From professional pool champion to the oil and gas industry to green energy mogul, why Yorkshire's Sarah Ellerby decided to come home

When it comes to any aspect of her life, Sarah Ellerby likes to win.

A farmer’s daughter brought up in Thirsk, her business career has seen her work in industries such as oil, gas and even gold mining.

Right now she is the chief executive of a cleantech firm based in Redcar.

Nova Pangaea Technologies is pioneering taking wood and agricultural residues and transforming them into high-value products which can be used in biochemicals, biofuels and biopolymers, a process which offers radical decarbonisation potentials for some of the world’s most polluting industries.

The firm she runs is targeting worldwide markets with its innovations and has made massive strides to make its processes far more efficient.

Sarah’s business is situated in a space that is very much aligned with both national and international efforts to reduce carbon emissions across all industries and is growing its headcount and raising funds. Her firm’s business model is to licence its technology to customers, initially in the UK and EU, but later into America and China.

It is all, however, a far cry from how her career began, in the world of professional pool.

She began playing against her brother at the age of 12 and quickly began dominating in the sport. An England international player from 1992 to 1999, she won scores of championships to the point where there was nothing in the way of domestic competition.

She relocated to the United States where her career really took off. Known on the circuit as ‘the ice maiden’ she became a household name in the sport.

By the time she retired in 2008 she was ranked the best 8 Ball player on the planet and won more than 100 championships.

But the call of business, which had been growing for some time, was proving to be too strong and she hung up her cue in favour of working in private industry.

“The transition for me was relatively seamless,” she tells me.

“I went to America to become a professional athlete but I had already won 80 times in the UK. It is just that there was nothing really left for me in the UK and I got the opportunity. I was in the right place at the right time. I worked in entertainment, working with brands like Coca Cola.”

It was a conversation with Yorkshire business legend, Robert Hanson, that took her on her current path. Mr Hanson introduced Sarah to the world of industrial goods. A new, successful chapter in her life was about to begin.

“He said he thought I would really enjoy it,” Sarah said

“Fifteen years on, here I am. I have worked in natural resources for 10-plus years. I have worked in oil, gas, gold mining and natural gas distribution in USA. I have had several CEO roles over 15 years since retiring from professional sports.”

Given her field of expertise, one would have surmised that Sarah would continue to travel the world and work in heavy industries.

However, as she had done with her pool career, she spotted a new potential, and one which was much closer to home.

“One of the reasons why I wanted to come back to Yorkshire is that there was a lot of activity in regard to renewable energy, innovation and clean energy. There was just so much going on in Yorkshire, I wanted to come back. I have a tremendous amount of passion for Yorkshire”

Nova Pangaea technology is a genuine world-first, taking sawdust and agricultural waste, like used straw, and producing sustainable products for multiple industries.

Based in the old ICI building in Teesside – a building in which my father worked – her firm’s processing capability is getting stronger with each passing day.

On the day of our interview, Nova had just hit a significant milestone having just completed its first 24-hour continuous run. It is the speed of Nova’s processing model that Sarah believes gives it a serious edge.

“We are a novel technology,” she said.

“We are really the first of a kind to use a chemical process that takes woody and agricultural residues and converts them into 100 per cent sustainable products such as biocarbons and biofuels.

“As we move towards net zero what needs to be done goes beyond decarbonisation of transportation. We need to look at how we decarbonise plastics and industrial products like green steel for instance.

“They are looking for sources for sustainable products. So we are moving away from fossil-based products like coal and moving to 100 per cent sustainability.

“Our process is novel. It is first of its kind. And it takes minutes and seconds to process. Our competitors are not continuous, they are very much using a batch process. These take hours.

“Our entire process from start to finish, is under an hour.”

Sarah said her time working in fossil fuel companies ignited a passion to do things more sustainably and that the most effective pathway to doing so would begin where her life began.

From her native Yorkshire, she wants to lead a company that proves to be a disrupter to traditional industries.

“I have seen the other side,” Sarah tells me.

“I am very passionate about technology and innovation and doing things better. Even when I was working with some of these large conglomerate oil and gas companies I was always pushing them to look at ways to decarbonise.

“There are other ways of doing business. America was great to me but it is not home.”

Nova Pangaea may be a very different terrain from competitive pool but Sarah insists there are many parallels.

“If you want to be good at anything you have to put the hours in,” she said.

“People that know me will know I am extremely driven. I am still competitive but more strategically. You need to be resilient, You need a tremendous work ethic. There are lot of transferable skills.

“You can win once, you can win twice but to win 80 times means you have something unique. That transitioned over into business. I have the same work ethic and drive.”