Azeez Mohammed

Azeez Mohammed is a business executive who has led multiple standalone industrial businesses with revenues ranging from $0.5B to $4B, with full P&L responsibilities, headquartered both in United States and worldwide. He has served over 27 industry segments including power, oil &gas, marine, renewables (solar, wind, hydro, storage, electric vehicles), metals / mining and general industries. Azeez is currently the President & CEO of Covanta Holding Corporation.

Covanta is a world leader in providing sustainable waste and energy solutions. Waste-to-Energy is a vital part of the waste disposal value chain, offering a far more sustainable alternative to landfilling waste for communities and businesses, with a significantly smaller real estate footprint per ton disposed compared to traditional landfills. The process ensures optimal use of waste by: reducing waste volumes by 90 percent that would otherwise get landfilled; eliminating nearly one ton of greenhouse gases equivalent per ton of municipal solid waste; producing sustainable, highly reliable electricity, capacity, and steam for utilities and industrial customers; and recycling metals found within municipal solid waste.

Annually, Covanta’s modern Waste-to-Energy facilities safely convert approximately 21 million tons of waste from municipalities and businesses into clean, renewable electricity to power one million homes and recycle 600,000 tons of metal. Through a vast network of treatment and recycling facilities, Covanta also provides comprehensive industrial material management services to companies seeking solutions to some of today’s most complex environmental challenges.

Earlier, he was the Executive Vice President for Bloom Energy, a solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) based energy company. He was responsible for the International Business and transformed Bloom to a become a global giant while enabling decarbonization for customers worldwide and ensured an orderly transition to the hydrogen economy.

He is also a senior advisor and investor through a firm Giantleap LLC (New York) which he co- founded in 2019. In this capacity, he actively invests in technology firms in the industrial space and advises Fortune 500 firms and private equity companies. His list of clients includes marquee names such as Blackstone, TPG, Heliogen, Neotribe ventures, JCI and SEC.

Azeez is a consummate operator and has a diverse and robust industrial background. He has led large businesses through multiple crises (great recession, O&G slump, mining slump) where he had to restructure his businesses organizationally, operationally, and financially followed by a push to growth. He has an impressive global experience having lived in and led businesses from USA, Latin America, Middle East and Europe, which in turn has helped him navigate cultural effects on team building and the customer. His depth of experience in technology, finance and operations allow him to be a system thinker who can connect the dots and open up new markets and concepts for growth. Azeez is an expert in the application of aftermarket services and digital IOT technologies which often recession proof a business.

For the past 15 years, Azeez has been a CEO of multiple businesses where he owned the business strategy and execution. Azeez was a GE Corporate officer and President & CEO of GE Power Conversion a global electrification business with $2B in revenue and employed 8000 people and operates in 110 countries and headquartered in Paris, France. Prior to that he led the $4B GE Power Services businesses for the Middle East and Africa business. Prior to this, he was the President & CEO of GE Energy Services for Latin America and before this, Azeez was the GM for business transformation of a $20B Energy Service business.

Azeez started his career at GE Research where he introduced innovative products and helped commercialize them in the field of power generation, aviation, healthcare and ecommerce. He was then selected for the prestigious academy leadership program, GE Corporate Audit Staff, where he led teams to solve financial, compliance and operational problems for large GE businesses. Azeez holds both a Master’s and Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a bachelor’s degree from the Indian Institute of Technology at Madras. He also has 25 international patents and has been published in numerous journals.

Azeez is active in external stakeholder management and communications and is often invited to address investors and trade shows about business strategy and emerging trends. He has been quoted and interviewed multiple times in trade journals, government events, conferences and media publications. Azeez plays an active role in the communities he serves in, through Junior Achievement, Habitat for Humanity, and Corporate Volunteers. Through his family trust he supports women empowerment and children in need.