Azhar Yerzhanova is Co-Founder and COO of Maglut Heavy Industries, a San Francisco-based critical materials startup rebuilding America's domestic rare earth purification and permanent magnet supply chain.

Azhar earned a B.A. in Political Science from New York University and an M.S. in Applied Analytics from Columbia University, before launching her career in investment banking and materials-focused venture capital.

With a rare cross-disciplinary background spanning investment banking, venture capital, and deep tech commercialization, Azhar brings the commercial and operational counterweight to Maglut's technical co-founding team.

Prior to co-founding Maglut, Azhar served as COO at Nohbo, a sustainable materials startup, was Chief of Staff at Fifty Years, and worked as an analyst at Material Impact, a materials-focused VC fund.

Maglut Heavy Industries raised $3.1M in pre-seed funding from Julian Capital and Wave Function Ventures, and unveiled ARC-1, a chromatography-based rare earth separation system achieving 99.9%+ purity in pilot-scale tests.