Board of Directors

Doug Croxall is our Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board of Directors. Prior to co-founding Crown Electrokinetics, Mr. Croxall was the CEO and Chairman of the Board of Directors of Marathon Patent Group from November 2012 until December 2017. Mr. Croxall holds a BA degree from Purdue University and an MBA from Pepperdine University.

Eddie Kovalik has served as a member of the Company’s Board of Directors since December 2020. Prior to his appointment as the Company’s President and Chief Operating Officer, Mr. Kovalik was the Chief Executive Officer of Unity National Financial Services, a minority-owned boutique investment bank. He is also a co-Founder of Prairie Partners, a renewable energy investor in utility-scale solar and wind projects. Prior to Unity National, Mr. Kovalik was the co-Founder and, from April 2012 through October 2020, the Chief Executive Officer of KLR Group (“KLR”), a merchant bank focused on the Energy sector. Mr. Kovalik also served as the Chief Executive Officer of Seawolf and the President of KLR Energy Group, a special purpose acquisition company, both of which were portfolio companies of KRL. His expertise includes private and public offerings of debt and equity, M&A, and fund management. While at KLR, Mr. Kovalik led the creation of Rosehill Resources, an independent oil & gas company created through a merger of KLR’s SPAC with Tema Oil & Gas. Mr. Kovalik also led the creation of Seawolf Water, a premier provider of water solutions to the oil & gas industry, for which he also served as Chief Executive Officer. Prior to KLR, Mr. Kovalik served as the Head of Capital Markets at Rodman & Renshaw, the highest ranked PIPEs practice in the United States from 2005 to 2011. He has served on multiple private and public boards of directors and is a member of NACD, the National Association of Corporate Directors.

Mr. Abbas is currently a Principal at Direct Invest Development, an impact-focused, sustainable real estate development company formed to mine value in disinvested urban communities. He has led natural resources investments and development operations for some of the world’s leading financial institutions, leaning on his combined expertise in finance and engineering. Mr. Abbas was a founding partners of the commodity business at Apollo Global Management (NYSE: APO), one of the largest private equity businesses in the world. Previously, he was a Vice President at The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (NYSE: GS), where he invested successfully in the power, bio-fuels, metals & mining, and agriculture sectors. Mr. Abbas began his finance career in the investment banking division at Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS), having previously been a Senior Project Engineer on oil & gas construction projects for Exxon Mobil Corporation (NYSE: XOM) and a Co-Op Power Engineer at The Southern Company (NYSE: SO). Mr. Abbas holds a Bachelor’s of Science degree in electrical engineering from Auburn University and a Master’s of Business Administration degree from Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

Mr. Hanna served as the Chairman and Interim Chief Executive Officer of Rosehill Resources (NASDAQ: ROSE), a business combination between KLR Energy (NASDAQ: KLRE) (“KLR”) and TEMA Oil & Gas, from 2017 to 2020. From 2015 to 2017, Mr. Hanna was the Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of KLR. From 2009 until its sale in June 2014, Mr. Hanna was the Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of EPL Oil and Gas, Inc. (NYSE: EPL), a publicly-traded company that was acquired by Energy XXI for $2.3 Billion. Mr. Hanna has 40 years of management and board of director experience in the energy and service sectors, with a primary focus in the Permian, Mid-Continent and GOM regions, with additional experience internationally in Southeast Asia, Mexico and Barbados. Mr. Hanna received a Bachelor’s of Business Administration Degree from the University of Oklahoma.

Dr. DJ Nag has served as a member of our board of directors since July 2020. Dr. Nag is the Chief Investment Officer at Ventech Solutions, a healthcare technology company that manages quality data for the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). He has successfully led Ohio State University, Rutgers University and University of Nebraska’s technology transfer operations that included licensing, startup and investments. As an entrepreneur, he led a number of start-ups in the intellectual property strategy, artificial intelligence, and medical device space. As a consultant in patent monetization and intellectual property strategy, he has worked with many Fortune 500 companies, universities, and national governments. He was a Director of Ocean Tomo and a Vice President at ICAP Ocean Tomo, leading patent transaction markets. He was recognized as one of the top IP strategists by IAM300 in 2019. Dr. Nag was on the Board of the Association of University Technology Managers, Inc. (AUTM) from 2012 to 14, focused on educating the members around world on the importance of technology transfer and intellectual property. He is widely recognized as a global intellectual property strategist working with government and universities in Poland, Japan, India, Turkey, Brazil, South Korea, Ukraine and many other countries. Currently, he teaches intellectual property strategy and negotiations as a Professor of Practice at Rutgers University and a Visiting Professor at Shizuoka University. He volunteers as the first Executive-in-Residence at the Dublin City Schools, leading a startup academy for high school students and serves on the foundation board at the Dublin Methodist Hospital.