Dr. Ryan Gilliam is a Venture Partner at 1955 Capital where he is focused on energy, sustainability, waste upcycling, materials innovations, and emerging technologies.
As a serial entrepreneur in the sustainability field, Ryan has developed electrochemical, catalysis, and chemical technologies for the beneficial reuse of carbon emissions, industrial waste reutilization, and production of building materials and chemicals.
In addition to serving as a Venture Partner at 1955 Capital, Ryan is the CEO and founder of two venture-funded start-up companies. The first, Fortera Corporation, is focused on the beneficial reuse of CO2 to produce a range of building material products that both directly capture and offset CO2 emissions. The second, Chemetry Corporation, is an industrial chemicals platform company redefining how commodity chemicals are made. Within these two companies and industrial areas, Ryan has successfully driven industrial scale-up of multiple technologies, a business development program resulting in strategic partnerships with Fortune 500 chemicals and engineering companies, commercialization efforts which led to an active presence in global markets, the development of a smart parts platform and set of enabling strategic supply agreements, and the building of teams consisting of world-class technical and business talent.
Ryan obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Toronto in Materials Science and Engineering. On his work in catalysis and electrochemistry, Ryan has 10+ peer-reviewed publications and has been an invited speaker at multiple international conferences. He is an inventor on 90+ patents in the energy, sustainability, products and materials spaces.