IONS by Peak Energy

Adrian Yao is CEO of EnPower, a domestic lithium-ion cell manufacturer he co-founded 12 years ago, and founder of STEER at Stanford University, an industry-focused institute that pairs technical rigor with economic analysis to guide next-generation battery development. He previously served as CTO of EnPower, leading the company from its earliest days in a U-Haul warehouse space in Houston through a pilot line in Phoenix to its acquisition of the former EnerDel manufacturing facility in Indianapolis, before transitioning to a board role and returning to academia.

Adrian later returned to EnPower as CEO to pursue what he calls a "missing middle" strategy: building purpose-built lithium-ion cells for autonomy, robotics, drones, and data center applications that are too small for commodity cell makers and too large for niche specialists to serve at cost.