Commercialization and culture: Leadership insights from Loop Energy’s CEO

In this podcast, Heidrick & Struggles’ Scott Bae speaks with Ben Nyland, the president and CEO of Vancouver-based Loop Energy, an industry-leading developer, manufacturer, and supplier of hydrogen fuel cell systems for vehicle OEMs and power generation system manufacturers. Bae and Nyland discuss the impact good leadership can have and how leaders of public companies can meet the challenge of addressing both short-term commercial outcomes and long-term business sustainability. Nyland also shares how he has influenced Loop's corporate culture as they pivot to a more commercial enterprise, and what leadership skills and capabilities he believes will be most important for Loop Energy to meet its strategic goals.

Some questions answered in this episode include the following:

• (3:11) Four aspects of leadership that we think are crucial to the success in the energy sector are thinking like an activist, relating like a diplomat, serving as an advocate, and developing a new humility. Do any of these resonate with you and does anything in particular stand out in terms of how your leadership style has changed over your career? And since you became CEO?
• (5:14) We often find that leaders of public companies face the challenge of addressing both shorter-term commercial outcomes and with longer-term business sustainability. How do you navigate this dichotomy and ensure you're addressing all shareholders as well as stakeholders?
• (7:21) How do you as CEO influence the corporate culture to pivot to a more commercial culture?
• (10:05) Which specific leadership skill sets and capabilities will be the most important for your company to meet its strategic goals?

Below is a full transcript of the episode, which has been edited for clarity.

Welcome to the Heidrick & Struggles Leadership Podcast. Heidrick is the premier global provider of senior-level executive search and leadership consulting services. Diversity and inclusion, leading through tumultuous times, and building thriving teams and organizations are among the core issues we talk with leaders about every day, including in our podcasts. Thank you for joining the conversation.

Scott Bae: Hi, I'm Scott Bae, a member of Heidrick & Struggles’ Industrial Practice and based in Calgary. In today's podcast, I'm delighted to be speaking with Ben Nyland. Ben is president and CEO of Loop Energy, an industry-leading developer, manufacturer, and supplier of hydrogen fuel cell systems for vehicle OEMs and power generation system manufacturers. Headquartered in Vancouver, Canada, Loop is listed on the Toronto stock exchange.

Ben is responsible for the company's strategic planning, corporate leadership, market expansion, and managing key partner relationships as the company commercializes transportation solutions at scale. Prior to joining Loop Energy, Ben spent more than 10 years in a variety of senior management positions, including as president of Rampworth Capital Services and COO of Exro Technologies.
Ben, thank you for joining us today.

Ben Nyland: Thank you, Scott. 

Scott Bae: Well, Ben, to kick off this discussion, can you share some background on your career journey and how you got to your current role?

Ben Nyland: Yeah, I'd love to, Scott. I think the best way I can describe it is this: throughout my career, I've been opportunistic when opportunities presented themselves and I've continually wanted to learn and grow.

I started my career with a computer engineering degree. I very quickly discovered that I didn't really want to be an engineer. I love technology, but what I really loved was the business of technology. I experienced that during the dot-com boom of the nineties and I really was bitten by the early stage company bug at that point and continued that into the 2000s.

And then, sort of in the late 2000s, I realized that I wanted my time to really contribute toward a better world. I had kids at the time and started thinking about legacy, and so I started to move into the clean energy space, first with a wind company that you mentioned—Exro Technologies—but then I had the opportunity to join Loop Energy.

At the time I met the founder, he was looking to start growing a team around the technology that he’d patented and successfully proven out at the National Research Council, which is part of Canada's scientific research body. And it looked like a phenomenal opportunity to participate in a clean energy opportunity that wasn't just a science project, but really had legs commercially.

I joined Loop in 2012 along with a few other people who were just getting started. And we started to build the company. I was made president in 2015 and, in 2016, the board and the founder decided it was time for me to take over as CEO from the founder. And so, since 2016, I've been leading the commercialization and team-building process for Loop.

Scott Bae: Excellent. Well, Loop Energy really seems like the ideal company for you to lead since it perfectly marries your desire for intellectual stimulation and your motivation to make a positive impact in the world.

While we're on the topic of the impact good leadership can have, I think that's a good segue to the next question. At Heidrick & Struggles, we’ve identified four aspects of leadership that we think are crucial to the success in the energy sector broadly speaking, going forward. The four aspects are thinking like an activist, relating like a diplomat, serving as an advocate, and developing a new humility. Do any of these resonate with you and does anything in particular stand out in terms of how your leadership style has changed over your career? And since you became CEO?

Ben Nyland: Well, I think they all make sense in the context that I'm operating in. And it also seems very challenging to find all four of those in any one individual.

The reason why I think those characteristics are required is that this energy transition that we're in is creating a very complex environment. There are obviously entrenched interests that don't want to see change. There are many people who want to see change, but they're constrained economically. And, of course, the ecosystem—the supply chain for energy—is very challenging. And in this sort of disruptive arena, we need to manage people; we need to manage technology; we need to be realistic about what solutions can actually get into the market; but we also need to be impatient enough to push those past the entrenched interests. So, personally, I would say I’m a more diplomatic type of personality, but one of the things that I've had to learn in this new role is how to be more of an activist, how to be more of an advocate.

I moved into the clean energy space because I wanted to make a difference. The reality is that to make a difference we need to learn how to push. And that's not something I've always been comfortable with, but it's something that I've been able to develop. And, more importantly, I've been able to bring people around me who are more naturally activist in their outlook, who are more naturally able to advocate, and I can learn from them and come alongside them. We can work together as a team.

Scott Bae: Diving into some of those leadership themes a little bit further and perhaps more from a lens of a public company like Loop, we often find that leaders of public companies face the challenge of addressing both shorter-term commercial outcomes and longer-term business sustainability. How do you navigate this dichotomy and ensure you're addressing all shareholders as well as stakeholders?

Ben Nyland: Well, I have to say, Scott, this is actually in keeping with my career theme: it’s been a phenomenal learning opportunity. I love learning new things. Loop has been public for little more than a year. Our one-year anniversary is at the end of February, and this is an area I continue to learn about. Again, not unlike the advocacy and activism I was talking about before, what I've done over the last year is really bring people onto the team that have that experience and understanding of the public markets.

The reality, as a fuel cell company, as a clean energy company, is that we're in a growth industry and we're a growth company. And so the metrics that typically get applied to public entities—mature public entities, like price-to-earnings ratios, price-to-sales ratios, these sorts of things—don't really apply in a meaningful way that investors can understand.

So what we've done as a company is implemented and shared with investors the metrics that we use to track our own progress. We are open and transparent with those investors about how we're going to know if we're succeeding in our business plan because these other metrics don't really apply. And so, what we've heard back from shareholders and investors is that it's helpful for them to understand how we're measuring and it's helpful for them to see how successful we are at setting the foundation to be that growth company and to be that mature public entity in the years to come. 

Scott Bae: Well, I think that's encouraging to hear. I'm of the belief that businesses can do well by doing good, and it's inspiring to hear that companies like Loop Energy, no pun intended, are fueling the ESG journey and contributing once again to a better world that hopefully will translate to commercial success for the company for years to come in a way that makes sense for investors, as you described.

This is a perfect segue to the next question. Ben, Loop has cutting-edge technology as well as a strong innovation team. How do you as CEO influence the corporate culture to pivot from one that's focused on, let's call it, a “serious science project” to a more commercial culture? Any lessons learned that you can share with other CEOs on this journey?

Ben Nyland: Well, I think, in the fuel cell industry, the reality is that it's a young industry. Although it's been around for decades, it's at the very early stages of commercialization. There are a lot of extremely smart people. We have engineers who have been working at this for a couple of decades who really understand fuel cell technology. They're motivated. They work extremely hard. But because they've spent their whole career in research and development environments, they don't yet know how the commercialization process works. They're motivated. They want their work to result in great things for the world and great products for their customers, but they don't have the experience of what that means, practically speaking.

And so, the first thing to understand is, they have the motivation. There's not a lack of motivation. It might be a lack of knowledge, but it's not a lack of motivation. So, as a leader, I obviously do my talking head bit, and I highlight achievements team has made or things that I want to really draw forth that are examples of the sorts of accomplishments that we want achieve, or the sorts of activities we want people to start to undertake.

But I think one of the most important things that we've done here at Loop is bring in people from other more commercially mature industries. They bring with them that knowledge and expertise of what needs to be done to successfully launch a commercial product. And in that environment where we have existing employees who are thirsty to understand what they need to do and are motivated to work hard and to accomplish that, bringing in people with the knowledge allows the knowledge to be shared, and everybody is able to move forward successfully.

So, it's really about building the community knowledge and having that knowledge transfer into the rest of the team. And I have to say, with the team that we have, as I've mentioned, they are thirsty for that. They want that knowledge. And so, providing them with that opportunity typically is enough and they just run with it.

Scott Bae: Well, I think that's just a great example of what we call level five leadership. While you're setting the vision for the company, you're bringing the right people onto the bus and you don't seem to feel the need to be the smartest person in the room since you're providing that forum for your team to debate and achieve alignment on these common goals. And, in turn, you ultimately allow the smartest people in the room, the innovators, to get their inventions into the market with the North Star that you’ve set in sight.

Ben, as we bring this conversation to a close, I'd like to ask one final question. Looking ahead, which specific leadership skill sets and capabilities will be the most important for your company to meet its strategic goals?

Ben Nyland: Scott, that is a brilliant question. And, as you just said, I don't need to be the smartest person in the room, which is fortunate because I almost never am the smartest person in the room or in this company—that’s just the reality. And that growth curve, as a leader, is always challenging, personally.

So, it's one thing to say, “I want to hire people that are smarter than me, that know more, that have better expertise.” It can be kind of trite, and it's obvious. It's very different to find yourself in a situation, like the one in which I find myself today, with an executive team that is extraordinarily accomplished and extraordinarily smart. And not only am I usually not the smartest person in the room, I think there are a lot of times when everybody else in the room is smarter than me. And so I think that is part of my growth opportunity: to continue to bring those people on board, to learn from them, to not be threatened by them, and to learn how to grow as a CEO with a frontline of executives with extraordinary competency and passion, and being the leader that they need me to be so that they can be as effective as possible as a team.

Scott Bae: Humility and active listening. That's kind of what I'm hearing. Well, I think that's a great note to wrap up the conversation. Ben, thanks for making time with us today. 

Ben Nyland: Thank you very much. I've really enjoyed this, Scott.

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About the interviewer

Scott Bae (sbae@heidrick.com) is an engagement manager in Heidrick & Struggles' Industrial and Financial Services practices; he is based in the Calgary office.