Danai Brooks
President & CEO
Danai Brooks is the CEO of Komline, a global leader in manufacturing equipment for the water, renewable energy, and other sustainable industries. Prior to Komline-Sanderson, Danai led the successful turnaround and sale of Dyadic, a public industrial biotechnology company, to DuPont. He began his career as an investment banker in J.P. Morgan’s M&A Group, where he led mergers and acquisitions in excess of $40 billion, and in senior operational, engineering, and manufacturing positions at Ford and Dell.
Danai earned a Bachelor of Science degree and a Master of Engineering degree from Cornell University, a Master of Engineering Management degree from Northwestern University, and an MBA from Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management.
He lives in Washington, D.C., with his wife and twin boys.
Robert Vander Meulen
EVP & CFO
Bob has nearly 20 years of Chief Financial Officer experience in industrial manufacturing businesses, partnering with executive teams and owners to drive growth and improve financial control and cash flow. In his spare time, Bob enjoys being with his family, running, and Saturday morning cartoons.
Bob holds a B.S. in Business Administration from Montclair State University.
Luis Cifuentes
VP, Sales & Marketing
Luis is responsible for Sales, Sales Excellence, and Marketing functions for Komline Group. He was previously the Sales Excellence Leader for Honeywell Sensing and Safety Technologies. In an earlier role at Honeywell, Luis pioneered Honeywell’s Global Design Model for Salesforce.com. Luis has over 20 years of operations, product marketing, and sales experience at Dell, Amazon, and Honeywell. Prior to that, Luis served as an officer in the Colombian Army and as a Security and Risk Management Consultant, helping oil and gas companies like BP and Schlumberger operate in high-risk areas in Latin America.
Luis holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a Bachelor of Science in Theoretical Economics and Systems Engineering from the United States Military Academy at West Point. Luis enjoys hiking with his wife, playing strategy games, and grilling and smoking on his Big Green Egg.
Brian Komline
VP Sales, Wastewater & Process
For over 10 years Brian has been leading the Municipal Wastewater and Industrial Process global sales team. Brian earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Communications from Fairleigh Dickinson University and currently resides in Bridgewater, NJ with his wife and two sons.
Bill Kirchner
EVP & GM, Industrial Coolant
Continuing his nearly two decades of experience as President of Barnes International prior to its acquisition by Komline. He has spent his carrier producing highly engineered specialty equipment in the metal heat treating and machine tool industries, as well as the filtration industry for machine tools. As the leader of Barnes for the last 21 years, he led the re-engineering of products and approach to the market, growing the sales revenue by a factor of 7, becoming the major supplier of Central Machine Tool filters in the North American Market.
Bill holds a B.S. in Engineering from the University of Illinois with a minor in business.
Michael Gebhardt
EVP & GM, Agricultural & Renewables
Prior to this role, he was VP Operations for United Grinding North America, one of the world’s leading manufacturers of high-precision CNC machines. In his former position he was working for the company’s headquarters in Switzerland, managing global operations projects. Michael began his career as an R&D engineer at BMW AG in Munich.
Michael holds a B.Sc. and a M.Sc. from University of Bayreuth (Germany), a Dr.Sc from ETH Zurich Switzerland and an Executive MBA from MIT (USA).
Kim Fenker
VP & GM, Water & Process
Kim Fenker leads the Wastewater and Process Business. Prior to joining Komline, she worked at Emerson, where she was the global sales director and then VP/GM for the Precision Fluid Control business. She began her career at Chevron, where she held various positions in engineering and project management.
Kim earned a Bachelor of Engineering degree from Vanderbilt University and an MBA from University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business.
She lives in NJ with her husband and 2 children.
Jayesh Bafna
VP & GM, Diversified Water
Prior to this role, Jayesh served as VP General Manager for Aftermarket & Services business at Komline focused on bringing best-in-class aftermarket and services experience to our customers. Before joining Komline, Jayesh worked at Cummins, Inc., the world’s largest independent diesel engine manufacturer, in various global aftermarket roles spanning more than a decade. He also worked at Accenture plc, serving as an IT consultant.
Jayesh holds an MBA from S.P. Jain Institute of Management and Research and a Bachelor of Engineering (Electronics and Telecommunication) degree from Mumbai University.
Maureen Lopez
VP, Human Resources
Maureen provides leadership to support Komline’s mission and strategy from the people operations side. She has more than 20 years of experience in the HR field, having worked in the pharma, banking, and non-profit industries prior to joining Komline Group in 2018.
Maureen holds a BA in English Literature from McGill University in Montreal, QC. She enjoys talking about books, cooking, and singing along to the car radio with her kids.
Michael Carney
VP, Information Systems
Michael leads the IT organization at Komline. He brings 20+ years of progressive management and leadership experience across the manufacturing, services, and non-profit sectors. Beginning his career as an IVR developer, Michael moved into the enterprise application space in 2005, most recently running the ERP transformation for a large engineering (AEC) company.
Michael earned an MBA from the University of Maryland and a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Notre Dame. He lives in Washington, D.C., with his husband and two poorly trained Siberian huskies.