New Role Adds Investment Expertise to Support TAE’s Growth and Innovation
TAE Technologies announces the appointment of William Coaker as the company’s first Chief Investment Officer.
Coaker comes to TAE with over two decades of senior level experience in the investment field, most recently as Chief Investment Officer for the San Francisco Employees Retirement System (SFERS), a $34 billion public pension plan. During Coaker’s tenure, he earned SFERS a ranking in the top 1% over the past 1, 3, 5 and 7 years versus other public pension plans, posting more than $5 billion in excess returns versus the median public pension. In the last fiscal year alone, SFERS investments returned 33.8%, with the venture capital portfolio returning over 87%, and the overall plan achieving approximately $9 billion in investment gains and $1.5 billion in excess returns.
“TAE is the most transformational business I have ever seen,” said Coaker. “TAE is a platform company at the epicenter of clean energy, technology, software, science, big data, and machine learning. Through TAE’s unique approach to fusion, the company is poised to meet the existential issue of our time—namely, how to meet the vast need for energy, grow economies and improve living standards, while also protecting the environment. These are enormous markets with urgent needs, and I think TAE has the technology to solve them.”
“In their quest to commercialize fusion, TAE has also developed technologies that provide substantial value in other large, adjacent industries, including electric vehicle design and ultrafast charging; energy efficiency and storage solutions; and an emerging biologically-targeted radiation therapy aimed at treating difficult cancers. TAE is poised to provide clean, affordable, reliable, and abundant carbon-free energy, accelerate the transition to electric vehicles, and improve outcomes for certain cancer patients,” said Coaker. “I am honored to join such a distinguished team that is poised to make a significant contribution to the world.”
“With the confidence we earned in achieving our ‘long enough, hot enough’ milestone, demonstrating our fusion technology on an industrial scale, and receiving robust scientific validation from our independent science panel, TAE is quickly moving toward fusion commercialization. This, along with the ‘fusion-born’ technology applications in energy storage, transmission and e-mobility, presents a unique opportunity for a clean energy future,” said TAE Technologies CEO Michl Binderbauer. “Bill deeply understands the transformational, ready-for-market nature of our technologies and how to communicate with investors and the marketplace. As such, his leadership and vision will play a central role in realizing TAE’s capabilities to make an immense contribution to humankind.”
Coaker has received numerous awards and distinctions in his career. Earlier this year, he was named to the Power100 by AI-CIO. In 2019, SFERS was named Small Plan of the Year by Institutional Investor. Regarded by peers as a futurist investor, Coaker has been a regular speaker at the Milken Conference, Institutional Investor, and Pension Bridge, among others. Coaker believes that the speed, scale, and impact of innovation is being significantly underestimated, and he advocates investing in science, technology, and leaders in innovation to achieve high investment returns.
