Rodney Worthen, interim CFO of Microvast since August 2025, has been appointed the permanent CFO. He becomes the 5th CFO at the company since April 2024. His interim spell has lasted longer than some of his permanent predecessors.

Microvast provides battery technologies for electric vehicles and energy storage solutions. It has its corporate offices in Stafford, TX. Its main operation is in Huzhou, China, where it has a 1,400,000 sq.ft. facility. The company also has an operation in Berlin, Germany (185,000 sq.ft.).

Microvast was projecting revenues of between $450 million and $475 million for 2025. The current share price is $3.50, giving the company a market capitalization of $1.1 billion.

New CFO and CAO

Mr. Worthen joined the company in June 2023 and has held various roles such as Head of FP&A and Investor Relations. He was VP of Corporate Strategy, before adding the interim CFO role. He will receive a base salary of $400,000.

The company also appointed Eric Garcia as its Chief Accounting Officer. He was previously the CAO at NextDecade Corporation from 2017 to 2025. Mr. Garcia will receive a base salary of $350,000.

In 2022, the company was awarded a $200 million grant by the Department of Energy to build a US manufacturing plant. The grant was rescinded a few months later after lawmakers questioned the company’s ties to the Chinese government. The lack of funding later caused construction to stall on building a new plant in Tennessee.

Lawsuits galore

Lawsuits have been filed in relation to both events. In the case of the DoE grant, investors are alleging that the company failed to disclose in a timely manner that the grant had been rescinded. With regards to the Tennessee plant, subcontractors are suing for contract damages.

In August, Grizzly Research published research claiming that the company is fabricating a significant part of its business and capabilities.  There have no been no further developments since that research was published.

SEC filing 8-K Microvast appoints Rodney Worthen as CFO

“On July 29, 2025, Carl T. (Pat) Schultz ceased to be employed as Chief Financial Officer of Microvast Holdings, Inc.”. That’s it. That’s the complete filing with the SEC, announcing the departure of the latest CFO at the company.

[Update 08-08-25 Microvast appointed Rodney Worthen as the interim CFO. He is currently the VP of Corporate Strategy]

For those keeping score, Mr. Schultz was the 4th CFO to have served at the company since April 2024. Mr. Schultz, formerly the CFO of Air Liquide North America, didn’t make it through one quarterly earnings call.

For those not keeping score, here’s the list of recent CFOs:

Microvast manufactures lithium-ion batteries for commercial electric vehicles. It has a 1,400,000 sq.ft. factory in Huzhou, China and a 185,000 sq.ft. facility in Berlin. The company is trying to build a 577,000 sq. ft. facility in Clarksville, Tennessee. However, it has paused construction due to a lack of funding. Worse than that, suppliers on that project have filed mechanics liens worth $24 million.

The company has a small 4,000 sq ft head office in Stafford and was formed in Houston in 2006 by Yang Wu. He appears to be based in Hawaii. Long-time CFO Leon Zheng went to Texas A&M and worked at a Houston-based PE firm, before joining Microvast.

Microvast went public via a SPAC in July 2021. Like many companies taken public in this way, its shares are under water. For much of 2024, shares were trading around 50 cents. However, better-than-expected Q4 results saw the stock price rise and it now trades at $2.62. For 2024, the company had revenue of $380 million and an operating loss of $116 million. The company has a market cap of $977 million.

In 2022, the company was awarded a $200 million grant by the Department of Energy to build a US manufacturing plant. The grant was rescinded a few months later after lawmakers questioned the company’s ties to the Chinese government.

Last week, Grizzly Research published research claiming that the company is fabricating a significant part of its business and capabilities.  There’s no evidence that the departure of the CFO and the publication of Grizzly’s report are connected. However, the turnover of CFOs is a red flag.

No word yet on the next or interim CFO.

SEC filing – Microvast Schultz departure

Microvast, the troubled battery manufacturer, with its head office in Stafford, has appointed Pat Schultz to be its CFO. He becomes the 4th CFO to serve in the past year!

Previous CFO Fariyal Khanbabi was appointed in October 2024. Prior to that, Yasser Ali served as CFO in July-August 2024 before resigning. Before that, Craig Webster served as CFO for one year, before resigning in April 2024.

Microvast manufactures lithium-ion batteries for commercial electric vehicles. It has a 1,400,000 sq.ft. factory in Huzhou, China and a 185,000 sq.ft. facility in Berlin. The company is trying to build a 577,000 sq. ft. facility in Clarksville, Tennessee. However, it has paused construction due to a lack of funding. Worse than that, suppliers on that project have filed mechanics liens worth $24 million.

Microvast went public via a SPAC in July 2021. Like many companies taken public in this way, its shares are under water. For much of 2024, shares were trading around 50 cents. However, better-than-expected Q4 results saw the stock price rise and it now trades at $1.79. For 2024, the company had revenue of $380 million and an operating loss of $116 million. The company has a market cap of $529 million.

Mr. Schultz previously served as the CFO of Air Liquide North America from 2022 and CFO of Air Liquide Advanced Materials from 2017 to 2022. Prior to that, he held roles at SAE Towers and Genworth Mortgage Insurance. He will receive a base salary of $420,000.

SEC 8-K – Microvast Schultz CFO

Eric Williams, CFO of Sunnova Energy International, has stepped down after nine months in the position. Ms. Robyn Liska has been appointed Interim Chief Financial Officer. The Wall Street Journal reports that the company is in talks with its creditors about restructuring its debt.

Sunnova provides solar power systems and other related products such as chargers and energy storage through a network of dealers and partners. Typically, Sunnova funds the initial investment of a system and generates revenue from leasing or power contracts with the customer. The company has its head office in the Greenway Plaza area of Houston.

For 2024, the company had revenues of $840 million and an operating loss of $240 million. However, it also has $8.5 billion in debts and was paying $350 million a year in interest. The company has now elected not to pay interest on a $400 million of senior notes. That starts the clock on a 30-day grace period before triggering a default, that could lead to bankruptcy.

Ms. Liska is an investment banker at the power and renewable energy division of JP Morgan Chase.

When Mr. Williams joined Sunnova in June 2024, he received a base salary of $475,000 and a one-time restricted stock and options grant worth $1.25 million at the time. It will be less than that now, as the stock price has dropped from over $5 at the time he joined to 34 cents.

Just two weeks ago, along with three other senior executives, Mr. Williams received a special cash bonus award for 2025. The amount paid to Mr. Williams was $450,000. As part of his separation agreement, he gets to keep this.

Mr. Williams will also receive a severance of 50% of base salary ($238k) and a pro-rated bonus for 2025 of 75% of base ($89k) .

Sunnova Founder departs

Sunnova’s Founder and CEO John Berger also stepped down in early March, to be replaced by COO Paul Mathews. Mr. Berger received a severance of 1x base salary ($650k) and 2025 target annual bonus ($975k)  Mr. Berger also entered into a consulting agreement worth $135k a month, for up to 10 months.

Short-tenure CFOs

Mr. Williams is the second Houston-area CFO to leave in the past month that was in the role for less than a year.  Sharon Villaverde departed Sterling Infrastructure after ten months.  In addition, CEO Steven Moskowitz of Crown Castle left after 11 months.

SEC filing – 8-K Sunnova CFO leaves

Microvast has appointed Yaser Ali as its new CFO. He replaces Craig Webster, who resigned in April after one year in the role.

Microvast manufactures lithium-ion batteries for commercial electric vehicles. It has a 1,400,000 sq.ft. factory in Huzhou, China and it is in the process of building a 577,000 sq. ft. facility in Clarksville, Tennessee. It has its corporate office in Stafford, TX with other facilities in Florida,  Colorado and Germany.

The company went public via a SPAC in July 2021. Like many companies taken public in this way, its shares are under water and now trade at 42 cents. For 2023, it had revenue of $307 million and a net loss of $106 million. Building of the new facility in Tennessee has been put on hold while they seek financing.

Prior to joining Microvast, Mr. Ali was the CFO of Vision Technologies between August 2022 and March 2024. That company is an IT consulting business, based in Baltimore. He has also worked at Sun Edison and Amazon.

Mr. Ali will receive a base salary of $325,000.

SEC filing – 8-K Microvast CFO 24-07

Sunnova Energy International has appointed Eric Williams as its new CFO. He replaces Rob Lane, who will leave the company on June 30.

Sunnova provides solar power systems and other related products such as chargers and energy storage through a network of dealers and partners. Typically, Sunnova funds the initial investment of a system and generates revenue from leasing or power contracts with the customer. The company has its head office in the Greenway Plaza area of Houston.

Mr. Williams was the CFO at Diversified Energy Company, an E&P operator based in Alabama, between July 2017 and September 2023.

Mr. Williams will receive a base salary of $475,000 and a one-time restricted stock and options grant worth $1.25 million. He will also receive up to $100,000 in relocation assistance. He started his career with PricewaterhouseCoopers in Alabama. Mr. Williams later spent 7 years at Houston-based Callon Petroleum, ending up as Director of Investor Relations.

The new CFO will be busy as Sunnova has gross debt of $7.8 billion, which is more than ten times its revenue. Cash flow from operations has been an outflow of at least $130 million in each of the past five years.

At the beginning of May, Sunnova announced it was seeking advice from Moelis & Co about its debt options. There has been no updates since.

SEC filing – 8-K Sunnova appoints new CFO

Rob Lane, the CFO of Sunnova International, will be leaving the company. He will leave on the earlier of June 30, 2024 or the appointment of a new CFO. The company has engaged a retained search firm to find his successor.

Sunnova provides solar power systems and other related products such as chargers and energy storage through a network of dealers and partners. Typically, Sunnova funds the initial investment of a system and generates revenue from leasing or power contracts with the customer. The company has its head office in the Greenway Plaza area of Houston.

The company started in 2013 and its operating losses have increased along with its revenues in recent years. In 2023, the company had revenues of $720 million and an operating loss of $243 million. An operating cash flow outflow of $238 million was swamped by a further $2.5 billion in cash used for investing activities.

Maturing debt wall

The problem for the company is that it has gross debt of $7.8 billion, with $2.3 billion of that due to mature before the end of 2025. Rising interest rates have created a double whammy with debt servicing costs rising and revenues growing more slowly as customers become more reluctant to take out leases.

According to a report in Bloomberg on May 1, the company is receiving advice from Moelis & Co on its balance sheet options.

Severance

Mr. Lane joined Sunnova as CFO in May 2019 and guided the company through its Initial Public Offering a couple of months later. He joined from Spark Energy, another Houston-based public company.

CEO John Berger, who also joined the company just before the IPO agreed with Mr. Lane that now was a logical time for a CFO transition. Mr. Lane will receive a severance of six months salary and a target annual bonus.

SEC filing – 8-K Sunnova CFO resigns