Carbon Re has appointed experienced entrepreneur Josh Vernon as its new CEO. Carbon Re is an industrial AI company that is focussed on decarbonising energy intensive industries such as cement, steel and glass.
Josh Vernon has relocated from Sydney, Australia, to join Carbon Re in London. His most recent role was with Humanforce, Australia’s leading provider of HR/HCM tools to frontline workers. Josh joined Humanforce following the sale of Earnd, where he was co-founder and CEO. Earnd, Australia’s first employee financial well-being platform, was founded in 2019 and acquired by Greensill Capital in 2020. During Josh’s time at Greensill, the team at Earnd grew from 12 to over 100 and the customer base expanded to include 100s of 1000s of employees from the world’s best brands including Bupa, Tesco, NHS, Pizza Hut, JD Sports and many others.
Josh Vernon said: “Carbon Re has all the ingredients for great success – unique AI-driven technology solutions, an incredible team with world-class expertise, and strong commercial traction. My first days with the company have brought this home to me really strongly and I’m incredibly excited to work with the team to help take the company forward.”
Josh takes over from Sherif Elsayed-Ali, a co-founder of Carbon Re, who stepped aside from his day-to-day role as CEO to pursue new decarbonisation challenges in 2023. Mr Elsayed-Ali led the company through successful pre-seed and seed funding rounds to fund the development of the company’s business and technology solutions.
The company raised GBP4.2m (US$5.32m) in seed funding in late 2023 to scale up development and deployment of its novel technology. The company’s Delta Zero platform enables the cement industry to reduce over 50,000tpa of CO2 emissions per plant.