OAKLAND, CA – SOLARCYCLE®, a tech-driven solar circular economy platform, today announced that Robert Vinje, a veteran of Amazon, SunPower, and Cypress Semiconductor, will become the Company’s first Chief Operating Officer (COO). As COO, Vinje will oversee SOLARCYCLE’s daily and strategic operations, including recycling operations, supply chain, logistics and customer operations.
Vinje is a proven leader within the solar and operations sectors. Prior to SOLARCYCLE, he held multiple positions at Amazon. As head of Development Service Operations for the Company’s Worldwide Real Estate organization, he led all operational aspects for engineering, designs and standards, innovation on real operational and cost reduction improvements, disaster recovery and investigations, site development, change management, and product and technology development, covering a rapidly growing asset base of thousands of buildings that comprised over 250 million square feet of space. He previously managed Amazon's Worldwide Sustainability Energy and Environment group, overseeing solar installations for the multinational company’s operations network.
At SunPower, Rob led the solar factory expansions globally for solar cell/wafer manufacturing, then led the commercial and utility solar power plant organizations, working across six continents driving major improvements in engineering, procurement, construction, operations, and customer service. Prior to SunPower, Rob oversaw the Minnesota Fab Operations for front end semiconductor manufacturing at Cypress Semiconductor.
Suvi Sharma, CEO and co-founder of SOLARCYCLE, said: “There is no doubt in my mind that we have found the perfect match to lead our operations at SOLARCYCLE. Rob’s decades of technical and global operations experience, coupled with the high-energy and innovative spirit of SOLARCYCLE, will help us expand our footprint efficiently and with precision in our second year. He is a highly accomplished leader within the solar industry, and understands the deep intersections between customer service and operational strategy. We couldn’t be happier to welcome him to our team.”
Robert Vinje, Chief Operating Officer of SOLARCYCLE, said: “We are truly closing the circular economy loop here at SOLARCYCLE. I am excited to bring my experiences in scaling world-class, high-quality global operations to join an incredibly talented team who are passionately making renewable energy even more sustainable and scalable.”
About SOLARCYCLE
SOLARCYCLE (www.SOLARCYCLE.us) is a technology-driven platform designed to maximize solar sustainability by offering solar asset owners a low-cost, eco-friendly, comprehensive process for recycling retiring solar panels and technologies and repurposing them for new uses. The company’s proprietary technology allows it to extract 95% of a solar panel’s valuable metals, such as silver, silicon, copper and aluminum, and to recycle or repurpose panels currently in use. SOLARCYCLE was founded in 2022 by experts in solar technology, recycling and sustainability to accelerate the circular economy for solar and renewables.
Contact: media@solarcycle.us
