Benjamin Howard
Co Founder & CEO
Benjamin is a Co-Founder and CEO of Vertus Energy with a BSc in Construction Engineering and Management and a career built on delivering large-scale infrastructure, having executed over £250 million of complex projects across the UK and New Zealand. Across major project directorships and advisory roles with early-stage ventures, he has developed a sharp instinct for anticipating where problems emerge at different scales of a business.
He has led capital raises of over £10 million, forging relationships with partners, operators, investors and government leaders across Europe, Asia and the US. At Vertus, he sets strategic direction with the commercial acumen and decisive judgement that experience provides, focused on building a company and team ready for what comes next.
Freddy Gonzalez
Co Founder & CTO
Freddy is a Co-Founder and Master Mechanical Engineer with 15 years of experience delivering complex R&D projects across hydrogen systems, electrochemical reactors and advanced energy infrastructure. Holding an MSc in Mechanical Engineering, he has built deep expertise in electrochemical systems, spanning reactor design, cell architecture, stack engineering and integration within large-scale energy infrastructure.
As CTO, Freddy has led Vertus’s core technology from TRL 2 through to advanced demonstration, overseeing the full arc of technical maturation from early proof of concept. His command of how electrochemical technology performs under real-world commercial conditions is central to Vertus’s technical credibility, and he is now driving the engineering team towards TRL 9 and full industrial readiness.
Matthew Millar
President of Operations
Matthew is a three-time founder and operations leader who has built and scaled complex ventures across biomanufacturing and industrial operations, raising around $10 million through bootstrapping, angel networks and VC backing. Named in the Forbes 30 Under 30 for Manufacturing & Industry, his work has been featured in the Financial Times and Business Insider, and he advises incubators in the UK and China.
As President of Operations, Matthew applies that executional experience to the systems, processes and teams that underpin Vertus’s commercial growth, ensuring the business scales without losing momentum.
Ash Dunn
Financial Director
Ash is a CIMA-qualified Finance Director whose career spans blue-chip institutions and founder-led businesses in equal measure. He began at JD Wetherspoon, the FTSE-listed hospitality group, leading Commercial Finance, FP&A, Accounting and Corporate Reporting teams, before becoming Head of Finance for Berry Bros and Rudd, the world’s oldest wine and spirits merchant, overseeing finance across the UK, France, Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore. He has since served as Finance Director at two VC-backed start-ups, Really Clever and Knatchbull.
With a foundation in Environmental Economics, Ash provides the financial architecture behind Vertus’s growth, building the rigorous foundations that will allow the company to scale with confidence and accountability.
Sophie Asamer
Director of People
Sophie is an HR Business Partner with more than seven years of experience scaling organisations and international teams across biotech, techbio and life sciences in Austria, the UK and the US, and holds an LL.M. in Employment Law. She steered biotech companies Allcyte and Exscientia through a merger and hypergrowth phase as integration lead, and directed a €6 million laboratory and office build from inception to occupation, a remit well beyond traditional HR.
At Vertus, Sophie builds the structures, processes and culture that attract exceptional talent, developing the organisational capacity the company will need to deliver on its mission.