Pleased to meet: Monalisa Goswami
02-10-2024
Business developer Power-2-Chemicals
In this series we put the spotlight on VoltaChem’s team members and get to know them more in-depth. We explore their role, background, expertise, motivations and ambitions. In this edition: Monalisa Goswami, senior Business Developer at the Power-2-Chemicals program line at VoltaChem, focussing on CCU.
Monalisa has a background in chemistry (PhD in catalysis, University of Amsterdam (UvA), 2017) and is passionate about bringing technologies to market that help society make the energy and materials transition. Originally from India, she graduated from St. Stephen’s College in New Delhi before moving to the Netherlands with a fully-funded scholarship from the EU. Prior to working at TNO, she has worked as Business Development Manager at Avantium and founded two UvA spin-offs, Spark904 & Open Kitchen Labs. Monalisa joined TNO in the summer of 2024 and is looking forward to playing a role in bridging the gap between technical innovation and market introduction of renewable chemical technologies.
How did you end up at TNO?
It was during my PhD that I realised that pure fundamental research wasn’t for me. It was important for me to be ‘out there’ and making the much needed connection between science and society is where my heart lies. Although fundamental research is much needed to broaden the horizons of our knowledge, I personally feel that I’m more suited to be involved in applied research with an eye on market introduction. After participating in a ‘start-up bootcamp’ at the UvA in 2016, I founded and worked at Spark904 for five years (an UvA-Holding spin-off) where we offered access to R&D infrastructure to external stakeholders such as start-ups, other institutes or independent researchers in the biobased and circular industries. I didn’t have the ambition to be an entrepreneur, and after five years it was time for a new challenge outside Amsterdam Science Park, which I found at Avantium. It was a great experience and it professionally enhanced me as a business developer. I got to work on the other side of the playing field, more commercial with concrete goals than the academic environment. I loved it! But as an opportunity at TNO passed by, I decided to explore it. I love the fact that TNO is an independent research organisation and we aren’t biased or dedicated to a single technology. We want to solve the challenges and are agnostic about the solutions at hand. I love that we work with multiple companies at the same time and really help them progress in their de-fossilisation journey. Working here fits well with my personal and professional ambitions.
Are you enjoying your first few months at TNO?
I love it! It’s very different from working at a listed company, where a particular product or process is the main focus and the timelines can be very short. At TNO the goals are different, we are an enabler and our focus is more long term. There’s a balance to be found between the two ways of working and I hope that with my experience I can play a role in that. I’m still getting to know the organisation, and its (internal) processes. But the core of what we do is working on technologies and its application in practice; this appeals to me. I look with great admiration at the scientists who actually work on the technological development and enjoy conversing with them, learning about the new advancements. I’m lucky to be able to talk about their great work with the outside world and start collaborations and partnerships.
What does your job at VoltaChem involve?
At VoltaChem I mainly focus on Carbon Capture and Utilisation (CCU) and low-temperature electrosynthesis in particular. This is still in relatively early stages of development and a new topic for me as far as the technology is concerned. It’s been great to learn about which technologies we are working on at TNO and our positioning in the broader context. We try to accelerate national research, development and demonstration of technologies that can convert carbon dioxide (CO2) to platform molecules which can then be converted to (new) materials, chemicals, fuels or food. My job as a senior business developer is to make sure that there is a right business and market context in which we perform our research and development activities. It is very important that we work closely with companies that are eventually going to implement these technologies. So engaging with commercial partners across the value chain, other organisations like TNO, and building business-to-business or shared research programmes is what my work mostly comprises of. As a business developer, there is of course a strong commercial angle to my work. It’s an exciting field to work in; there is continuous development and as TNO we always have to be slightly ahead of the curve and work on technologies that are not yet commercially performed at large scale. Societal and environmental aspects play a major role and we tailor everything we do according to that. We therefore only work on projects that fit that ambition and strategy.
What are the biggest challenges in your line of work?
The predictions are that 10-20% of captured CO2 can be utilised, which is a good thing and can help to make the transition to a circular world. But at the moment we are at a phase where we don’t have a solid way of knowing as to which technologies will be the winners and it’s perhaps going to be a mix of a few anyway. CCU can be done through thermocatalytic, biochemical, electrochemical and photochemical processes, with thermocatalytic being the most advanced as of today. But techno economics is of course a deciding factor and there are several external factors that determine that, say for example, price of renewable electricity, green hydrogen, to name a few. In principle, companies, governments and the European Union are all interested and understand the importance of CCU. But there is reluctance from industry to actually invest any serious money now; it’s way too early for them. So getting long-term commitment throughout the developmental cycle might be the biggest challenge we’re facing and the current European investment climate doesn’t help. We’ll continue to talk about the importance of CCU on several levels; policy, business cases, financing, & demonstration projects. I think it is unfortunate that the technical experts often don’t get a seat at the table and don’t speak-up often or loud enough! Today it’s mostly non-technical people who are working on policy and funding related to clean technology. We really need to listen to each other better and do our homework, so that we can make the right choices together.
What are your personal ambitions and motivations in your work?
I think one of my personal ambitions is to make chemistry great again. It’s unfortunate that the general public has a very negative image of chemistry and chemicals, while a lot of our existence depends on it. Renewable chemical technologies is a great showcase of the fact that it always starts with a chemical reaction and a well thought of process with ins and outs that leads to the winning solutions. I hope that with my work and my knack for communication, I can bring the two sides – society at large and scientists – a bit closer to each other. For this, I’m keen to get involved in policy, and media and communication in general.
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