Twelve brings together team members with both technical and non-technical backgrounds in our shared mission of tackling the climate crisis through carbon transformation. As a part of our Employee Highlights series we asked Mani Malatpure (she/her), a senior project manager at Twelve, about her work and how she is building a climate-positive career.
Mani’s desire to fight climate change led her to bring her chemicals industry experience to Twelve, where she’s helping scale carbon transformation to create a fossil-free future.
What is your title? What do you do at Twelve?
As a Senior Project Manager in the Capital Projects Team, I lead projects to bring Twelve’s carbon transformation technology from R&D to commercial scale. I am directly responsible for projects from design, construction, commissioning through startup of new plants for our first-of-a-kind technology. In my time at Twelve, I led the construction and commissioning of Twelve’s latest commercial system. In my current projects, I am excited to be working on building out Twelve’s CO2 to E-jet production capabilities at demonstration and commercial scales.
What’s the 1-minute version of your professional story?
I’m a chemical engineer with a Master’s Degree from Carnegie Mellon University. Prior to joining Twelve, I spent eight years at Linde in hydrogen plant operations at several sites across the US. I was fortunate for the opportunity to work in several different roles. I got my hands dirty working in the field during major turnarounds and commissioning greenfield facilities. I also worked at the remote operations center where we operated plants all the way in Brazil.
For the last four years, I was the Plant Manager at Linde’s Salt Lake City hydrogen plant. In this role, I was responsible for maintaining safe, reliable, and efficient plant operations while minimizing unplanned downtime. Since this was a 24/7/365 operating facility, this was an extremely challenging role. In addition to being a manager, I was also a technical expert that my team relied on to help resolve unexpected plant issues and make crucial decisions. My long-standing interest in cleantech led me to join Twelve in April 2022, and I’m very excited to be here.
What about Twelve’s work is important or meaningful to you?
I truly believe we all need to do our part to help find solutions to climate change because the need is urgent. Many products are currently made using fossil fuels that adversely impact the environment. Twelve is doing groundbreaking work by converting captured carbon dioxide into materials for those products, which replaces the need for fossil fuels. For example, our technology can create sustainable jet fuel from carbon dioxide.
Twelve is at a crucial stage right now: it’s emerging from research and development to commercial scale. I am very excited to use my expertise in large scale plant operations to bring Twelve’s technology to a scale that can have a meaningful impact on climate change.
I truly believe we all need to do our part to help find solutions to climate change because the need is urgent.
Is there a part of your professional journey that was really important to your development?
Chemical plant operations are very high stress environments, where we must prioritize safety and reliability while trying to minimize downtime and costs. Working in these environments helped me grow my leadership and decision making skills. I learned that true leadership involves recognizing the crucial role that each individual plays in the overall success of the company. This led me to advocate for my colleagues in the same way that I would for myself and empower them to make decisions, while having their back and stepping in when needed.
I learned that true leadership involves recognizing the crucial role that each individual plays in the overall success of the company.
In general, what would you tell a person considering changing jobs or careers?
Since everyone’s journey is different, I encourage those seeking a new position to evaluate the two or three things most important for them in their professional and personal development.
For example, it was very important for me to find a position where I could apply my skills in fighting climate change. I also wanted to work for a company with a great workplace culture, so Twelve’s team also attracted me with their focus on building a supportive environment and ensuring a good work-life balance for their employees.
Addressing the climate challenge needs all kinds of skills, from science and engineering, to finance, policy and so much more. I would encourage anyone who wants to make a positive impact to consider a career in climate tech, and most importantly at Twelve!
Our team is growing. If you want to join us in our mission of creating a world run on air, not oil, browse our job openings.