Maxeon Solar Chooses Bill Mulligan to Lead Company as New CEO
Maxeon Solar Technologies Ltd. has named Bill Mulligan as its new CEO and member of its board of directors on January 23, 2023. Mulligan was previously COO at Sila Nanotechnologies, a privately held Silicon Valley company currently scaling up the manufacture of silicon anode material for advanced high-performance batteries.
Mulligan has previously held positions as CEO of SolarBridge, a microinverter company with technology later sold to Enphase, and executive vice president of global operations for SunPower Corp., where he led the development and commercialization of the solar industry’s first mass-produced Interdigitated Back Contact (IBC) high efficiency solar cells.
“We are very pleased to welcome Bill Mulligan as Maxeon’s new CEO. Bill’s background in solar technologies and proven capabilities in leading teams to commercialize innovative products and scale up manufacturing operations is extremely well suited to the next chapter of Maxeon’s evolution,” says Donald Colvin, Maxeon’s chairman of the board. “Bill joins Maxeon as we expand our global manufacturing footprint, deploy a new 3 GW factory in the U.S., bring our next-generation Maxeon 7 and Performance 7 products to market, and ramp up our Beyond the Panel initiative where we expect that Bill’s previous micro-inverter business experience will be relevant.”
“We are particularly grateful to Mark Babcock for his invaluable work as interim CEO since September,” adds Colvin. “We are fortunate to have a leader of Mark’s caliber and we will benefit from his continued leadership as he returns to his role as chief revenue officer.”
“I am honored and thrilled to join Maxeon at an important inflection point for the company and indeed for the entire solar industry,” comments Mulligan. “I first joined SunPower almost 25 years ago where I was lucky enough to lead the team of dedicated engineers that developed and scaled the world’s highest performance and highest quality solar panels. Together, we helped transform SunPower from a small start-up into a global PV technology leader.”
“Following its spin-off from SunPower, Maxeon has maintained its technology leadership position and continues to expand its world-class team of solar engineers and professionals,” continues Mulligan. “We now have a clear opportunity to take our technology to the next level, to improve our operating efficiency and cost structure, and to capitalize on favorable market conditions to profitably grow Maxeon to significantly larger scale. As a mission-driven company dedicated to Powering Positive Change, we intend to keep building a great organization that meaningfully contributes to the world’s clean energy transition.”
Mulligan succeeds former CEO Jeff Waters, and will be based in San Jose, Calif.