonty Smith aboard as Project Manager. Jonty started his career in Mechanical Engineering and moved into the Project Management space, during his employment with GBE Services London. Jonty has project engineering and management experience in heavy-process and construction-related industries and will be working on flawless delivery of Origen projects to support the fulfilment of our vision ‘The atmosphere, restored’.
Jonty is also an Olympian🏅and represented South Africa at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games.
Rob Slade, Recruitment Business Partner
Interested in joining Origen?
Check out our open vacancies on our careers website.
You can also stay up-to-date with our progress by checking News and Updates.