A specialist in sustainable technologies, Rubina joined Octopus Ventures to co-lead the Deep Tech team for early-stage companies. She joins from Centrica, where, most recently, she established and led the innovation division at British Gas.

With a BEng and MEng in sustainable energy engineering, Rubina’s career kicked off at Fraunhofer, where she worked as a solar engineer before heading up Fraunhofer TechBridge, a division dedicated to validating and backing early-stage cleantech. In the 10 years since, she’s worked with US DOE, Fortune 500 companies, FTSE 250, international start ups, universities and accelerators on sustainable deep tech development, de-risking, and commercialisation through industry/start up partnerships.

Rubina also holds a number of advisory roles, with organisations including the European Innovation Council’s deep tech programme, and the Solar Impulse Foundation. Beyond deep tech, she’s passionate about empowering people of all backgrounds in the industry, and sits on the board of POWERful Women.

Keep an eye out for insights from Rubina – she’s sure to be blogging at Octopus Ventures, having published a number of technical papers and thought leadership pieces before, looking hard at cleantech innovation for the likes of IEEE and TechCrunch. Over the years, she’s won a number of awards for her contribution to the energy sector, including the Innovator Award 2022.

Outside the office, Rubina loves traveling, baking and dance fitness, and can often be found attempting to teach Bollywood dancing to her 1-year-old.