Dr. Gideon Schwich co-founded and co-leads cylib GmbH in 2022 alongside Dr Lilian Schwich and Paul Sabarny. He holds a PhD in Production Engineering/Metallurgy from RWTH Aachen University. Before co-founding cylib, he led the Sustainability practice at umlaut/Accenture, managing a team of consultants and advising major European automotive OEMs and aerospace manufacturers on sustainability strategies. His extensive sustainability consulting experience and operational leadership have been instrumental in scaling cylib's operations and driving strategic growth.

About cylib:

cylib is a holistic and sustainable battery recycling company founded in 2022 in Aachen, Germany, by Dr. Lilian Schwich, Paul Sabarny, and Dr. Gideon Schwich. The company emerged from research conducted at RWTH Aachen University to produce advanced materials for sustainable batteries and resilient European value chains. cylib operates an integrated network across Germany: research and development at the Aachen headquarters, hydrometallurgical processing in Dormagen (under construction), and mechanical processing in Bavaria.

The water-based OLiC (Optimized Lithium and Graphite Recovery) technology efficiently recovers raw materials from battery packs, black mass, or production scrap, achieving over 90% recovery rates for lithium, graphite, nickel, cobalt, and manganese with an 80% reduced carbon footprint compared to primary extraction, enabling true material circularity.

Books and links mentioned

Connect with Gideon Schwich and Cylib

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gideon-schwich/
• Company: https://www.linkedin.com/company/cylib/
• Website: https://www.cylib.de/

About the Host
David Hunt

David Hunt is a cleantech thought leader, podcast host, and former executive search and solar EPC founder. As Non-Executive Chair and a long-time advisor to growth-stage and scaling businesses, he brings deep insight into leadership, energy transition, and the future of climate-focused industries. David supports businesses as a NED and Advisor via Stoa Advisory, and through his podcast and writing, David explores the people, ideas, and innovations shaping a more sustainable world.

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-hunt-cleantech/
• Substack: https://davidhuntcleantech.substack.com/

About the Podcast

Leaders in Cleantech explores the people, ideas, and decisions shaping the energy transition. Through in-depth conversations with founders, CEOs, investors, and industry leaders, the podcast focuses on leadership, scaling companies, and the realities of building in a complex and rapidly evolving sector.

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/leaders-in-cleantech-podcast/
• Website: https://leadersincleantech.com/

🎧 Sponsored by Hyperion Search

Hyperion Search is a specialist executive search firm focused on the cleantech sector.

The firm partners with startups, scaleups, investors, and corporates to build leadership teams and boards across clean energy, mobility, and infrastructure.

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/hyperion-search-ltd
• Website: www.hyperionsearch.com

Feedback & Community

I’m always keen to hear feedback, guest suggestions, or topics you’d like explored in future episodes.

If you enjoy the podcast, please consider subscribing or leaving a review — it helps the show reach more people across the cleantech community.

Rupert Newland is a British entrepreneur. He founded Arenko in 2014 and serves as Chief Executive. Arenko provides large energy companies with enterprise-grade software to manage their asset portfolios, stakeholders and AI applications by unlocking performance from data, connectivity and automation embedded in its proprietary Nimbus software.

Under his leadership, Arenko has deployed Nimbus on some of the largest and most complex battery and renewables portfolios and has inked contracts with many of the world’s largest energy companies.

He previously established, grew, and exited a BESS owner-operator division of Arenko. Prior to founding Arenko, he spent seven years advising and funding renewables projects and trained as an Architect at the University of Sheffield..

About Arenko Group:

Arenko is the software company behind Nimbus, a platform that enables operators of complex, multi-technology BESS and renewables portfolios to manage and monetise their assets.

In a volatile energy market, Nimbus offers a secure and resilient enterprise-grade ‘digital backbone’ that is trusted by major utilities, Independent Power Producers and funds. It delivers market-leading asset control, performance monitoring and fully automated trading capabilities that enable portfolio owners to succeed amid complexity.

Originally incubated in the advanced UK battery energy storage system (BESS) market, Nimbus has now been deployed on over 1.2GW of utility-scale BESS, hybrid and standalone renewables generation capacity across the UK, Europe and the US. The platform is responsible for over 1.8TWh of traded power and over £150 million in revenue generated by Arenko customers.targeted to grow from near zero today to hundreds of millions of tonnes annually by 2050. OXCCU is building the technology to fill that gap.

Books and links mentioned

Orsted/Honsea project - https://arenko.group/arenkos-nimbus-software-to-operate-europes-first-battery-co-located-with-offshore-wind/

What It Takes: Lessons in the Pursuit of Excellence by Stephen A. Schwarzman,

https://www.worldofbooks.com/en-gb/products/what-it-takes-book-stephen-a-schwarzman-9781471189555#NGR9781471189555

Connect with Rupert Newland and Arenko Group

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rupert-newland-48892121/
• Company: https://www.linkedin.com/company/arenko-cleantech/
• Website: https://arenko.group/

About the Host – David Hunt

David Hunt is a cleantech thought leader, podcast host, and former executive search and solar EPC founder. As Non-Executive Chair and a long-time advisor to growth-stage and scaling businesses, he brings deep insight into leadership, energy transition, and the future of climate-focused industries. David supports businesses as a NED and Advisor via Stoa Advisory, and through his podcast and writing, David explores the people, ideas, and innovations shaping a more sustainable world.

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-hunt-cleantech/
• Substack: https://davidhuntcleantech.substack.com/

About the Podcast

Leaders in Cleantech explores the people, ideas, and decisions shaping the energy transition. Through in-depth conversations with founders, CEOs, investors, and industry leaders, the podcast focuses on leadership, scaling companies, and the realities of building in a complex and rapidly evolving sector.

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/leaders-in-cleantech-podcast/
• Website: https://leadersincleantech.com/

🎧 Sponsored by Hyperion Search

Hyperion Search is a specialist executive search firm focused on the cleantech sector.

The firm partners with startups, scaleups, investors, and corporates to build leadership teams and boards across clean energy, mobility, and infrastructure.

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/hyperion-search-ltd
• Website: www.hyperionsearch.com

Feedback & Community

I’m always keen to hear feedback, guest suggestions, or topics you’d like explored in future episodes.

If you enjoy the podcast, please consider subscribing or leaving a review — it helps the show reach more people across the cleantech community.

In this episode, I’m joined by Steve Robinson and David Beeston from Hyperion Search for a Q2 cleantech market review, looking across technology, investment, infrastructure and talent.

The central theme of the conversation is clear: the market is moving from announcement to alignment, or perhaps more sharply, from ambition to execution. Capital is still flowing, M&A activity continues, and the energy transition is still moving forward — but the bar has risen. Investors, boards and leadership teams are now looking for businesses that can execute, integrate and scale in real-world conditions.

We discuss the continued convergence of renewables, storage, EV infrastructure, fleet electrification and data centres, and why the challenge is increasingly less about individual technologies and more about systems thinking. Grid constraints, energy management, capacity, utilisation and operational delivery now sit at the centre of many business models.

Steve shares his view on the EV charging and fleet electrification market, where the focus is shifting from rollout to utilisation, returns and integrated energy solutions. David explores the storage and grid landscape, including the growing realism around European battery supply chains, the role of China, the rise of circularity and recycling, and the move away from pure merchant exposure towards more risk-managed storage revenue models.

We also discuss how these market shifts are changing senior hiring. Companies are becoming more precise about the leaders they need. The demand is for people who have seen scale, complexity and execution before — leaders who can build functions, manage assets, navigate grid and regulatory complexity, and turn strategy into delivery.

Finally, we look at data centres as a fast-emerging energy challenge. The AI boom is creating huge demand for power, flexibility and resilience, making energy infrastructure talent increasingly important to the future of digital infrastructure.

About the Host

David Hunt is a cleantech thought leader, podcast host, and former executive search and solar EPC founder. As Non-Executive Chair and a long-time advisor to growth-stage and scaling businesses, he brings deep insight into leadership, energy transition, and the future of climate-focused industries. David supports businesses as a NED and Advisor via Stoa Advisory, and through his podcast and writing, David explores the people, ideas, and innovations shaping a more sustainable world.

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-hunt-cleantech/
• Substack: https://davidhuntcleantech.substack.com

About the Podcast

Leaders in Cleantech explores the people, ideas, and decisions shaping the energy transition. Through in-depth conversations with founders, CEOs, investors, and industry leaders, the podcast focuses on leadership, scaling companies, and the realities of building in a complex and rapidly evolving sector.

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/leaders-in-cleantech-podcast/
• Website: https://leadersincleantech.com/

🎧 Sponsored by Hyperion Search

Hyperion Search is a specialist executive search firm focused on the cleantech sector.

The firm partners with startups, scaleups, investors, and corporates to build leadership teams and boards across clean energy, mobility, and infrastructure.

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/hyperion-search-ltd
• Website: www.hyperionsearch.com

Feedback & Community

I’m always keen to hear feedback, guest suggestions, or topics you’d like explored in future episodes.

If you enjoy the podcast, please consider subscribing or leaving a review — it helps the show reach more people across the cleantech community.