Our Team

Dr. Hu serves as the Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board of SES. Dr. Hu has served as Founder, Chief Executive Officer and Director of SES since 2012. Dr. Hu is also a board member on the MIT Enterprise Forum Cambridge. Dr. Hu is recipient of MIT Technology Review’s “Innovators Under 35” and was named among the 2013 Forbes “30 Under 30.” Dr. Hu earned his PhD in Applied Physics from Harvard University, and his BS in Physics from MIT.

Dr. Choi serves as a director of SES. Since September 2020, Dr. Choi has served as Professor at Seoul National University, where he was previously Associate Professor from 2017 to 2020. Prior to joining Seoul National University, he was Associate Professor from 2012 until 2017 and Assistant Professor from 2010 until 2012 at Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology. Dr. Choi received his PhD in Chemical Engineering from California Institute of Technology and BS in Chemical Engineering from Seoul National University.

Mr. Helfrich was nominated by GM Ventures to serve as a director of SES. Mr. Helfrich was appointed Chief Technology Officer and Vice President, Global Research and Development of GM and President of GM Ventures in 2021. In these roles, Mr. Helfrich is responsible for innovation and technology solutions in the development of GM vehicles. From 2019 until 2021, Mr. Helfrich served as GM’s Executive Director of Global Electrification and Battery Systems, where he was responsible for GM electrified vehicle hardware development and the overall electric vehicle propulsion calibration and driving performance. Mr. Helfrich previously served as Executive Director, Connected Ecosystem Integration at GM from 2016 until 2019, where he oversaw the GM mobile and in-vehicle applications and the information technology back office. Prior to rejoining GM in 2016, Mr. Helfrich was Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at Flex Ltd. (“Flex”) from 2014 until 2016. Before joining Flex, Mr. Helfrich served in various roles at GM, where he was globally responsible for all unstyled electrical systems in the vehicle, as well as defining electrical architecture and software architecture strategies. Mr. Helfrich earned his BS in Electrical Engineering from Ohio State University and MBA from the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University.

Mr. Luo serves as a director of SES. From 2017 until 2021, Mr. Luo served as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of GCL System Integration Limited, GCL New Energy USA (“GCL”), an international energy conglomerate specializing in clean and sustainable energy. Prior to his position at GCL, Mr. Luo served as the Chief Executive Officer and Board Member of Shunfeng International Clean Energy Limited (SFCE), a Hong Kong-based supplier of law-carbon and energy saving integrated solutions from 2015 to 2017. Mr. Luo received his MBA from Michigan State University and BS in Operational Management from Zhejiang Gongshang University.

Dr. Ma serves as a director of SES. Since 2021, Dr. Ma has served as a Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Chavant Capital Acquisition Corp. (NASDAQ: CLAY) (“Chavant”), a special purpose acquisition company seeking to invest in a high growth technology companies. From 2008 to 2020, Dr. Ma served as a Partner at Braemar Energy Ventures (“Braemar”), a venture capital firm investing in early to mid-stage technology companies operating in the mobility, power, resources and infrastructure sectors. At Braemar, Dr. Ma focused on investments in digitization of industry, resource efficiency, mobility, renewable energy infrastructure, and deeptech. Prior to joining Braemar, Dr. Ma served in the Venture Capital Group at 3i Group plc (“3i”), a global private equity firm, from 2004 to 2008, where she was responsible for investment in the information technology and cleantech sectors. Prior to 3i, Dr. Ma served as Senior Manager of the Optical Networking Group, Technology and Business Leadership at Lucent Technologies and Bell Labs, where she was responsible for product portfolio strategy, new product launches for Optical and Data Networking, and research and product development. Dr. Ma was also a founding team member of Onetta, a fiber networks company. Dr. Ma has served on the boards of Chavant and Anavex Life Sciences (NASDAQ: AVXL) since 2021. Dr. Ma received her PhD in electrical engineering from the University of Colorado at Boulder, MS in electrical engineering from the Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts and BS in Physics from Lanzhou University.

Mr. Noonen serves as a director of SES. Currently Mr. Noonen is the CEO of Swave Photonics, a fabless semiconductor company that designs and markets holographic chips based on proprietary diffractive photonics technology based in California. He has 25 years of experience leading technology businesses resulting in two IPOs and multiple acquisitions. Mr. Noonen has led turnarounds and advised numerous companies such as Ambiq Micro, SiFive, Silego, Mythic, and Rambus. Previously, from 2019 until 2022, he was the CEO of MixComm, the millimeter wave “Antennas to Algorithms” company based in New Jersey. From 2014 until 2016, he was the Chairman and co-founder of Silicon Catalyst (the World’s 1st semiconductor incubator, EE Times 2015 Start-up of the Year). Prior to joining Silicon Catalyst, he served numerous roles including EVP, Global Products, Design, Sales & Marketing at GlobalFoundries as well as EVP, Worldwide Sales & Marketing at NXP. Mr.Noonen has held executive product line, sales and marketing roles at National Semiconductor, Cisco Systems and 8×8. He started his career at NCR Microelectronics teaching mixed-signal ASIC design. He was elected to the Global Semiconductor Alliance Board of Directors and was Chairman of the Board of Socle in Taiwan (acquired by Foxconn). He holds a BSEE from Colorado State University and in 2012 was named the College of Engineering Distinguished Alumni. He holds multiple patents in the areas of Internet telephony and video communications.