— Company — People
The team behind the technology
The board of directors guiding Kinitics Automation’s shape memory alloy platform.
— Board of directors
Dean Pick
CEO & Founder, Kinitics Automation
20+ years of operating experience · Awarded 6 patents
Dean Pick is the founder, President and CEO of Kinitics Automation. He holds a BASc in mechatronics from the University of Waterloo and has more than 20 years of experience in engineering and product development. Through Biperformance Development, which he has led since 2004, he developed shifting and clutch-control systems for motorcycles, and that work led to Kinitics’ shape memory alloy actuator technology. Dean is a named inventor on six U.S. patents covering shape memory alloy actuators and transmission controls. Today he leads Kinitics’ work bringing its electric actuators, including the KVA38 valve actuator, to oil and gas, process and industrial markets.
Akhil Abat
Partner, Northreach Capital
20+ years building industrial assets and the startups that transform them · Director or Observer across 5 industrial startups
Akhil Abat has served on the Kinitics Automation board since 2023. He is a Partner at Northreach Capital, the parent company of NGIF, which invests in technologies that strengthen industrial competitiveness. Since 2021 he has helped deploy more than $30 million of the $50 million Cleantech Ventures Fund 1 across 14 companies. Akhil cut his teeth building the kind of industrial assets Kinitics’ technology serves, spending over a decade delivering and operating large capital projects in oil and gas, including at Reliance Industries and Cairn Oil and Gas. He joined NGIF in 2018, where he built a portfolio of more than 100 industrial and cleantech companies from the ground up. Akhil holds an MBA from Cornell University and Queen’s University, and a Bachelor of Technology in Chemical Engineering.
Jim Hargrove
CEO, Analytic Systems
30+ years of leadership experience · Grew the company from 3 to nearly 100 employees
Jim Hargrove is CEO of Analytic Systems in Delta, BC, which designs and manufactures electronic power conversion equipment for marine, industrial, motorsports and military customers. He joined his father’s company as a junior engineer in 1981, working on its marine autopilot, then co-founded the spin-off CompuNav Systems, later ComNav Marine, where he was VP Engineering for 11 years. He returned to lead Analytic Systems in 1994 and grew it from three employees to nearly 100. Jim holds a BASc in electrical engineering from UBC and completed SFU’s Management Skills for Advanced Technology program. He joined the Kinitics Automation board in 2022.