Hydra Energy Appoints Jessica Verhagen as New CEO to Propel Low Carbon Hydrogen Trucking Solutions
Former COO will take on the role of CEO as the company closes their Series A round of funding.
As more North American heavy-duty fleets seek to reduce their emissions, Hydra Energy has promoted Jessica Verhagen to Chief Executive Officer. The move positions Hydra to scale adoption of the company’s hydrogen injection technology and Hydrogen-as-a-Service business model. Verhagen, previously COO at Hydra, takes on the new role as the company secures their Series A funding of CAD$15 million (USD $12 million) from Just Business. Verhagen was named in the Clean Technology category for the 2021 Clean50 list for her achievements in advancing the cause of sustainability and clean capitalism in Canada.
“As hydrogen begins to play a more important role in both Canadian and American climate plans, scalable solutions such as Hydra’s, are imperative for the transportation industry to cost-effectively reduce its growing carbon footprint,” said Jessica Verhagen, CEO at Hydra Energy. “I’m honored to be selected to lead the company through its next stage of growth. We have some exciting new customers and demonstrations on the way, and the path to more wide-scale adoption is clear.”
Verhagen brings nearly 20 years of experience to Hydra, centered at the intersection of environment and finance. Prior to joining the startup in 2019, she was the Vice President of Business Development at Ecosphere+, where she brought Mirova Natural Capital's environmental assets to market, enabling a return for impact investors. She was also part of the founding team of Evok, raising $100 million to invest in cleantech globally before going on to the role of Business and Corporate Development for Axine Water Technologies. There she successfully supported raising capital and sales operations.
In her public sector experience, Verhagen was the lead negotiator for the province of British Columbia in the Western Climate Initiative trading partnership and other governments. She was also responsible for some of North America’s first legislation and stakeholder engagement on emissions reporting, emissions trading, carbon taxes, and offsets. Additionally, she led the government’s work with industry to implement carbon pricing internally, plan their compliance strategies, and provided the government with recommendations to further advance the low carbon economy.
2022-12-01 Update: The $15M committed by Just Business in this article was only partially delivered due to an unforeseen issue of their available funds, which was entirely unrelated to Hydra Energy or its milestones.
