Claire Burtin, Head of Strategy & Planning at John Cockerill Hydrogen North America

Welcome to the podcast Above the Cloud: Stories from the Boardroom. In every episode, we interview business leaders who are navigating the complex world of B2B marketing. Whether you're trying to grow revenue, swoop into a new market, or launch new products, we promise you've landed in the right spot. And now, your host, Richard Bird. In this episode, we bring you Claire Burton, head of strategy and planning for Hydrogen North America of John Cocham. All right, Claire, thank you for joining us today.

Um, I'm really glad to have you on Above the Clouds podcast. How are you today? Hi, Richard. I'm very glad I'm uh sharing this episode with you as well. Um, doing fantastic. All right, great. Well, you know, we like to kick off these Above the Clouds podcast with a uh trick question. So, if your company was a bird, what kind of bird would your company be? So that's for testing the our skills in biology as well during the podcast. So I think if our company um would be a bird would be a a tomigan. Um and so this bird um is a bird that lives in very high mountains and that changes its feathers during winter.

Um and I think it's so I picked this one because I think it embodies the uh you know changing landscape in which uh our company is operating uh constantly you know transitioning innovating and supporting our customers u in their energy transition uh goals. Um so that's you know same as you know a bird needing to change feathers adapting to circumstances of the environment. Wow that's great. That's a great answer. That's the best one. So far, I think I love it. And I've never heard of that heard of that bird.

So, that's cool. And this one lives in North America as well. Oh, wow. That's pretty cool. But I like the, you know, when I've ever gone hiking up in the mountains, I see the birds and the wildlife that are up there and I think, man, how do these things make it? How do they live here whenever the, you know, winter comes and everything's covered in snow? So, there you go. That's part of that's how that one lives, right? Changes its feathers. Yeah, it's turns turns into white feathers to mimic the color of snow just to escape the predators.

Oh, wow. That's cool. I'm going to do some research on that. That sounds great. Cool. Well, I guess you know, Clif, why don't you why don't you walk us through um why don't you walk us through your uh your career? You know, I know you haven't been a lifelong marketer like uh like myself. You tell and I know when you were in high school and you're thinking about what you wanted to be when you grow up. I'm I'm sure you weren't thinking I want to be a marketer for a hydrogen electrolyer company. Yeah. Well, walk me through how you got here.

Yeah. That's not the the job you you would thought about when you were 12, but uh yeah, my background. So I I uh I went to an engineering uh school. Um so my my background is pretty much technical and uh the funny story is that I didn't know what I wanted to do uh back in uh you know at the end of my engineering master and I did my master thesis on hydrogen uh almost 10 years ago and it was pretty small market pretty new for everyone and at the end I was thinking okay I did my master in renewable energy I might go to work in solar power industry or wind industry because it's much more you know developed and I was like it was so tough to do the testes I probably won't work in hydrogen because there are not a lot of opportunities uh but it turned out uh that I found a job in hydrogen and then I stayed in this sector ever since so working for different organizations in different roles business development project management strategy but uh all the time on hydrogen oh wow that's pretty cool that you're able to, you know, focus on the industry but have had exciting jobs within that within that industry.

What where did you get your start in hydro? Was it incels or project management? How was it? How did it go? I started in business development for a small startup. Um and I've always worked you know in in environments where um and I I I guess it's also due to the the nature of the this industry which is new. Um so I've always worked um on different task uh within the same you know role. So I when I was doing business development was also working on market analysis. So always close to you know hydrogen market and I guess that's you know how I end up uh marketing hydrogen and electronizers for John Corkwell.

Now that's cool you know I think about um you know business development is such a useful skill when you want to understand a market and you want to understand the customers and how they think and how they buy and all those things. So, I I've I've noticed that when salespeople or people in business development get into marketing, they've have they have really good luck because they know their audience and uh what what moves them, what motivates them. So, that's that's pretty cool that you are able to do that.

And I think also, you know, when you work for a startup teaches you a lot uh because you have to wear a lot of hats and yeah, figure out uh things and you don't you don't come from a embarrassment of riches of resources. So you have to kind of figure out how to work with what you got. Exactly. Yeah. Very cool. Um well uh tell me tell me a little bit about John Cochril. So John Cochril is a Belgium company. The group has been around for more than 200 years now. So it's almost older than uh than the United States of America.

Um and um we are developing mostly large scale technological solutions globally. Um we we have so I'm working for the hydrogen division but we do have other divisions um in industry energy defense environment um across you know um different geographies. So we all we we also have activities um in the industry and energy sectors in uh the US. And um as far as you know our main goal as a as a large scale um mainly large large scale technology provider um is to support our customers um in their energy transition goals.

So um basically through the environmental transition how they can reduce their carbon footprint um and the hydrogen division is one of these uh you know new businesses as as we we can call them u to support this uh this goal. Um so for hydrogen we are we are manufacturing electrizers. And so electrizers is the are the equipment um that you you need to produce hydrogen using only electricity and water. Um so it's a very you know specific technology. Um and the objective is to um to sell them and deploy them in large scale projects uh to produce you know massive amounts of hydrogen uh for you know for example feeding into chemical processes or um uh energy processes.

Yeah. And you know that I think that is a a as we learned about your company and everything, we were looking at the your website, we're like, "Oh my gosh, these guys do everything. They make tanks and they're in the energy sector and just seems like such a wide uh array, but but also very niche products. you know, it's a it's a really interesting company and um you know, with such a rich history that we were really uh you know, I was really excited to have you on the podcast to talk about this. you know, the hydrogen electrolyer uh portion of the company uh is is interesting because I think about, you know, when people think about hydrogen, I think a lot of times they think about um hydrogen cars or these kinds of thing in the transport industry, but you guys have a little take a little bit of different approach to that.

Mind walking us through that? Yeah. So basically um I think it's more like historically in Europe and in the US um hydrogen was most seen for the renewable you know the energy transition and and decarbonizing some sectors. Cars were um the the first target for for hydrogen but historically hydrogen has been used for decades in in very large industrial processes. So for example, you need hydrogen in refineries to process uh oil. You would need hydrogen to produce ammonia. Um you need hydrogen in some chemical processes.

Um so you know worldwide hydrogen is is is widely used in in lot of different sectors. Uh but mostly this hydrogen is produced using natural gas or fossil resources. Um and u our our let's say end goal here is to provide solution for these large industries to to decarbonize their operations uh by providing a way to produce hydrogen in a clean way using only electricity and water. Uh because when you when you produce hydrogen using natural gas, you emit around 9 to 10 kilos of CO2 per kilo of hydrogen you produce, which is you know a massive amount of of CO2.

Um and and transitioning to electrizers and other ways of of producing hydrogen um helps your business to reduce their emissions. Wow, that is pretty cool. And I think that is um I think it's so interesting to learn how industries work and when you hear about hydrogen you know my mind went uh you know like you said earlier straight to cars and you know and and not you know uh and and the clean energy environment and you know all those kinds of things is supposed to you know how important of an ingredient hydrogen is in so many different industries.

So, and and I think about how do you produce that in a clean way, in a sustainable way and can be challenging, right? Yeah, it's challenging. And and one thing I wanted to to to add about your, you know, around the question about cars and and the hydrogen sector in general, when you first think about hydrogen at some point, you know, it was pushed by uh different governments and and kind of like market marketed as as the solution for the energy transition. So um there was a moment uh two or three years ago where um everyone wanted to use hydrogen for something.

So you could because it's true you can use hydrogen to produce power for your home. You can use hydrogen to to eat uh uh you know buildings. You can use hydrogen for your car. You can use hydrogen for producing fuels like e fuels or um you know for aviation for example sustainable aviation fuels. uh you can use it um to as an input uh into chemical processes as I mentioned and so there was a point at which you know you could use hydrogen almost everywhere but not not all those uh cases made sense economically and environmentally.

So that was also the the the focus um you know of the whole industry to kind of figure out what were the business cases where you you you have willingness to pay from from the customer but also um um realistic way of you know hydrogen being a almost the only solution to decarbonize. For example, for car you have electric cars that are are developed have been developed quite well in the past years and you know hydrogen is complimementaryary to electricity uses but there are some cases in which it's it make more sense to use electricity rather than hydrogen and vice versa.

Yeah, that's right. I think that um that's always a tricky part with new energy sources or clean energy is figuring out the economics. You know, when does it make sense? you know, how do you how do you make the economics work? Because I think, you know, I think we've looked at e- fuels in the past and we've worked with clients in that space and um you know, all of a sudden, you know, you go, well, I don't think anybody wants to pay $40 a gallon for for this fuel, maybe uh maybe a bit a bit uh no matter how much you want to save the environment or how environmentally conscious you are, you know, that's the economics do weigh in, right?

Yeah. Sure. Um, cool. Well, tell us about tell us what's your day-to-day like in your marketing role at John Cochroll. What is it? Is it I'm sure it's the same thing day in day out. Of course. No. So, um, obviously a lot of uh, you know, uh, discussion with with customers to understand the needs and uh, as I mentioned the market is moving quite quite fast. So you always have to be uh really close to you know what's happening to understand the trends to understand the needs of of the customers as well. Um and it's not just the market that's evolving.

you have like new uh incentives from governments every I I won't say every day because now the pace is a bit slower but um you know you have new incentives and that can have an impact at global level in the sense that if Japan is um setting up subsidies for importing clean hydrogen this would have an impact on American projects who would be willing to export hydrogen to Japan and benefit from these subsidies and this could change the way they design their project or the way they the type of technology they would like um for producing hydrogen.

So basically it's staying up to date on all these changes. Um I'm also working a bit on you know public affairs um strategy for for the company as well. U that's a bit side of you know the pure marketing uh work. Yeah, that is I think that's got to be a big challenge for you guys, you know, that it's a such a um technical sale and uh and it's something that people aren't used to buying right now. You know, that is something that that you have to they're they're trying to figure out what their buying process is for hydrogen electrolyer, what that supply chain looks like.

And um so I can imagine that you have to really really do have to bring in a whole team in order to to close a deal. Yeah. And I think that's one of the you know the the main challenges we could face in our market today uh regarding you know sales and and and marketing um is the fact that as it's a new market everyone is progressing along the way. So customers who are designing projects sometimes they don't really know what they really need uh for their projects um because you know they cannot be experts in the full value chain of a hydrogen project.

So we are the electrolizer expert and one of our mission or challenge for as as you know as far as marketing and sales are concerned is to help them navigate this uh this complex u uh topic and and help them understand you know what are the characteristic of of our equipment that are going to help them in their project or what they should change in the design of their project to better fit the uh characteristic of our equipment and make the the operation smoother uh in the end. So that's the this this whole setup uh obviously takes time and it's it's uh much uh much more difficult than you know setting something that uh you know I don't know you buy a car you have like a a list of features that you want to look for and you know exactly what you want.

In that case, you don't really know what you need and you need some help to figure out what would be the best car for the type of fuse you you will need figuratively. You guys have a very consultative cell, I guess, without saying or maybe is an understatement. How how uh receptive are your your customers and prospects to taking your input in that in that along the way in that sales journey? I think the industry overall is pretty open to you know getting some expertise from from different parties. So it's uh going going pretty well and I think one of the reason why it's going that way it's that as the industry is let's say building itself up um it's very important to consider you know the relationship rather than like being a partnership rather than being just a customer provider type of relationship because you know everything is new so you you need to be sure you are you are you know together with a partner who can support you because it's not just about you know selling something maybe the customer is going to change his project in 3 months and they would they will need to have to have some flexibility from the provider side.

So if you are in a contracted relationship that's you know set up and that cannot change this is going to be a problem in the future even during the sales process. So you need to be really in a in a relationship where everyone understands you know everyone and trust uh the other parties um and both customers but other partners uh involved in the process like uh engineering companies are pretty open to get insights from from you know electronizer providers but also other parties or stakeholders uh in the value chain to make the project happen rather than just you know um stay in a close in a closed cycle sales cycle, not taking any inputs from from outside, especially not from your vendor um and just doing your own thing because the industry I I think is not ready for that yet and we need to work all together to you know as partners to make the the whole thing happen.

Wow. that and that's a really interesting approach to that because a lot of your customers are they're big companies with very um robust procurement processes and uh you know we we sell to the same kind of clients and you know I know that we're going through that procurement phase they're like no no this you got to give us the specs to the exact detail and um and then you know we're going to hold you to that and you can't change once you get in. We do have that. I mean it's not like everything is is not fixed uh you know we we do have you know to answer request for proposal with with very detailed technical requirements and and provide provide data and answers on very you know deep technical level of questions but um I guess what I'm saying is more on the initial phases of a project where you know a customer is just considering different type of for example electrizor technologies and they think that this one might be better for their projects because that's what what they've heard uh and you know they are they they are not experts in in that specific technology.

So what we do is providing them with more insights on exactly what this and this technology can provide to them and what would be the pros and cons of each technology for their specific project. And that's more and and so that that way they can they can sometimes redesign or rethink the way they want to to set up their project or to operate their project um to make sure you know everything's going to be to work. uh smoothie Indiana. Yeah. And I think the other thing you mentioned in there too was that that the other people, you know, involved in that, you know, putting together a massive project like that, you know, you got to make sure that they're in the loop and that, you know, everyone is connected.

That's an interesting way of doing it because I think a lot of times and in those industrial settings, people kind of stay in their own lanes, but that's not possible in your industry, right? Yeah. It's at least for the first project um it will be more collaborative than than you know siloed work from from every company. Yeah. So that um so that's a big challenge is this you know immature market. It sounds like it probably has pretty long sales cycle as well. What's your what how long does it usually take to close a a project out?

So that's that's true. It's a very long sales cycle and it's mostly due to what I just mentioned that you know the the customer is kind of building their design of the project the first engineering studies uh so they need inputs from from from suppliers uh but they're not ready yet to take a decision on on the technology and this can last depending on the project between like and also depending on the size of the project obviously between I would say one year and a half to three years. Uh so it's it's pretty long sales cycle.

Yeah. Yeah. That is uh I think you guys take the cake. That's that's one of the longer ones we've heard of. That is uh I think that's challenging, you know. I think that's one of the things that about this podcast and why we started it is we wanted to talk to people that are, you know, marketing different, you know, and selling, you know, things that are challenging, you know. We don't uh we won't have, you know, people from beer companies or car companies, you know, that are easy to people to understand and sell, but uh and so this is a really this this one is, you know, close to the top of challenging things to sell, I would think.

Yeah, sure. But, you know, if you think about it, it's like I I think it's easier to sell than a a nuclear power plant. So, it depends on which scales you're you're looking. Uh but basically, you know, when you sell just one piece of one electrizer, it's um our just small smallest is 5 megawatt. Um and it's a device that weighs uh around 60 tons, you know, is like 2 mters, I don't know, in inches or feet diameters. Yeah. So it's it's pretty large piece of industrial equipment and you want to run that um to produce hydrogen for over you know 10 15 years.

So it's not it's not a small a small piece of equipment. And the other thing as well is when you when you want to set up a hydrogen production plant the electrizer is the core of your plant. If your electrolizer fails you don't have any hydrogen produced. So for example, if you sell hydrogen to an ammonia plant, you cannot sell anymore. So your whole your whole business plan is uh is um threatened uh if if you have a problem with your electronizer. So you want to make a good choice when you select your provider for for for these reasons.

Oh yeah, I can see reliability would be uh super important. I wonder uh and these are these are highriced items as well too. So, you know, redundancy may be a difficult thing for people to do if they don't have the right scale, right? Yeah, that's for sure. What about um I guess the other thing that I think about is a challenge in your industry is, you know, not everybody is woke up this morning and said, "Hey, I need a hydrogen electrolyzer." What is your how many projects are are are people talking about globally even?

I mean is it it seems like if this is about an as niche an industry as as you could get. Yeah. I mean yes that's true in a sense. Um but on the other hand you have a lot of I mean even if the number of players is small and I don't have the number in mind but I can give you an number of projects that um are currently under development um that have been counted by the hydrogen council and I think now we we have more than uh 1,500 projects. Wow. Um worldwide. So that's that's not, you know, as selling beers as you as you said, but that's that's still a lot of different projects from um a lot of different players.

Um so it's a it's a small audience, but uh the market is still large enough for to play. Wow. Well, it sounds like you've learned a lot in the in your role here. What what's one thing that you've learned that you wish you would have learned um that you would have known on day one of your of your role? On the first answer, I would say nothing because you know it's better to try and fail and learn along the way. Yeah. Um, and I I won't change that about my experience, but I think one of the things that I've uh realized uh in my role is the um the fact that um you know for you know the the the difference between marketing and communication and I know for Americans it's easier to uh to uh understand that difference But coming with an engineering background from Europe and working in a very industrial company um you know it's it's not uh it's not it's not that clear but marketing and communication do require very different skill set and for our industry specifically it's it's crucial to have you know to understand well both the market dynamics and the technical elements in order to be able to market product.

Yeah. No, that is a really that's an important distinction and um you know I think that you know we work with a lot of companies and international companies and we've seen a similar trend. You know, I think that communications people are really good at um you know, coming up with a big corporate message or a big theme for the year or, you know, managing the the messaging at trade shows and and maintaining the website and doing press releases and those kinds of things. But you're right, you know, when you get into marketing, I think marketing people are a little more emotionally motivated, you know, and they're not afraid to get in the weeds and, you know, mix up, you know, very often we put communication and marketing in the same bucket.

Uh when when you really look at it, it would should be marketing and sales together rather than than communication. Um I mean in my view in the sense that you know marketing is really a tool for for supporting sales. Yeah, absolutely. I think that is, you know, we that's our view here too is that, you know, marketing sales are the same or two sides of the same coin. You know, I think that, you know, you can uh talk broader with from a marketing perspective, but but always with that commercial intent behind what you're trying to do and and, you know, recognize where the money is and, you know, help sales people through a three-year sales cycle.

you know, those kinds of things where um you know, they sales people definitely need sales, you know, air support is what we call it in those long sales cycles and you know, help with good content that's going to, you know, motivate the customer and and all those kinds of things. So, yeah, that's true. Nice. Well, what tell me tell me a little bit about the hydrogen industry and you know what are the biggest misconceptions in the hydrogen industry would you say? So I think one of the misconception is is the one I I mentioned earlier about the the fact that you can use hydrogen everywhere which is true in a sense but you you have to pick your your cases and the you know use it wisely I would say.

Um and the the other topic is a misconception is some you know things that we we hear from time to time and question about you know hydrogen is it a real thing is it going to take off is it really going to be used somewhere and you know I mentioned that earlier you know hydrogen is widely used in different uh different industries but not green hydro hydrogen and so that's what we're we're trying to you know develop more and more but hydrogen is already well used but not well known by the the main public I would say more by you know the industry uh that are uh using it um and even if you just take the green hydrogen development u yes as I mentioned this is an industry that's that's growing so some in some ways you know you need to learn you need to to scale up uh But when you look at the the pace of this scaleup, it's still much faster than what we we've seen in the wind and the and the solar industry uh some years ago.

Um and it took for wind and solar or decades to to to you know scale up to you know several gawatt scale uh plants. So it's not going to happen in one light for hydrogen either. And that I think is in is important to to understand. But a lot of you know hydrogen detractors and and some you know people working in fossil fuel industry who are willing to you know keep using gray hydrogen or other fossil uh resources are you know mentioning that hydrogen is taking too long and it's never going to happen.

But when you look at oil and gas industry it's the same. it took decades to to develop all the infrastructure for natural gas for for for the old reading and refueling stations and so on. Um so I think we we need to take a step step back and reconsider the time scale of development and just acknowledge the fact that hydrogen is still developing at a at a much faster pace than other technologies. uh even though if it still seems small um and I think what's encouraging an engineer so I love data I think what's encouraging if is looking at the numbers and when you look at the numbers um global investment in in hydrogen grew sevenfold in the last four years and project that have reached financial final sorry investment decision quadrupled in the four the the the past four years which is you know in very impressive and as I mentioned the current pipeline globally is about 1500s projects um when it was only 200 um in 2021 so you can see the you know the the the curve almost uh when I say the numbers and I think that's that's what we need to we need to understand that's yes that's happening hydrogen is happening hydrogen is going to be a key element Um, in our energy future, we need hydrogen to decarbonize some sectors that cannot be decarbonized otherwise.

So, hydrogen is going to happen. Um, and yes, it's going to take time because, you know, as everything it's it won't be built in one day. Wow. Well, that those are remarkable proof points. And you know it's interesting too that you know u that people have that um that thought that you know that it is it's not it's not going fast enough. It just uh with in le of those numbers it just shows goes to show you I think we are our expectations today are um you know as citizens and as people is nothing can happen fast enough right but it's interesting you know when you when you point out that the oil and gas industry you know, is one that really, you know, took decades and decades to do that.

And I think one thing that's interesting to me is the hydrogen industry can use some of that infrastructure, uh, that's already in place from the oil and gas industry. And so to leverage that and piggyback off of that can be very, um, very powerful, of course. And it's, you know, especially in the US, hydrogen is a very large existing market in in the US. And so there is already um existing hydrogen infrastructure. For example, in Texas where where we're from. Yeah. Where we're located as John Crockwell hydrogen North America.

This is the lo one of the largest pipeline network of pure hydrogen that has been that is already in use um in Texas today using you know hydrogen that's produced from fossil fuels but could also accommodate hydrogen produced from other technologies. Yeah. Uh, you know, the other thing too that I think about with hydrogen is, you know, people talk about green hydrogen and gray hydrogen and all the different colors in the rainbow, right? Uh, but if you but if you are looking to abate an industry or and just get an improvement, you know, blue hydrogen using, you know, natural gas, it's not a bad way to go as well.

I mean, you can really reduce the the, you know, a heavy emitters. Um, yeah, that's that's true. I mean, yeah. And especially especially um um in the US, I think we're going to to to see a lot of blue hydrogen because the because you know of the existing infrastructure as I mentioned and the fact that there are a lot of uh hydrogen producers already uh established that can just add uh carbon capture to their process to mitigate their emissions. Yeah, that's there's a lot of ways to get there, right?

Yeah, that's cool. Well, um, you know, when you think about the high the heavy emitters that you mentioned, you know, I think there are, uh, certain certain industries that are just very difficult to abate, you know, steel and cement and and all these industries that are going to be super important as as time goes on, you know. What about your offering? Do you guys kind of cater to any of those particular industries or um uh, you know, your technology? Does it how does it apply to those heavy met industries?

So basically there is so our equipment um is just producing hydrogen and then you can use hydrogen in whichever process you want. So for steel, cement for producing alternative fuels um it is the same but basically our offering is really geared towards these large users. So just you know a few words uh so we have like a a very large step which is the first block let's say of the electro system which enable us to um then add more blocks to the first block and kind of build larger plants uh more easily and our objective is really to deliver on you know projects that are you know 100 and plus megawatt um which is not a quantity of hydrogen you would need for fueling a car, but hydrogen that you would need for as an input for a process like a production of ammonia of several tons uh per day.

Um so that's that's yeah that's our target and and basically we design our product to uh be able to address the needs of this specific industry. Yeah, that's great. And I think that is you know if you think about it from a a green perspective or um you know that's that's where you should start, right? If if any project you're working on, you're going to start with the where you can have the most impact. And those are the industries I think certainly will provide the most impact to, you know, for environmental concerns.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And we we so we already have customers in in these industries. Yeah. Well, that's great. Um going to save the world with hydrogen. Yeah, with hydrogen, of course. Where do you see your industry going over the next 5 to 10 years? That's a good question. So, okay, if you look at the numbers today worldwide, there are less than 2 gawatt of electzers installed, which means you know the actual production of hydrogen from electzers represents less than 2 gawatt. And if you look at announcements from different governments and uh targets of of different you know regions um there is a potential for uh reaching 135 gawatt by 2030 which is you know wow a huge step.