Pilanda Watkins-Curry

Pilanda Watkins-Curry keeps a chessboard on her coffee table at home. She started playing with her father and grandfather when she was 5 years old. Now, playing with her family gives her a chance to focus her analytical mind on an orderly puzzle and block out the chaos that comes with founding a chemistry start-up. In 2021, Watkins-Curry cofounded Olokun Minerals, where she serves as chief technology officer and leads R&D. The firm is commercializing a technology developed at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) to simultaneously clean salty wastewater and extract the valuable minerals it contains.Olokun cofounder and CEO Lacey Reddix says that Watkins-Curry leads the start-up much like she plays chess. While Reddix is inclined to move quickly and focus on urgent problems, Watkins-Curry is strategic and maps out how her decisions will affect the company down the road. She excels at absorbing huge amounts of information and at zeroing in on the data that will illuminate her next move. “We just balance each other out,” Reddix says. “I’m definitely a starter, and I think she’s somebody that can keep the fire going.” Before Olokun, Watkins-Curry earned a PhD focused on synthesizing materials with rare earth elements for applications like superconductivity, refrigeration, and batteries. She then spent about 6 years developing lubricant and wax products for ExxonMobil. She also did a short stint at the US Bureau of Engraving and Printing designing new inks to make dollar bills harder to counterfeit. Her time at Exxon gave Watkins-Curry an