Meet the Team

Matt O’Leary
Executive Chairman & Interim President

Matt O’Leary is Executive Chairman and Interim President of Motiv Power Systems.  Matt has been a member of the Motiv Board of Directors since November, 2016, and was elected Chairman of the Board in July, 2018.

Prior to that, Matt had worked at Ford Motor Company for over 38 years.  He has extensive global experience in product development, purchasing and finance.

Matt retired as the Vehicle Line Director, North America Trucks, SUVs and Commercial Vehicles at the end of 2015.  Prior to that he was the Product Development Director for Ford South America Operations and led the development of the all-new EcoSport and Ka global vehicles.  Matt also served as the Director of Corporate Strategy, establishing a strategy process and plan for profitable growth in Asia. Prior to that he served as Chief Engineer, F150/Expedition/Navigator and was responsible for the highly successful, all-new 2009 F150, which won numerous awards including Motor Trend Truck of the Year, North American Truck of the Year, Truck of Texas, JD Power Initial Quality, and Consumer Reports Recommended Buy.   

Matt earned a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from University of Michigan – Dearborn in 1977, and a Master of Science in Management from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1995.

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Jim Castelaz
Founder & CTO

Jim is a leading electric vehicle entrepreneur, trained as an electrical engineer with expertise in power and embedded systems. As founder and CTO, Jim champions Motiv’s vision to Free Fleets from Fossil Fuels – a vision that summarizes his professional and personal passion.

He has led Motiv from an idea in his living room to becoming the US market leader in common-platform electric truck and bus chassis. Having raised over $70M for Motiv to date, Jim’s experience includes capital formation, government grants, developing IP portfolios and building a world-class team aligned around a shared purpose.

Jim holds an MSEE from Stanford University and BS in Engineering and Economics from Harvey Mudd College.

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Prasad Ramakrishnan
COO

Prasad Ramakrishnan is Motiv’s Chief Operating Officer focusing on operational excellence and ensuring engineering, manufacturing, and quality processes provide customer-focused, robust, reliable, and profitable products at high-volume.

Prasad is a global leader and turnaround specialist with expertise across functions in renewable energy, mobility, power and fashion consumer product industries.  During his career, he held global or regional operational leadership roles in Ford, Triumph International, Alstom and General Electric while living and working in four continents. He is passionate about consistently and inclusively developing leaders and teams, and combining social and economic impact. He teaches and has developed executive education programs at the Swiss Federal Tech University (ETH) in Zurich and Babson College in Boston.

Prasad holds bachelor’s degrees in Physics & Electrical Engineering, master’s degrees in Electrical Engineering & Personnel Administration, and is a Saïd Business School alumnus of the Oxford Advanced Management and Leadership Programme.

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Kristen Magnuson
CFO

Kristen Magnuson serves at Motiv’s Chief Financial Officer where she leads all aspects of financial operations and capital formation efforts.

She brings over 30 years of expertise in accelerating growth and maximizing profitability in technology-focused companies through multiple stages of growth, planning, capital markets, debt and equity financing, mergers and acquisitions, and diverse functional areas across business operations. Kristen has held positions of increasing responsibility, most recently serving as the CFO at Achilles Technology Solutions, Webtrends and JDA Software Group, where she played an instrumental role in exponential revenue growth from $94M to $400M. Prior she was the VP of Financial Planning, Analysis and Retail Systems at Michael’s Stores, which grew from $250M to over a $1B in revenue during her tenure. Kristen has helped raise nearly $1B through capital market transactions during her career and lead M&A efforts in nearly 50 successful acquisitions.

Kristen holds a Bachelor of Business Administration in Accounting from the University of Washington.

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