DrOla Hekselman, MRSC

Dr A.K. Ola Hekselman is an award-winning entrepreneur, chemist and battery scientist committed to advancing sustainable technologies for the energy transition. She is the CEO and Co-founder of Solveteq, an Imperial College London spinout developing an energy- and cost-efficient, solvent-based technology platform to decarbonise conventional metal extraction processes.

Solveteq’s proprietary process leverages environmentally benign, low-temperature chemistries to significantly reduce energy use, carbon emissions, and pollution. Designed to be feedstock-agnostic and applicable across various sectors – from battery recycling to mining – the platform enables a step change in the sustainability of metal recovery.

Ola holds a PhD in Chemistry from the University of St Andrews, where she studied polymer electrolyte systems for solid-state lithium- and sodium-ion batteries. She went on to hold research fellowships at the University of Oxford and Imperial College London, focusing on solid-state battery materials, their degradation mechanisms and novel approaches to battery recycling. Her transition from academic researcher to entrepreneur was supported by Imperial’s Techcelerate programme, the Faraday Institution Entrepreneurial Fellowship, and the Innovate UK Women in Innovation Award, which recognised her pioneering work and public outreach, marked by the award of a Purple Plaque.

She remains closely affiliated with Imperial’s Department of Materials and is a member of the Royal Society of Chemistry. With over fifteen years’ experience spanning academia and industry, she combines deep scientific expertise with a pragmatic drive to deliver commercially scalable, low-carbon technologies.