George C. McNamee has served as a member of the Company's Board of Directors since 1997 and has served as Lead Director since October 2025. He served as Chairman of the Company's Board of Directors from 1997 until March 2026. He was previously Chairman of First Albany Companies Inc. and a Managing Partner of FA Tech Ventures, an information and energy technology venture capital firm. As an executive and director of numerous companies, Mr. McNamee has navigated technological change, rapid-growth, crisis management, team building and strategy. As a public company director, Mr. McNamee has led board special committees, chaired audit committees, chaired three boards and has been an active lead director. Mr. McNamee served on the board of directors of HyVia, the Company's joint venture with Renault S.A.S. from July 2021 to October 2024. He also served on several public company boards, including the boards of Mechanical Technology Inc. and the Home Shopping Network. He has been an early stage investor, director and mentor for private companies that subsequently went public, including MapInfo (now Pitney Bowes), META Group (now Gartner Group) and iRobot Corporation, where he served as a director from 1999 to 2016 and as lead director for the last 11 of those years. In 2011, Mr. McNamee was the first history major awarded the Yale Science and Engineering Association Distinguished Service Award. He served as a NYSE director from 1999 to 2004 and chaired its foundation. In the aftermath of the 1987 stock market crash, he chaired the Group of Thirty Committee to reform the Clearance and Settlement System. Mr. McNamee has been active as a director or trustee of civic organizations, including The Albany Academies and Albany Medical Center whose Finance Committee he chaired for 12 years. He is also a director of several private companies, a Sterling Fellow of Yale University and a Trustee of The American Friends of Eton College. He conceived and co-authored a book on the Chicago Conspiracy Trial. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Yale University. We believe Mr. McNamee's qualifications to sit on our Board include his experience serving on technology company boards, his background in investment banking, which has given him broad exposure to many capital markets, financing transactions and mergers and acquisitions, and his extensive experience serving as a public company director, including experience with the financial sector and its regulatory bodies.