Boston-Power Founder Steps Down
Matt Pilon
Boston-Power founder Christina Lampe-Onnerud at WPI in April.
Westborough-based Boston-Power announced that its founder and former CEO Christina Lampe-Onnerud has resigned from the board.
Her resignation comes about a year after the company announced it would invest in production operations in China, fueled by a venture investment of $125 million by GSR Ventures and two other partners, plus Chinese government incentives. The company moved 30 jobs from Massachusetts to China and said it planned to create hundreds more there.
Lampe-Onnerud left her CEO role in February 2011.
In a statement, acting CEO Sonny Wu said the company hopes to fulfill Lampe-Onnerud's vision of making the company a major supplier of electric-vehicle (EV) batteries.
"The Boston-Power board of directors joins me in expressing our appreciation of Christina's contribution to Boston-Power, as its founder, in passionately developing the company into the EV battery technology leader it is today, as well as helping with the transition over the past year with the company's expansion in China," Wu said.
Last April, Lampe-Onnerud told a gathering at Polytechnic Institute's Venture Forum that shifting the company's focus to China was a tough decision, but ultimately the right one because that's where it's customer base is.
The company had once hoped to open a plant in Auburn, but its $100-million grant application to the federal government in 2009 was not approved.
Another lithium-ion battery maker with area operations – A123 Systems Inc. – received a federal grant from the same program to build a plant in Michigan.
A123 has also tightened its knot with China. This summer, after product recalls and falling revenue drove its stock price to record lows, A123 inked a deal with Chinese company Wanxiang Group in a deal worth of up $465 million for 80 percent of its common stock.
Correction: This story originally incorrectly characterized Lampe-Onnerud's recent position at Boston-Power. She resigned her board of directors seat. She left her role as CEO last year. The headline and story have been amended to reflect the correction.
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