LanzaTech Global Inc. announced that Aura Cuellar has joined as Executive Vice President of Growth and Strategic Projects. LanzaTech is pioneering a new circular carbon economy. The company captures carbon emissions and pollution from industries and uses a specialty microbe to convert them into the building blocks used to make everyday materials, including sustainable fuels, packaging, and textiles.

This process patterns after traditional refining methods but offers a way of refining carbon that has already seen a primary use rather than processing virgin fossil carbon. The company has a strong project pipeline in addition to three operating commercial scale plants and an anticipated three more coming online before the end of 2023. In October 2022, LanzaTech announced a strategic funding partnership with Brookfield Renewable to build additional commercial facilities.

The funding will be provided through the Brookfield Global Transition Fund (BGTF), which is the large private fund in the world focused on the energy transition. Brookfield is LanzaTechs preferred capital partner for project opportunities in Europe and North America and following initial investments totaling $500 million, Brookfield could commit to making an additional $500 million available for investments in the strategic partnership if sufficient projects are available at the agreed milestones. With the appointment of Cuellar, who has a record of running and implementing large scale capital projects for the refining and chemicals sectors, LanzaTech installs a global executive with seasoned project management, construction, and commercial negotiation experience to accelerate deployment of projects and capital in partnership with Brookfield.

The creation of a team around Cuellar is expected to fast track growth and bring additional revenue to the newly listed company by accelerating capital deployment from Brookfield. Prior to joining LanzaTech, Aura Cuellar most recently served as Vice President of Energy Transition for Shell in the United States. Originally hired into an engineering position, Cuellar advanced her 24+ year tenure at Shell across various senior executive roles in downstream manufacturing.

Cuellar brings a proven successful track record of strategy development and implementation, strategic commercial partnerships formation for creating sustainable revenue pipelines, and management of an annual capital projects portfolio of $500 million. Cuellar is passionate about cultural transformation with a focus on innovation and social equity. By working and living in Europe, Africa, Asia and North and South America, Cuellar brings diverse perspective and appreciation of global and regional approaches to successfully deliver capital projects.

Cuellar also serves as Honorary Consul of the Kingdom of The Netherlands in Houston where she contributes to addressing the shared challenges of climate adaptation and resilience, health and vitality, sustainable mobility, and the energy transition. Originally from Colombia, Cuellar holds a bachelors degree in Environmental and Civil Engineering from Seattle University, an MBA from Western Washington University, and recently finished Executive General Management studies at INSEAD and Harvards Women on Boards Program.