Chris Burns will step down on Friday, the company said, and the board has started searching for a CEO with manufacturing experience to be based at the firm’s headquarters in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Chief financial officer Robert Long will serve as interim leader of the company, which makes synthetic graphite for EV batteries. Shares in the company, which is listed on the Australian Securities Exchange and Nasdaq, fell nearly 11 per cent. (The Logic)

Talking point: It’s a turning point for Novonix, which was founded in Atlantic Canada when it was spun out of a Dalhousie University lab. Burns, a former senior engineer at Tesla who helped launch the automaker’s Canadian tech team, co-founded Novonix after studying under renowned Canadian battery scientist Jeff Dahn. As recently as last month, Burns was closing major deals for Novonix. That includes a US$754 million conditional loan from the U.S. government announced in mid-December, which requires Novonix to pass muster of several U.S. government agencies. The company said in a press release that the transition was planned, and that Burns will continue to advise the board.