Meet the Experts Podcast Ep.3: Robert Lane, Acculon Chairman & CAO

Full Transcript:

Introduction to Robert Lane

Betsy Barry

Hello and welcome to our second installment of Meet the Experts, where we go behind the scenes and highlight one of our incredible team members here at Acculon. We talk about their background, their expertise, and their experience, and everything they bring to the company. And today I am very excited to introduce you to Robert Lane, one of our founders and our acting CAO. I am excited to talk to Robert today. I’ve been looking forward to this. I wanted to just say not to rain on his introduction, but I really appreciate Robert’s strategic vision and his unwavering dedication to our company. He keeps us moving forward and he’s just a force, a quiet, unassuming force. And I think we’re going to have a really interesting conversation today. So no pressure, Robert.

Thank you for agreeing to come on and talk to me.

Robert Lane 

Thank you, Betsy.

Betsy Barry 

And I thought we’d just start out with the usual suspects. Can you tell us a little bit about your professional history and what led you to Acculon?

Robert Lane 

Sure. So like many people, I started my post-college career working for large companies. They’re great training grounds. I work for companies like DuPont, Nortel Networks, General Electric, and a few others. And I began to transition to some post-IPO and pre-IPO companies.

You know, mostly focusing, you know, on new company creation, new division creation, new product creation in those particular companies. But 20 years ago, I started my own ventures. So I have ventures in healthcare, IT, testing and certification for energy storage, technology development, and enterprise innovation.

And that’s been a really exciting second career, if you will, for me, which brings us really to Acculon. But the common theme is I really love the creative process. I love building new products, new services, and new businesses. And early stage companies like Acculon turned out to be the right fit for me.

Betsy Barry 

Interesting. So do you think if you had started out the other way around, things would be different?  

Robert’s Professional Journey

Robert Lane 

If I started with startups and then moved to large companies, you know, I often ask myself, what would it be like if I went back to some of the larger companies? To be honest, I think I’d be a better employee. You learn so much in a startup, and you learn how to build teams, you learn how to do without, you don’t have the tremendous infrastructure and momentum…

Betsy Barry 

Mm-hmm.

Robert Lane 

…that some of these large companies have. So I think in terms of my sense of urgency and my ability to take more measured risks and on behalf of the company, I think I’d probably be a better employee, to be honest.

Betsy Barry 

That’s really interesting. did not expect that answer. I’m no spring chicken, and I’ve had an interesting kind of trajectory to get here. But I agree. I didn’t appreciate how fun the scrappiness of working at a startup really is. And I find it to be a really interesting experience that I would not have thought I would have enjoyed as much as I do, especially at this age in this stage in my life and my career. So that’s super interesting. So can you tell us a little bit? I mean, we know we hear about CEOs, and CFOs, but what does a CAO do, especially in the startup space?

Understanding the Role of a CAO

Robert Lane 

Great, great question. The CAO chief administrative officer really has to deal with the early scalability of all the support functions that really make the business go. So everything from accounting to HR, you know, to purchasing and supply chain to you know, facilities management, office management, you know, all those things, you know, are not what the business is all about until somebody actually needs something to get done. And then they’re all about getting that kind of, you know, support. And when you start with an organization that maybe has 10 people, that’s a whole different kind of support that you need to provide. But as you’re to 20, 30, 50, 100, you’re launching your manufacturing organization. The expectation of the sophistication of those services ratchets up immediately. So in its own administrative world, that whole role is like managing a startup too.

Betsy Barry 

Sounds familiar!

Robert Lane

So the CAO role is all about kind of planning the work and then, you know, kind of working the plan relative to the growth of the business. In a startup, you know, the only thing you’re really sure about is your initial business plan is going to be wrong. Sometimes in positive ways, sometimes in very challenging ways.

Robert Lane 

And you need to be responsive, supportive, and able to roll with what the business cycle brings. But that kind of dynamic really applies to the people, too. Kind of getting the right people and building a high-performance team to support the other people who are more customer-facing or more product-driven or more business-facing.

You know, it’s kind of like the key to success in a startup anyway. That’s what I’ve found.

Betsy Barry 

I think that’s one of the reasons why I’ve been excited to talk to you because I came on right at the beginning at Acculon when there was only a handful of us. And I’ve worked kind of closely with you throughout the process, not so much anymore because we’re growing and things are changing and evolving, but I developed an appreciation for the sheer breadth of just your experiences and expertise and just you know, areas that you had to touch within the organization when we really barely even had–you know, there was no blueprint. We were kind of, you know, building the ship as we went and just watching you sort of traverse between different areas, substantive areas, like accounting and strategy and product development. It’s been, it’s been really kind of fascinating to watch to just have this kind of front-row seat to all of that.

I would have just, again, I kind of shied away from business. I’m a liberal arts girl and I didn’t realize how interesting it was and how complex and really, I just had a very different vision of what it looked like on the ground. And it’s been really fascinating to watch and just kind of marvel at. It’s interesting. It’s like, guess, like having kids. It’s like, how can I keep this little thing alive? But momentum builds and then all of a sudden, you know, things just keep kind of rolling along and it’s just very, it’s been very interesting to me. 

So the next question I want to ask you is really, because you have a wide array of experience, what, and you have a lot of, you know, bases of comparisons to your current role now and what you do, but what is it that you like about Acculon? What do you like most about working at our company?

What Makes Acculon Unique

Robert Lane 

Yeah, another great question. Really honestly, the people, we have a great, highly educated, and very diverse team. And we really didn’t engineer that outcome. We kind of arrived there organically, but I’m really proud of how diverse our team is today. And probably a close second is working with our global customers. They’re in automotive, industrial, and commercial market sectors, but they’re, you know, they’re at the forefront of electrification in their global industries. They’re pushing the adoption of electrification. They’re answering the big questions about, you know, how to grow adoption and build profitable businesses and business models in these sectors. And there are some really bright people that I really love working with. And, you know, that’s one of the kind of advantages to being where I am is, you know, I’m not really, and especially in a startup, you know, I’m not really in a silo. So, you know, I’m working across our organization and I’m working across our customers organization and I’m working across our suppliers organization. And, you know, that’s really energizing for me anyway.

Betsy Barry 

That’s interesting. I think I agree. I like the people aspect, not just our people, but I like how sort of small almost the electrification landscape seems. There’s a lot of collaboration. There are a lot of people, and not just domestically, but globally, that just want to make this work and want everything to kind of move forward. And I come from a legal background, so that’s very different, and a breath of fresh air, actually.

Robert Lane 

Mm-hmm.

Robert Lane 

There’s so much, by the way, there’s so much change going on in the industry. People you work with in one organization, you know, just wait two or three years and you’re going to find them in another organization. So that adds to that kind of small-world feel that you talked about.

Betsy Barry 

Yeah.

I agree.

I agree with that. And also, I think I did not realize what a collector of people I am personally, like, I really appreciate it kind of like you said, just meeting and working with different people and just marveling at how bright and motivated they are and their levels of expertise. It’s like a shot of adrenaline, you know, on a daily or weekly basis. Really, I just wouldn’t have predicted that.

Again, coming from my background, maybe I’m a little cynical, but not anymore. I’m trying not to be. I’m a reformed cynic. So let me ask you specifically, we kind of touched about this, about kind of how the electrification landscape, it’s really global in nature, even though we’re working really hard to bring it home to the US soil at the moment. But in terms of our company, Acculon, I mean, you’ve got…

Betsy Barry 

…pretty vast view of the horizon out there. What do you think makes us different? What do you think makes us competitive in this kind of global battery landscape?

Acculon’s Competitive Edge in the Battery Landscape

Robert Lane

Yeah, well, you know, I think first of all, we’re not really a startup. We’re much more mature than that. Acculon was created by putting together an advanced battery lab business that was founded in 2009. I was part of that team and a battery design and prototyping business that was started in 2014 and I was part of that team.

Betsy Barry 

Mm-hmm.

Robert Lane 

And with investment from a strategic investor and a global OEM customer, you know, who brought a significant offtake, they’ll drive over $500 million in offtake in our business over the next five to seven years. So that’s a great place for, you know, for any startup to start.

And I think probably one of you talked a little bit about differentiation. I think one of the things that differentiates us as a battery pack design development and manufacturing company is we have a really strong advanced engineering organization. We’re not just sourcing packs, for example, from China and rebadging them or putting them in a different case.

We have a real advanced engineering organization that, you know, actively works in the automotive industry as well as industrial and commercial segments and a very technical workforce. So we’re really more of a partner and a thinking partner for your vehicle electrification activity. And when I say vehicle, I don’t mean passenger car…

Betsy Barry 

Mm-hmm.

Robert Lane

…you know, satellite, missile, airplane, drone, forklifts, construction equipment, the kinds of things that we focus on. And I think that’s a real differentiator right now. There’s only a handful of companies that kind of do what we do right now. of the other companies that were in a similar position as ours have either gone away or have been absorbed into other OEM relationships which makes them captive. We’re still available and working across many industries with many partners. And I think that also gives us a unique perspective to help a new customer with their problem as well.

Future Vision for Acculon

Betsy Barry 

So that’s a good segue to the next question, which is, where do you see us in five years? Where do you see us in a handful of years out from where we are?

Robert Lane 

That’s great.

Yeah. Well, I still see Acculon providing high-quality, safe, fully industry-certified battery packs and components to global OEMs and their after-market channels. Right now we’re in North America. In a few years, we’ll be in Europe and North America.

We already serve, you know, a wide range of customers and construction equipment and area work platforms and ground vehicles and satellites and missile defense systems and other key industries. So I see us continuing to expand, you know, the kind of customers we have and the industry segments that we address. And I’m also pretty excited really about where the battery industry is moving over the next five years. There’s been so much focus on LFP and you know, we’re beginning to move past LFP into sodium solid state and other emerging, you know, battery chemistries and technologies that are gonna open up new applications and new markets for us. So I think the next five years are pretty bright for Acculon.

Betsy Barry 

I’m excited about that too. I am constantly kind of scanning the airwaves to see what everybody’s doing out there. And every day it just seems like there’s just so much interesting things happening in terms of technological innovation in the battery space. It’s very exciting. It’s exciting to feel like you’re a part of.

It’s almost like the Wild West, know, that you’re just kind of homesteading the space and just pushing forward and in terms of like innovation and technology. And it’s, I agree, it’s really exciting to see. you know, I’m now, I’m here for the ride. So speaking of the ride, where do you see yourself in the next five years?

Personal Aspirations and Industry Trends

Robert Lane 

Wow, that’s a great question. Well, first of all, I’m 65. So my answer might seem a bit different than other executives doing my kind of role. But in my career, really, I’ve been all about the creative or at least the creation process. As I mentioned, new products, new markets, new businesses, even new business models for emerging industries. And that pace of change in business is actually increasing. And that really excites me.

Robert Lane 

I’m still engaged and I’m still working. really, you know, five years is a long time in the life of a startup. You know, in five years, Acculon will be an entirely different company. And I’m excited about that. But the opportunity to start other companies and to do other complimentary things is still on my career horizon.

Betsy Barry (17:46)

I like hearing that, you know? I mean, you say 65, but we’re all living a longer time. And I don’t see myself in 10 years–I’ll be older than 65 in 10 years–you know, retiring to a pool and, you know, I like to my leisure time, but I like, I’m a worker bee. I enjoy this, maybe it’s the intellectual engagement of all of this. So, I mean, I hope you’re still around.

Robert Lane 

Me too.

Betsy Barry 

And you know, like working. I mean, I hope you’re still in the space making an impact. So now I kind of want to focus on, even though we’ve already been focusing on it, but you know, just not maybe not so Acculon specific, but maybe picking on that thread of the battery industry and everything that’s happening in there, in that space and our space. So what, and we already mentioned it a little bit, but what technology are you really keeping an eye on?

Robert Lane 

Mm-hmm.

Betsy Barry

These days, that’s kind of exciting.

Robert Lane 

Yeah. Yeah, the areas that interest me the most right now are really the market drivers for electrification. You know, other than external regulatory drivers and, you know, some of the early credit schemes. You know, what is really driving adoption for performance or consumer preference?

I think we’re moving rapidly and kind of into a post-incentive world where the advanced battery industry will need to stand on its own merits. So the real rate of commercialization of kind of emerging battery chemistry also interests me. know, cheap LFP seems to be the answer today and everyone seems to be excited about solid state for the future.

But sodium-ion and other chemistries will play an important role in many of these sectors. So focusing a lot on the evolution and the manufacturing, global manufacturing capacity of other chemistries is what we’ve been doing since 2009 here at Acculon.

You know, when you wade through all the hype and believe me in my stream, there’s a tremendous amount of hype about energy storage and battery chemistry specifically. But we really are looking to build relationships with suppliers who are kind of ready for prime time in these particular chemistries and are making real strides in capacity for the use in large-scale programs. And it’s kind of a growing concern where the manufacturing footprint will be and where these supply bases evolve. Today, mainly China and Korea. But that can’t be the final answer. And in our world, it’s rapidly moving to regional economies, worried about energy and national security.

Betsy Barry 

Mm-hmm.

Robert Lane 

So a lot of kind of global shifts there. And I guess finally, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention AI. We’ve got a very strong AI capability here at Acculon Energy, but AI, autonomy, mobility, and electrification, are all large-scale drivers for product evolution of all kinds.

And AI won’t be the answer to everything, but its ability to provide a kind of hyper-automation and more rapid systems-level integration will be key to smarter products, collaborative product design, functional safety design, and more tightly integrated systems. So kind of watching AI’s impact on our industry is something that we do a lot too.

Challenges for Domestic Battery Manufacturers

Betsy Barry 

It’s impossible to not, actually. So this is a good sort of segue into my next question, which is, and I think you kind of touched on it a bit, what do you see as the challenges? And specifically for a domestic, a US domestic battery manufacturer like Acculon, what are our headwinds at the moment do you think?

Robert Lane 

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, big challenge.

So, you know, for us, it’s really all about kind of demand. organic demand for electrification, you know, still is a problem, especially in the US. The global battery, you know, cell supply chain, you know, outside of China costs, especially with the volatility of tariffs, you know, we’re moving into the first week of April, well, there’ll be more tariff policies coming. So, you know, kind of in a rapidly regionalized global business dynamic, the US finds itself in an odd or weird position. We’re almost a third-world, you know, economy in terms of electrification. We’re a slow follower in the adoption of electrification in general. And, you know, while this could be a smart approach for those who believe strongly in energy diversity and other kinds of energy solutions, not just batteries, the reality is supply follows demand and we don’t yet have a strong enough demand for battery cell suppliers outside the OEM passenger car industry. So that’s a challenge. Right?

Betsy Barry 

Right.

Yeah, still, even so, I still appreciate the building aspect of it. And actually, you know, working through the challenges, I think that that’s an intriguing and actually attractive aspect of our space. You know, the problem solving that goes on on a daily basis, I find that to be, you know, not just for Acculon, but for our entire industry.

And I also find comfort that there seem to be a lot of really smart people acknowledging and addressing these issues. Just the commitment, I think, in our industry is, I don’t know, it’s pretty inspiring to me, at least. And I’m not so easily inspired. All right, well, let’s move on a little bit to just what I maybe what I’m most excited to talk about because you do have such a storied career and you’ve been all over the place and you’ve got such incredible experience and insight. 

So I want to just talk kind of personally, like personal slash professionally at the moment. Like, what do you, what do you think are like the most important lessons that you’ve learned during your entire career? You know, that has, you know, even, you know, the past three years, the past 10 years, you know, what are the big lessons that you that you’ve learned, in leadership roles especially.

Lessons Learned in Leadership

Robert Lane 

Yeah, interesting question. Really, I guess one of the things I’ve learned about leadership is leadership is the same, whether you’re a business leader or a market leader, you really need to push on. As someone who’s been in the battery electrification space for 20 years now, you tend to get impatient, you know, why aren’t advanced batteries going to be a much bigger thing than they are by now? But 20 years for the development of chemistry and regulatory and application-based markets takes time. But if you don’t kind of push every day and every year, you’re in and you’re out. You begin to drift and eventually, your business will be adrift and you won’t be ready to take advantage of the sea change that’s coming. You know, the underlying dynamic that’s coming and coming, and nothing is more frustrating than a slowly developing market. And then, you know, when the wave does crest, your organization really isn’t prepared to take advantage of what you’ve been working so hard to develop. 

So, I would say leadership, you know, besides, you know, serving the people that you do serve in the organization is to make sure that, you know, every day you’re pushing as hard as you can, organizationally and out in the market as well.

Advice for Aspiring Leaders

Betsy Barry 

And so as an extension of that, what would you, what advice would you give someone who is, you know, at a different point in their career, who is kind of looking to chart the same course that you’ve charted, you know, working their way up and, you know, kind of gathering the lessons and finding themselves in a leadership role? Like, what advice do you have for people out there?

Robert Lane 

Yeah, that’s a great topic. First of all, I see all sorts of opportunities in the energy storage market. you know, first of all, energy storage is a systems engineering opportunity on steroids. It’s not just chemists and electrical engineers. There are exciting roles in product design, application engineering, new business models, the whole regulatory environment.

Building business networks and supply bases, innovative financial models and financing for energy storage systems, charging networks, solar, wind, grid support, and more. The list goes on. If you can’t find an entry point that excites you, you’re simply too narrowly focused. Here at Acculon Energy, about 20 % of our technical and business leadership are women.

I would love to have more women in my business, but more women in the industry in general. When I go to national battery industry events, I see very few women. I think the industry is missing out. think women are missing out. We simply have to do better there. And whether you’re a man or a woman, you have to be passionate about what you’re doing and inquisitive about what can make you more effective.

I would implore people to take every chance to become more technical in their roles, whatever it is. And then from a career perspective, in terms of working your way up in leadership, you also have to be proactive about the communications around your own development. And communications, and Betsy, your communication specialist, they kind of talk about the rule of three.

You have to tell the audience what you’re about to say, then you have to say what you’re going to say, then you have to summarize the key points of what you just said to be an effective communicator, get your points across. I think too many of tomorrow’s leaders rely on kind of the annual or semi-annual review process to do that. And if that’s all you’re doing, you’re only doing about a third of the communication jobs required to be an effective communicator and promoter of your own career.

So being more proactive and engaging around your own career, think is one of the important points for tomorrow’s leaders as well.

Betsy Barry 

I like that. I also like the idea that in our and especially in our industry right now, there it’s kind of like you said, if you can’t find a point of entry, there’s, you know, one thing I can say about what I do and I come from a background that I don’t know, maybe have prepared me for my role at Acculon. But what was more important for my role in Acculon is just the idea that there is a lot to do. We have to, it’s not just that we’re trying to create products and we’re trying to drive electrification, but we need to communicate what we’re doing, and why we’re doing it. Engineers are not the best people at outward-facing messaging. It’s a technical industry. It’s a technical field. And they tend to want to talk to other technical people. But it’s kind of like health care or medicine. There was a time when doctors didn’t talk to an audience other than doctors.

And I feel like, you know, if you want buy-in, you want people to sort of appreciate your industry, what you’re doing, what you’re trying to do, your vision, and why you’re trying to do it. I feel like, you know, that kind of soft skill of communicating is very important. And I think that maybe that’s something that I love about Acculon so much is that we have a very technical field, but they’re so willing to talk to people who have no technical expertise or limited technical expertise.

Really, it’s just the desire to be kind of a self-starter and just to be, there’s so many people, or maybe I don’t even, like all of us, we just jump in. There’s a place to help and you jump in and do it. And that technical expertise is obviously the biggest part of it.

There’s just other things that you can do, I think, and I love seeing our engineers sort of step out of that. As a marketing and communications person, I lean on them a lot. And I have to say, some of them have a real flair for communication and exactly what you’re talking about, communicating their ideas and that can turn into marketing their ideas. And I feel like, in a way, we’re not just selling Acculon. We’re really the face of an industry right now. Maybe I’m being a little grandiose. But I appreciate that point of view, that piece of advice. There’s a point of entry. There are so many lanes. look at that. I made a pun.

But you can find one and you can excel in it. I think that that’s another pretty exciting thing about our industry at the moment where we’re at. So any final thoughts, any words of wisdom as we wrap up our conversation?

Final Thoughts and Wrap-Up

Robert Lane 

Well, no, I appreciate the time today. You know, I like the balance in the questions you ask, because really you have to hit, you know, to be successful as a startup. know, you’ve market timing is important. You know, product or service competency is important. Organizational development is important.

And the way you communicate inside and outside the organization is very important too. So I appreciate the way you structured your questions. Thank you, Betsy.

Betsy Barry 

Thanks. Well, I’ve had a great time talking to you, Robert. And I know you’re a busy person because I have access to your calendar. So I know just as all of the things that you do on a daily basis. And I appreciate you taking this time. And I hope that everybody who ends up listening to this conversation can take away something important or interesting, even if you’re not in the battery space, in the electrification space. I think that a lot of things we talked about have, they apply to.

Betsy Barry 

Any professional person that’s kind of, you know, charging forward in their career. I think I just made another pun, Robert. Well, I would like to thank everybody who’s followed along with us today for the second installment of our Meet the Experts series, and we’ll have another one up in the coming weeks. And I just appreciate, again, your time, Robert. Thanks so much. All right. Bye-bye.