Board of Directors

In addition to the company co-founders, Banyan’s Board of Directors includes:

Rami Elkhatib
Rami founded Acero Capital in late 2009, and focuses on investments in both IT and Clean Energy. He currently serves on the board of enterprise mobile company Bitzer Mobile and on the boards of solar energy companies Solexant and Banyan Energy. Prior to Acero, Rami was General Partner at Southeast Technology Funds where he focused on IT infrastructure and software investments, and served on the boards of several investments including Pixel Magic (acquired by Dai Nippon), Waveguide Solutions, Elumens Corporation and Arsenal Digital (acquired by IBM). Prior to venture capital, Rami held multiple roles in tech and finance — he co-founded Datacme Software, held multiple senior management roles at Oneworld Software Solutions, and worked as a technology investment banker at UBS Warburg where he led the execution of several public offerings and M&A deals that in aggregate raised over $800M for high tech companies. Before that, Rami had started his career as a software engineer, developing large-scale software applications (Design Automation Systems; Decision Support Systems) for Global Fortune 20 companies (Toyota, Procter & Gamble). Rami is a graduate of M.I.T. where he earned an MBA in finance and was named the Henry du Pont III Scholar, and a graduate of Purdue University where he earned a B.S. in Computer and Electrical Engineering. Before going on leave from Stanford University, Rami was also pursuing his M.S. in Materials Science and Engineering at Stanford, where he was a member of Stanford’s Honors Coop Program. While at Stanford, Rami’s research included investigation of new materials for fuel cell membranes, solar thin film deposition and catalysts for bio-refining of renewable chemicals. At Stanford Rami also contributed to writing the 2nd edition of the leading textbook on fuel cells (Fuel Cell Fundamentals).

Steve Eglash
Steve is Executive Director of the Energy and Environment Affiliates Program at Stanford University, where he is responsible for developing and managing interactions for corporations and other organizations having an interest in Stanford’s research, faculty, and graduate students in energy-related and environmental fields. Steve brings to this position a background in renewable energy, business, technology, and finance. Previously, Steve was President and CEO of Cyrium Technologies, a solar energy startup company, as well as a consultant and advisor to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and the U.S. Department of Energy. Before that, Steve was a venture capitalist at Worldview Technology Partners where he emphasized investments in semiconductors, displays, lighting, and energy. Steve was also Vice President at SDL (JDSU) where he managed businesses in telecommunications, printing, optical amplifiers, and industrial lasers. He began his career as a research scientist at MIT Lincoln Laboratory. Steve received a PhD and MS from Stanford University, and a BS from the University of California at Berkeley, all in Electrical Engineering. He has more than 40 papers published in peer-reviewed journals, is the owner of four patents, and is a fellow of the SPIE and a member of the IEEE and OSA. Steve is a member of the City of Palo Alto Utilities Advisory Commission and is involved in humanitarian projects such as the Tech Museum Awards for Technology Benefiting Humanity and the Global Social Benefit Incubator at Santa Clara University.

Rusty Schmit
Rusty is President and CEO of CleanSwitch, a leading solar engineering and installation company based in Albuquerque. Rusty is a 30-year veteran of the solar industry and a globally recognized leader in the field, with substantial earlier experience in solar technology development at Motorola and Texas Instruments. He led the acquisition and served as CEO of Photowatt, a French solar manufacturer, which he took to profitability and into the top 5 in global market share. He later founded and led Advent Solar, an Albuquerque-based solar module engineering and manufacturing company, to $10M in revenue before the company was acquired by Applied Materials. Rusty was tapped by United States Senator Jeff Bingaman to found the Advanced Program Initiative, a non-profit educational foundation, which promotes and supports the expansion and improvement of Advanced Placement courses, particularly in math and science, throughout New Mexico. Rusty currently serves as Chairman of API’s Board of Directors.