New CEO for Maxeon Solar

Singapore headquartered solar cell/module producer Maxeon Solar Technologies, Ltd has announced Bill Mulligan as its new CEO. Solar industry veteran Mulligan will be joining the company as its Chief Executive Officer and member of its Board of Directors on January 23, 2023. He succeeds Mark Babkock who was Interim CEO since Sept. 2022 (see Maxeon Solar’s Chief Executive Officer To Leave).

Mulligan is an experienced solar business leader with experience in managing teams in the development, commercialization, scale-up and high-volume manufacturing of innovative technologies. After working in the early 1990s at AstroPower, at the time the most exciting solar company, he joined US startup JX Crystals, before he moved to SunPower in 1998. In the following 12 years, he became VP R&D. About this period, Mulligan highlighted on his LinkedIn profile, “Under my leadership, SunPower developed and commercialized the world’s highest efficiency silicon PV cell (22% average in production). Annual revenue grew from $8 million in 1998 to $2.2 billion in 2010.” His next job was at microinverter company Solar Brigde, where he started as the company’s first independent board member 2011, was appointed CEO in June 2013, and was responsible for selling the company to his former employer SunPower Corporation in Nov. 2014. He re-joined SunPower as GM microinverters, and was later appointed VP Strategies and EVP Global Operations. With SunPower spinning off its cell/module manufacturing business to Maxeon Solar, Mulligan left to become COO at battery materials company Sila Nanotechnologies. With the return to Maxeon the circle sort of closes again as Mulligan takes over the helm for a cell/module technology that he probably knows better than anyone else.

Expressing his delight, Maxeon’s Chairman of the Board Donald Colvin said, “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. 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.”

Mulligan said, “I am honored and thrilled to join Maxeon at an important inflection point for the Company and indeed for the entire solar industry. 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. 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 will be based in the company’s San Jose, California office.

On its LinkedIn page Maxeon expressed, “A huge thank-you to Mark Babcock for his invaluable work as Interim CEO. We are delighted to continue benefitting from his leadership as he returns to his role of Chief Revenue Officer.”