Biography
Max Werny is an Investor and PhD chemist at Clean Energy Ventures and is based in Europe.
Prior tojoining Clean Energy Ventures, Max served as an Associate at Zero Carbon Capital, where he spearheaded the fund's expansion across the DACH region and led an investment in a sustainable aviation fuel company. He also worked in an investment role at Extantia Capital, where he sourced and led due diligence for seed-stage investments in metal recovery, biomining, and direct air capture. Max brings two years of chemical industry experience, having taken on commercial and technical leadership positions focused on industrial catalyst development, techno-economic modelling, carbon dioxide valorization, and precious metal recycling at Heraeus Precious Metals, BASF, and Alantum.
Max earned a PhD in Catalysis & Spectroscopy from the Institute for Sustainable & Circular Chemistry at Utrecht University, where he was a recipient of the 2024 Golden Thesis Award of the Dutch Polymer Institute. He completed his Master of Science (MSc) and Bachelor of Science (BSc) in Chemistry at the Technical University of Munich, was a visiting researcher at the Fritz-Haber-Institute of the Max Planck Society in Berlin, and a visiting scholar at the National University of Singapore.