October 1, 2020: Swiss lead battery maker IQ International on September 25 said it had hired two former Johnson Controls Power Solutions (now Clarios) battery experts, Dennis Brown and Ray Brown, to its full-time workforce. The firm had already appointed them to its advisory board in April to assist the company in its expansion plans.
Dennis Brown has been appointed chief marketing officer. He worked most recently at Interstate Battery, from 1991 until 2016, early on co-patenting the Early Diagnosis Battery Tester. He later became president of Interstate All Battery, then senior vice president and chief marketing officer as well as adviser to the board of directors of Interstate Batteries.
Under his leadership, IQ International says, the company grew to become the largest battery distributor in the US automotive market.
Before this, he held senior posts with Johnson Controls Power Solutions including marketing planning and research manager, and business group manager OEM — Chrysler, Nissan and Diamond Star Motors.
Ray Brown retired from JCI in 2010, after 30 years in a number of senior global positions in the Power Solutions division build-up. Since then he has worked on several boards of directors, including the Indian battery-making giant Amara Raja.
Ray Brown has acted as project lead for several JCI battery factories. His career has been on the evaluating and purchasing side, initiating, planning and managing joint ventures, building and overseeing new battery plants and keeping OEM customer relationships.
The two have been brought in to help IQ with its expansion plans, which received a boost on September 16 when IQ signed a term sheet for $130 million institutional equity and debt financing with an unnamed Asian fund.
“IQ has been working for over 18 months on transitioning the company’s business strategy from purely licensing to one that vertically integrates its technologies into owned and operated battery factories,” the company said.
“The financing is intended for IQ’s expansion that will address the current capacity-constrained battery industry and the batteries’ shrinking life in today’s highly electrified vehicles.”
The company says the expansion includes buying two battery plants and installing its Advanced Battery Factory production technologies into the two and also its existing SIA plant.
