DAC Labs seeks commercial scale-up with COO appointment

To lead commercial scale-up of its direct air capture technology, DAC Labs has appointed former Macquarie Group executive Emma Quigly-Hall as Chief Operating Officer. Quigly-Hall joins the company after a 22-year career at Macquarie Group, most recently serving as Executive Director and Global COO/CFO of Macquarie Capital’s Principal Finance business.

Selected for her experience in scaling capital-intensive businesses — aligning people, processes, technology and risk frameworks around complex projects — DAC Labs said this experience maps directly to the challenge it faces moving towards commercial-scale deployment.

“Scaling direct air capture requires more than breakthrough engineering — it demands disciplined capital deployment and operational execution at industrial scale,” DAC Labs Founder and CEO Dr Sam Wenger said.

“Emma has spent two decades doing exactly that at one of the world’s leading financial institutions. Her experience in structuring transactions, managing risk and building operational infrastructure for rapid growth is exactly what DAC Labs needs at this stage.”

On the appointment, Quigly-Hall said: “Large-scale carbon removal requires engineered solutions that can scale within existing industrial systems, not decades from now, but in the near term.

“That’s what DAC Labs has built — proven chemistry, existing infrastructure and a business model that stands on its own. It’s elegant systems-thinking applied to one of the defining challenges of our generation.”

A qualified chartered accountant and a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors (GAICD), Quigly-Hall holds a Bachelor of Applied Finance and has served as a board director on several Macquarie investing entities.

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