Catherine E. von burg
Founder, President & CEO, SimpliPhi Power
Catherine Von Burg is a Founder and the President & CEO of SimpliPhi Power, a technology company that designs and manufactures non-toxic, efficient, and enduring energy storage and management systems that seamlessly integrate solar, wind, generator, or any other power generation source – in conjunction with or independent from the grid.
"Without energy storage, renewable sources of power are intermittent and unreliable, but so too is the grid in emergency and black out scenarios in which the centralized delivery of power breaks down," says Catherine. "At SimpliPhi, we are empowering people and communities globally to generate, store and utilize power on their terms, anytime, anywhere, on or off the grid. Access to renewable energy stands to eradicate poverty and is the critical link between social equity, economic prosperity and environmental sustainability. I'm proud to have helped build a company that adheres to the triple bottom line -- placing equal importance on people, planet and profit as part of all of our strategic business decisions."
Catherine’s career spans a diverse portfolio of strategic planning, policy development, executive management, and multidisciplinary team building in the fields of biomedical engineering and research, health and human services and environmental conservation. Committed to the transformation of the power grid and creating universal access to clean energy by leveraging distributed energy storage solutions, she has published white papers and spearheaded national program, policy and business-driven initiatives with organizations such as Pew Charitable Trusts, Rockefeller Institute, Columbia University, NY March of Dimes Foundation, John Hopkins School of Biomedical Engineering, Wilderness Education Association and First 5 Commission of California.
In 2017, representing SimpliPhi, Catherine was nominated to participate in an exclusive entrepreneur program hosted by the U.S. Department of State and the Unreasonable Group. Global business leaders were carefully selected as being the best positioned to solve each of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals established by the United Nations. SimpliPhi’s energy storage and management solutions were chosen to represent UN SDG No. 9, ‘Industry, Innovation & Infrastructure’. Collaborators and mentors in this program included USAID & the World Bank, among others.
Under Catherine's leadership, SimpliPhi has deployed energy storage and management systems in more than 30 countries, providing access to power in some of the harshest and most remote environments and use-cases globally. The company has grown to offer a full range of mobile, residential and commercial storage solutions that combine non-hazardous lithium ferro phosphate (LFP) energy storage chemistry with a proprietary manufacturing processes and materials, battery architecture, power electronics and Battery Management System (BMS) to create safe, reliable, durable and highly scalable on-demand power. Catherine has also lead partnerships that have granted the company's batteries both endorsement by the U.S. Army and Marine Corps and exclusive ‘Special Permission’ by the FAA to air-ship anywhere in the world.
Catherine graduated from Columbia University in New York and holds a Master’s degree from University of Pennsylvania, School of Social Policy.