Advisory Board
Graham O'Keeffe
Graham is an experienced and respected technology investor, having recently established Joy Capital LLP. Graham is also currently Chairman of DisplayLink, a visual workspace technology company based in San Francisco. Prior to Joy Capital, Graham was a senior venture capital investor at Atlas Venture in London. His early career comprised engineering, operational and marketing roles in the mobile phone and computing sectors, working across Europe, North America and Asia for Nokia and Psion. As a result he has unique insight into how to create and nurture fast-growing innovative businesses in the global economy. As an investor, he has demonstrated the ability to take a business from white board concept to exit, developing strategy, building management teams, partnering with larger companies, and raising finance from new investors. He is well networked within the industry, a participant in professional associations such as the BVCA and a frequent contributor at international conferences and University events.
Graham has a track record of successful exits including BarcoNet (IPO on EuroNext and acquisition by Scientific Atlanta for €173m), Orthogon Systems (acquired by Motorola for $90m), Phyworks (acquired by Maxim for $75m), Element 14 (acquired by Broadcom for $642m), and Icera (acquired by Nvidia for $367m).
He has been the founder institutional investor in a number of other high-profile European technology companies including picoChip and Ubiquisys, and additionally has served on the Boards of Zinwave, and DisplayLink where he continues to serve as Chairman. This group of companies has raised over $600m of equity finance. His recent investment focus has been on emerging technologies in energy, water and advanced materials, all sectors he believes will be big drivers of shareholder returns in coming years.
Graham holds a Masters in Management from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management and a Bachelor's degree in Engineering Science and Economics from Oxford University.
Jigar Shah
Jigar is an entrepreneur and visionary committed to leveraging the next economy by solving the challenging issues of our time. Jigar recognized this as “The Impact Economy”, a global economy in which mainstream investors team up with corporations, entrepreneurs, and governments at scale to solve the big problems of our time while generating compelling financial returns – not concessionary returns.
Jigar is currently the president of Generate Capital, a specialty finance company underwriting distributed energy, food and water assets. He is also CEO of Jigar Shah Consulting, working closely with some of the world’s leading influencers and guiding policy makers around the globe on key issues to implement profitable solutions to climate change that will unlock $5 Trillion into the impact economy by 2020.
His first foray in realising his vision was the founding of SunEdison in 2003; today the world’s leading solar services company. SunEdison, through Jigar’s perseverance and vision, simplified solar as a service through the implementation of the power purchase agreement (PPA) business model. That model changed the status quo, allowing organisations to purchase solar energy services under long-term predictably priced contracts and avoid the significant capital costs of ownership and operation of solar energy systems. The SunEdison business model is a recognised catalyst that turned solar PV into a multi-billion dollar industry worldwide.
From 2009 to March 2012, Jigar served as the first CEO of the Carbon War Room, the global organization founded by Richard Branson and Virgin Unite to harness the power of entrepreneurship to unlock the potential of proven climate change solution technologies to be deployed at scale. During Shah’s tenure he was a trailblazer in helping build the organisation into one of global importance.
Shah holds a BS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, and an MBA from The University of Maryland. Besides the Carbon War Room, he also sits on the boards of the SolarNexus, KMR Infrastructure, Prometheus Institute and Greenpeace USA.
Reyad Fezzani
Reyad currently serves as the Chairman and CEO of Regenerate Power, a developer, owner and operator of utility-scale renewable energy projects.
Prior to co-founding Regenerate Power, Mr. Fezzani was CEO of BP Solar and Chairman of Tata-BP Solar. He previously served as President of BP's Global Wind and Solar business. With more than 3,000 employees, the business operated solar manufacturing plants in the US, Spain, India, China and Australia, and developed, constructed, and operated solar and wind farms in the US, Europe, India and China.
During his tenure, the wind business unit completed US utility-scale project financing, construction and operation of 1 GW of operating assets and maintained a pipeline in excess of 20 GW. The solar business unit completed utility-scale and distributed generation solar project financing, construction and operation of 300 MW of assets, including a 32 MW solar farm in Long Island financed and co-owned by MetLife.
Before leading the wind and solar units, Mr. Fezzani was CEO of BP’s Global Chemicals business (annual sales of $10 billion). He was previously the Executive Assistant to the BP Group Chief Executive, Lord Browne, at the time when BP launched its Alternative and Renewable Energy business. Prior to that, he served as Vice President of Strategy & Planning for BP’s global refining, manufacturing and marketing business. Mr. Fezzani joined BP in 1989, and early in his career held a variety of commercial and operational posts in finance, exploration and production, refining and marketing, and supply and trading.
Educated in the UK, Reyad holds a Master’s Degree in Chemical Engineering and Chemical Technology from Imperial College, London. He is a Chartered Engineer, and a Fellow of the Institute of Chemical Engineers, and of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining. He also serves as a Director of Bloo Solar, Inc., QBotix, Inc., Solar Utility Finance Co. LLC and Skyline Solar, Inc. He serves as a Member of Board of Advisors of Next Energy Technologies, Inc. and has served as a Director of OC Oerlikon Corporation AG since April 12, 2012.
Stewart Bennet
Stewart has over 18 years of investment banking experience spanning UK and European clients in the banking, insurance and asset management sectors.
In 2009, Stewart joined Ondra Partners, a specialist in providing advice to clients on Mergers & Acquisitions, strategy, restructurings and capital markets advisory. He joined Ondra as the partner in charge of building and leading the financial institutions practice which has been involved in a number of high profile transactions including Prudential’s $35 billion offer for AIA, Henderson’s takeover of Gartmore and Bunge’s acquisition of Climate Change Capital.
Prior to joining Ondra, Stewart was head of Financial Institutions Advisory at Dresdner Kleinwort where he was responsible for the pan-European business and acting for clients which included Allianz, Dresdner Bank, HBoS, 3i and Provident Financial.
He has significant experience in advising both corporate and financial institutions and has been involved in M&A, as well as advising clients on strategic matters, structuring transactions, raising capital - both debt and equity - and interacting with institutional investors.
Stewart read German and Management Studies at the University of Leeds.
Simon Currie
Simon is an international market leader in the renewable energy sector and is head of Norton Rose LLP's global energy practice of 250 lawyers.
Simon has been a pioneer in the development of clean and alternative energy legal services. He specialises in energy trading and the development, acquisition and financing of energy assets. He has extensive experience in the UK energy sector and has worked on various projects from conventional power plants to renewables in many jurisdictions. Simon has worked on clean energy transactions in over 40 countries and regularly speaks at conferences and industry events on current trends and issues.
In the last edition of Chambers legal directory, Simon was described as "the right man for the job whenever the word 'renewables' is mentioned" and has been described in Legal 500 as "one of the most established and well-thought-of energy finance lawyers in the UK." In Chambers UK Legal Guide 2010, Simon is ranked as one of the three lawyers in the top tier of the "Leading Individuals – Renewables" category.
He holds a LLB and BA from the University of Wellington, New Zealand.
Torben Möger Pedersen
Torben has extensive experience in the pensions industry where he has displayed outstanding innovation in low carbon infrastructure investments by allocating to and investing directly in such assets. PensionDanmark was recently awarded the Best European Pension Fund by IPE and was among the lenders to the 216MW Northwind offshore project which was awarded European Offshore Wind Deal of the Year 2012 by ProjectFinance.
As CEO of PensionDanmark since its inception in 1993, he has been instrumental in building this labor market pension fund to its current €19bn of assets under management. Prior to working for PensionDanmark, Torben held positions at the Danish General Workers’ Union as well as at The Danish Economic Counsel. He holds a number of board memberships including Arbejdernes Landsbank, Concito, and The Danish Insurance Association. From 1991 to 2011 he was chairman of the board at Dagbladet Information, in addition to being a board member at The Danish Economic Society from 2002 to 2007. Since June 2012 Torben has been a member of the Danish Government’s Climate and Energy Growth Team and from April 2013 he will be Chairman of the board of DEA. Torben holds a M.Sc. Economics from University of Copenhagen (1984).
Wolfgang Engshuber
In January 2011, Wolfgang was elected Chair of the UN Principles for Responsible Investments, an initiative of the UN Secretary-General implemented by UNEP Finance Initiative and the UN Global Compact.
Prior to UNPRI, Wolfang was Chief Administrative Officer of Munich Reinsurance America Inc., where he was responsible for the Company's corporate functions which include Integrated Risk Management, Human Resources, Information technology, Claims, Legal, Internal Audit, Marketing Communications and Business Information Solutions. he was also a Director of Munich Re Capital markets and MEAG New York, a company that manages North American assets of the Munich Re Group.
Before joining Munich Re America in October of 1998, he was employed by Munich Re America’s parent company, Munich Reinsurance Company since 1986, where he served as a member of the executive management responsible for the global asset management of the company and its branches, as well as MEAG New York.
Dr. Engshuber earned his Masters of Law Degree in 1982 and a Ph.D. in Economics in 1986, both from the University of Munich. He also studied at the London School of Economics and worked for the International Monetary Fund and the German Ministry for Developing Countries.