Alex Rappaport is an award-winning leader with a passion for innovation and sustainability. He is the CEO and Co-Founder of ZwitterCo, Inc., a company that develops membranes that are immune to irreversible fouling and enable treatment and reuse of the world’s toughest wastewaters. At ZwitterCo, Alex drives strategic planning, organizational design, and the long-term vision for company growth.
Alex and his team took first place in the Tufts Ideas Competition and the Tufts $100k New Ventures Competition when founding ZwitterCo, and the awards and opportunities kept coming.
Under his leadership, the company was awarded $65k in the Water Catalyst Challenge through Mass CEC, $225k in a Small Business Innovation Research grant through the National Science Foundation, and $1.25min the Water Innovation Grand Challenge with the Department of Energy. Alex has also led the company through multiple highly successful rounds of financing with both institutional and strategic partners.
ZwitterCo is an alumni of Boston’s climatech home: Greentown Labs Incubator. Alex led the company from the incubator stage into the Imagine H2O Accelerator program before the company expanded into their own space.
Alex is a fierce supporter of his team. His strength is setting a culture of empowerment with a philosophy of “come as you are – love what you build.” He encourages the same entrepreneurial spirit, creativity, and resourcefulness in his team and has fostered a community that is dedicated to ZwitterCo’s mission to preserve and manage industrial and agricultural water and wastewater.
Alex holds an M.S. in Innovation and Management and a B.S. in Environmental Engineering from Tufts University. While at Tufts, he was the chair of the entrepreneurship association and he founded Tufts Venture Lab, which was the first incubator at Tufts for venture companies. Alex continues to serve as a part-time lecturer at Tufts and provides additional support to emerging Tufts startups.
Chris Drover leads the technology development and research programs at ZwitterCo. Previously, Chris was a senior member of the technical team at Oasys Water, where he spent six years scaling up and commercializing a novel membrane technology entering the industrial wastewater market. Prior to Oasys Water, Chris served as a chemist in the materials science division of Doble Engineering Company, where he developed test methodology to identify contamination and defects in mineral oil, Kraft paper and plastic film electrical insulation products. His professional training includes agile project management, hazardous waste operations, leadership for technical professionals, and Lean Six Sigma. He holds an M.S. in Chemical Engineering from Tufts University and a B.A. in Chemistry and Physics from Ohio Wesleyan University.
Bryan is leading and building supply chain and manufacturing operations to support ZwitterCo’s rapidly expanding commercial growth. With more than 20 years of global manufacturing and supply chain experience, Bryan is highly accomplished at creating and scaling manufacturing operations. Before joining ZwitterCo, Bryan was the Vice President of Manufacturing and Customer Service at Vecna Robotics. His background includes operational leadership roles at both venture-backed startup companies and Fortune 500 corporations. Bryan holds a B.S. in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and an M.S. in Engineering Management from Northeastern University.
Jon has over 30 years of experience in the membranes business with a focus on sales, market management, and strategy development and implementation. He leads ZwitterCo’s Commercial Development effort. Prior to joining ZwitterCo, Jon was Global Commercial Director for TriSep Corporation and later MICRODYN-NADIR. Prior to TriSep, Jon spent 20 years with Dow Chemical and the FilmTec Membranes business. Jon earned a Bachelor of Chemical Engineering degree from Georgia Tech.
Peter Ingarra leads the sales organization at ZwitterCo. Peter has almost 20 years of professional experience and spent the previous 12 years in the water industry holding various roles in product marketing, strategic marketing, and sales for Rohm and Haas Company, The Dow Chemical Company, and DuPont. Most recently, Peter was the Americas Commercial Director for DuPont Water Solutions, where, through his leadership, the region developed strong end-use customer relationships by solving their most pressing technical challenges and sustainability objectives. Over his career, he has consistently exceeded business targets while successfully driving change. He is a graduate of Dominican University and holds an MBA from Drexel University.
Chris Roy leads the Applications Engineering department at ZwitterCo. Previously, Chris worked as both a research engineer and field engineer for CeraMem, where he piloted, commissioned, and supported over 25 industrial water treatment projects in the oil and gas, metal finishing, chemical, medical, and aerospace industries. He graduated summa cum laude from UMass Amherst with a BS in Chemical Engineering and with departmental honors of greatest distinction for his independent thesis in Polymer Rheology.