Our Team
  • Michael Bakunin, PhD
    CEO, Co-founder
    San Francisco Bay Area, CA
    Michael Bakunin has 20 years of international experience in the Automotive and Telecom industries. In the past decade, Michael has focused on e-mobility while working for the Renault-Nissan Alliance across 3 continents, and more recently, for Nuvve, the vehicle-to-grid company.
  • Michael Fridshtand
    CTO, Co-founder
    San Francisco Bay Area, CA
    Serial entrepreneur, CEO and Co-Founder of Amplifier.AI. Michael brings a collected 15 years of experience in software development, blockchain, AI, VR, BigData.
  • Ian Vishnevsky
    COO, CFO, Co-Founder
    Los Angeles, CA
    Ian Vishnevsky co-founded the largest privately owned EV charge point operator on the West Coast. Under his leadership, his organization secure over $200 million to deploy and operate over 1,900 charging ports. He has also held key finance, accounting and operational roles at Fortune 500 corporations and other startups.
  • Adrian Gomez
    VP of Marketing & Sales (Intl.)
    Toronto, Canada
    Adrian Gomez has a decade of experience in e-mobility. Prior to joining Epic Charging he co-founded an EV tech startup, and he helped Lucid Motors and Ontario Power Generation launch their EV charging strategy. Over the years, Adrian has assessed over 15,000 fleet vehicles for electrification and helped 4,000+ consumers learn about EVs.
  • Nick Zamanov
    VP of Sales (US)
    San Francisco Bay Area, CA

    Nick Zamanov is a seasoned entrepreneur with over 15 years of experience in B2B and e-commerce. In the past 3+ years, he has focused on the EV charging industry, helping clients deploy more than 4,000 charging stations while driving growth and innovation.
  • Elena Kononenko
    Director of Customer Success and Utility Programs
    San Francisco Bay Area, CA
    Elena Kononenko has over nine years of experience in the EV industry, specializing in customer success, utility programs, and business operations. She has held key roles at EnelX and Fermata Energy, where she focused on program management and operational excellence. At Epic Charging, she is driving customer success strategies and creating new revenue opportunities by partnering with utilities to maximize charger monetization. She holds a certification in Management Science and Engineering from Stanford.
  • Álvaro Carreira Villodres
    Sales & Marketing Manager
    Antequera, Spain

    Álvaro Villodres brings expertise in B2B sales, marketing, and business development, with a strong background in international trade and strategy. Before joining Epic Charging, he gained experience in sales, finance, and strategy at PwC, where he worked on high-impact projects. At Epic Charging, he focuses on driving strategic sales and marketing initiatives and expanding the company's international market presence.
  • Nikolay Sibilev
    Chief Software Architect
    Bali, Indonesia

    Nikolay is a full stack software architect with 13+ years of experience in modern stack software development and architecture.

  • Nick Vasylchenko
    Python Developer
    Toronto, Canada
    Nick Vasylchenko is an experienced backend developer specializing in Python, Django, and cloud technologies like AWS and Docker. He joins Epic Charging from EPAM, bringing strong expertise in Generative AI and system optimization. At Epic, he focuses on backend development and assisting customers with technical inquiries to ensure exceptional service. Passionate about building high-quality software and troubleshooting system performance, Nick is dedicated to enhancing reliability and efficiency.
  • Jenya Kirshtein, PhD
    Advisor, Product
    San Francisco, CA
    Jenya has over 10 years of experience in product and software roles at various energy companies including companies like Rivian and Enel X way. She has helped previous orgnizations build smart charging and energy optimization products, including solutions for energy storage and microgrid systems.
  • Russell Vare
    Advisor, GTM & Channels strategy 
    San Diego, CA
    Russell Vare has 20 years of experience in clean tech with a focus on EVs, energy storage and EV charging. He is currently leading sales and marketing at Flex Power Control, a Vehicle-to-Home (V2H) hardware company. Russels' previous experience is in building GTM strategies and sales operations in Nuvve, Mercedes Benz and Nissan.
  • Robert Campbell
    Senior Advisor, Growth
    Houston, TX
    Robert is Entrepreneur-In-Residence at the Softeq Venture Studio, where he helps start-ups with growth strategy and fundraising.
    He spent nearly a decade with Bain’s Private Equity Group, where he led dozens of diligence and post-acquisition growth strategy projects for institutional investors. He now focuses on independent investing and advisory work around utility-scale battery storage and E-Mobility. 
  • Trent Kososki
    Senior Advisor, Growth
    Houston, TX
    Trent has 17 years of private equity investing experience with a focus on e-mobility, energy storage, power and renewables. He currently serves as a Senior Operating Partner at Stonepeak. Previously, he served as a Managing Director with Stonepeak and Partner with ECP, where he spent 15 years after joining at its founding in 2005. Trent currently focuses on investing throughout the battery and e-mobility value chain and helping companies rapidly scale.
  • Justin Ashton
    Senior Advisor, Growth
    San Francisco Bay Area, CA
    Founder and Managing Partner at Redwoods Climate Capital.
    Justin previously co-founded XL Fleet, an automotive technology company that became category leader for xEV powertrain technology with over 175 million customer miles before being taken public in 2020. Justin holds MBA from MIT Sloan and BS in Electrical engineering from UC San Diego.