Former Nikola CFO Anastasiya Pasterick has been appointed to head up the finances of US-based aviator Universal Hydrogen.
Set to start as CFO of Universal Hydrogen on December 4, 2023, Pasterick will lead all aspects of the company’s finance activities, including planning and strategy, capital raising, investor relations, financial reporting, treasury and compliance.
Pasterick’s departure from Nikola was announced last Friday (November 20), less than a year after she took up the role, with the zero-emission truck manufacturer saying Pasterick would “pursue other opportunities.”
“It is an honour to join Universal Hydrogen, an exciting, mission-driven, high-potential organisation,” said Pasterick. “I’ll be hitting the ground running, moving forward to refine and execute on the company’s business model, scaling rapidly while consistently driving smart capital allocation and maintaining strong financial discipline.”
She said the goal was to create a “highly profitable” business at global scale in the near-term, with significant “value creation” for the company’s investors, employees, customers and partners.
Paul Eremenko, co-founder and CEO of Universal Hydrogen, said Pasterick brings, “public company experience, fundraising prowess, deep knowledge of the nascent hydrogen sector, and a pragmatic, clear-headed and growth-oriented leadership mindset just as Universal Hydrogen embarks on a growth trajectory spurred on by a year of significant successes.”
During her Nikola tenure, Pasterick was part of the team that took the company through a SPAC merger to public listing in 2020, under her predecessor Kim Brady, who left the CFO position in March 2023.
The truck manufacturer reported a $425m loss in Q3 earlier this month (November 2023), with its nine months to September 30, 2023, losses growing to $812m.
2023 saw Universal Hydrogen’s prototype Dash-8 aircraft with hydrogen powertrain equipped to one wing take to the skies for the first time, with subsequent flight tests that followed.
In September, the company announced it had begun the next phase of test flights at the Mojave Air & Space Port in California, US.
Read more: Universal Hydrogen records another successful hydrogen-powered flight
Among various orders for its aircraft conversion kits, Universal last week (November 16) announced it had partnered with Japan Airline to explore supplying conversion kits for the airline’s ATR 72-600 regional aircraft.
Read more: Japan Airlines partners with three hydrogen aviators to clean up regional fleets
The year that rocked and reshaped Hyzon Motors
© Hyzon Motors
The tale of Hyzon Motors is one of a quick rise to success, followed by struggles within its operations, which in the words of CEO Parker Meeks, drove it to transform itself.
Springing into life at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in March 2020, the Rochester, New York-headquartered hydrogen fuel cell and truck firm quickly grabbed headlines, basing its hydrogen-powered drives on technology developed by Singapore’s Horizon Fuel Cell Group.
In its first year, the company took the market by storm, carrying out an aggressive and ambitious commercialisation plan, securing partnerships with the likes of Raven SR, Hiringa Energy, TC Energy and Woodside, as well as launching Australian and European businesses.
For over two years, all seemed bright at Hyzon. New contract announcements, big partnerships and vehicle deliveries were commonplace. But in August 2022, a series of events came to light that would force Hyzon’s hand to fundamentally change its board, senior management team and strategic focus…
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