About us
JATROPOWER AG is a Swiss-based AgriTech Platform driving sustainable biofuel, protein, and carbon capture through proprietary Jatropha innovation.
We combine over 15 years of Jatropha R&D with a scalable platform that transforms nature-based innovation into real climate and economic impact.
JATROPOWER AG is a holding company domiciled in Baar, Switzerland. It is owned and financed privately by its Swiss promoters and its CEO.
99.9% of the share capital of JATROPOWER Bio-trading Pvt. Ltd., Coimbatore/India, where R&D and seed production are concentrated, are owned by JATROPOWER AG. Today 7 research and production farms around Coimbatore of between 1 and 10 acres each are operated by JATROPOWER India, with 2 of them sitting on owned premises.
Board of Directors
Peter Gmür
Chairman of the Board of Directors of JATROPOWER AG. Swiss nationality. After graduating at the ETH Zurich (Master of Science) and obtaining his MBA at the University of St. Gallen /Switzerland he joined McKinsey & Co. in Europe, Japan and North Africa.
Peter Gmür was Chairman and CEO of an US$ Billion International Group before being active as an entrepreneur and founding and successfully developing his own group of companies in the Media and Biotech sector.
He serves on the Board of Directors of Swiss and international companies.
Dr. Peter Bollmann
Member of the Board of Directors of JATROPOWER AG, Swiss citizen, has more than 30 years experience in corporate management and finance internationally. He obtained his PhD from the University of St. Gallen and has among others been CFO in various international groups based in Switzerland and CEO of companies and groups based in Switzerland, Sweden, Germany and Austria.
The companies in which he has worked have been involved in the fields of capital equipment, manufacturing, transport, advertising, life science, biofuels and venture capital management. He is serving on the Board of Directors of several nationally and internationally active companies.
Dr. George Francis
CEO of JATROPOWER Group, is of Indian nationality. After obtaining his PhD from the University of Hohenheim, Stuttgart, he did 6 years of fundamental research on Jatropha there.
Dr. Francis played a key role in the DaimlerChrysler-DEG Jatropha project titled “Biofuels from Eroded Soils in India”, during his time at Hohenheim. This was the first comprehensive project to investigate the many aspects of Jatropha cultivation on wasteland, extraction of oil from its seeds, biodiesel production and the potential uses of the by-products remaining after oil extraction.
He has acted as a consultant on Jatropha and other bio-energy projects to national governments, multinational financial institutions and private companies worldwide.
Dr. Francis has several articles on the potential of Jatropha to his credit and has delivered keynote lectures on this and related topics at international fora.
Maximilian Lieber
Member of the Board of Directors of JATROPOWER AG, German citizen, hands-on transformation expert with more than 15 years of international experience in mission-critical situations. He is currently a Managing Director at the specialist consulting firm Ardentum Group AG, used to be a Partner at the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) as well as a Director at AlixPartners, and is a lecturer on Full Potential Plans at the Hochschule Luzern. Before his career in consulting, he held various roles at Acer in Switzerland and Taiwan and obtained an MBA from INSEAD.
His expertise stretches from Value Creation Programs, Organisational Transformation, Business Plan Optimisation, Investor Relations and Change Management.
Technical experts
Mr Santosh Vasudevan
Santosh took over as CEO of JATROPOWER India in March, 2022. Until February, 2022, he was working as Deputy Vice President in Axis Bank, the third largest private sector bank in India as head of Institutional Business for Chennai Region. He ended his illustrious career in the banking industry at its steeply ascending phase, in order to pursue his passion for development and adoption of environment-friendly technologies to aid in sustainable development.
He is bringing in his proven credentials as a leader and achiever to JATROPOWER India and sees his focus on the motivation of personnel, sharper result-orientation in the ongoing research projects of the company and intensifying marketing efforts for the companies’ products. Santosh aims to build on the good basis at JATROPOWER India on research and development of jatropha and xuta (new edible variety of jatropha) and lead it towards the goal of establishing new, viable and climate-smart crops for farmers that would lead to cost effective and inclusive production of environmentally sustainable edible oil, biofuel feedstock and protein concentrates for the tropical and sub-tropical regions of the world.
Dr. V. Muralidharan
Presently our Senior Consultant. Dr Muralidharan is among the widely known oilseed breeders in India and internationally. He held several prestigious positions during his professional career including those of Professor and Head of the Department of Oilseeds at the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore, Director of the Tamil Nadu Rice Research Institute and Director of National Research Centre for Groundnut, ICAR, Junagath, Gujarat. He has worked extensively over the span of the last 45 years on breeding of oilseeds such as groundnut, sunflower, sesame and other crops such as rice and legumes and has been instrumental in the development and release of several elite seed varieties in each of these crops.
During the last years, he has been a senior consultant of the jatropha development effort of on or the biggest corporate houses in India. Dr Muralidharan led over 30 research projects and has about 100 scientific publications to his credit.
Collaborative partner
JATROPOWER possesses access to state-of-the-art technical expertise in Jatropha breeding and seed and oil biochemical analysis through cooperation agreements with leading research institutes.
Current research cooperation partners include:
- ICAR-Central Institute of Fisheries Technology, Kochi, Kerala, India
- TNAU, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India
- Leibniz University of Hannover, Germany
- Hohenheim University, Germany
Board of Directors
Peter Gmür
Chairman of the Board of Directors of JATROPOWER AG, Swiss citizen. After graduating as an Engineer at the Swiss Polytechnicum (ETHZ) and obtaining his MBA at the University of St. Gallen/Switzerland he worked as a consultant with McKinsey & Co in Europe, Japan and North Africa.
Before being active as an Entrepreneur and founding and developing his own group of companies, Peter Gmür was Chairman and CEO of an international Group with sales of over US$ 1.2 billion. He serves on the Board of Directors of Swiss and international companies.
Dr. Peter Bollmann
Member of the Board of Directors of JATROPOWER AG, Swiss citizen, has more than 30 years experience in corporate management and finance internationally. He obtained his PhD from the University of St. Gallen and has among others been CFO in various international groups based in Switzerland and CEO of companies and groups based in Switzerland, Sweden, Germany and Austria.
The companies in which he has worked have been involved in the fields of capital equipment, manufacturing, transport, advertising, life science, biofuels and venture capital management. He is serving on the Board of Directors of several nationally and internationally active companies.
Dr. George Francis
CEO of JATROPOWER Group, is of Indian nationality. After obtaining his PhD from the University of Hohenheim, Stuttgart, he did 6 years of fundamental research on Jatropha. He also has extensive experience of managing intercultural projects.
Dr. Francis played a key role in the DaimlerChrysler-DEG Jatropha project titled “Biofuels from Eroded Soils in India”, during his time at Hohenheim. This was the first comprehensive project to investigate the many aspects of Jatropha cultivation on wasteland, extraction of oil from its seeds, biodiesel production and the potential uses of the by-products remaining after oil extraction. He has acted as a consultant on Jatropha and other bio-energy projects to national governments, multinational financial institutions and private companies world-wide. He has several articles on the potential of Jatropha to his credit and has delivered keynote lectures on this and related topics at international fora.
Maximilian Lieber
Member of the Board of Directors of JATROPOWER AG, German citizen, hands-on transformation expert with more than 15 years of international experience in mission critical situations. He is currently a Managing Director at the specialist consulting firm Ardentum Group AG, used to be a Partner at the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) as well as a Director at AlixPartners, and is a lecturer on Full Potential Plans at the Hochschule Luzern. Before his career in consulting, he held various roles at Acer in Switzerland and Taiwan and obtained an MBA from INSEAD.
His expertise stretches from Value Creation Programs, Organizational Transformation, Change Management, SG&A optimization, and Restructuring.
Technical experts
Mr Santosh Vasudevan
Santosh took over as CEO of Jatropower India in March, 2022. Until February, 2022, he was working as Deputy Vice President in Axis Bank, the third largest private sector bank in India as head of Institutional Business for Chennai Region. He ended his illustrious career in the banking industry at its steeply ascending phase, in order to pursue his passion for development and adoption of environment-friendly technologies to aid in sustainable development.
He is bringing in his proven credentials as a leader and achiever to Jatropower India and sees his focus on the motivation of personnel, sharper result-orientation in the ongoing research projects of the company and intensifying marketing efforts for the companies’ products. Santosh aims to build on the good basis at Jatropower India on research and development of jatropha and xuta (new edible variety of jatropha) and lead it towards the goal of establishing new, viable and climate-smart crops for farmers that would lead to cost effective and inclusive production of environmentally sustainable edible oil, biofuel feedstock and protein concentrates for the tropical and sub-tropical regions of the world.
Dr. V. Muralidharan
Presently our Senior Consultant. Dr Muralidharan is among the widely known oilseed breeders in India and internationally. He held several prestigious positions during his professional career including those of Professor and Head of the Department of Oilseeds at the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore, Director of the Tamil Nadu Rice Research Institute and Director of National Research Centre for Groundnut, ICAR, Junagath, Gujarat. He has worked extensively over the span of the last 45 years on breeding of oilseeds such as groundnut, sunflower, sesame and other crops such as rice and legumes and has been instrumental in the development and release of several elite seed varieties in each of these crops.
During the last years, he has been a senior consultant of the jatropha development effort of on or the biggest corporate houses in India. Dr Muralidharan led over 30 research projects and has about 100 scientific publications to his credit.
Collaborative partner
JATROPOWER possesses access to state-of-the-art technical expertise in Jatropha breeding and seed and oil biochemical analysis through cooperation agreements with leading research institutes.
Current research cooperation partners include:
- ICAR-Central Institute of Fisheries Technology, Kochi, Kerala, India
- TNAU, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India
- Leibniz University of Hannover, Germany
- Hohenheim University, Germany
Partnerships
With a private company running a jatropha plantation in the south of the country and having access to wasteland. The purpose of the collaboration is testing of Jatropower genotypes, exchange of cultivation methodologies and technical consultancy on processing of edible jatropha seeds.
Live Energies is a private company in Germany, involved in bioenergy projects and with a network of partners in the sector in Germany, an important bioenergy knowledge hub. The purpose of the collaboration is to access this network and leverage synergies on various aspects of jatropha and moringa research and development.
JatroBioenergy is a private company in Coastal Mexico, intensely connected with the use of edible jatropha as human food. The purpose of the collaboration is to assess Jatropower XutaTM cultivar in comparison to edible jatropha varieties in Mexico and exchange of experiences in the use of edible jatropha as human food.