Advisory Board

The advisory board members are experts in finance and renewable energy and provide advice and input to the senior management team on a regular basis.  Members of the advisory board are consulted on major decisions, including strategy, new projects and new investors.

Roy Bedlow, Advisory Board Member and Board Director

Roy Bedlow is Chief Executive and co-founder of Low Carbon. Founded in 2012, Low Carbon deploys capital into renewable energy development companies and renewable energy projects with the aim of creating as many MWs of clean, green electricity as possible. Prior to focusing on climate change, Roy was Vice President and General Manager of Palm for Europe, Middle East and Africa. Before joining Palm, Roy founded the European entity of Handspring in Geneva Switzerland. Earlier roles included European Director of Iomega International in Geneva and a variety of sales and marketing positions at Apple Computer, which culminated in European Marketing Director, based in London and Munich. Roy is a director of Andromeda Capital, a private equity firm investing in climate change, education and communities. Roy sits on the Board of the energy efficiency technology company, enModus and the Board of Sparx, which is developing new technology to revolutionize learning.

Larry Lunt, Advisory Board Member and Board Director

Larry is a private investor from Belgium who manages Armonia, his family office in Greenwich, Ct, USA focusing 100% on triple bottom line investments with a balanced emphasis on people, planet and profit. Armonia seeded TBL Capital (www.tblcapital.com), a venture fund focusing on social enterprises in the US. He is a Director of his family private equity group, Artal which invests through its advisor, the Invus Group (www.invus.com). Prior to moving to the US in 1997, he was active in venture capital in Europe where he developed the Lino group focusing on retail outlets. He also has a strong interest in the preservation of the arctic where he has participated in several expeditions. He is a member of NRDC Global Leadership Council (www.nrdc.org) and of the International Polar Foundation (www.polarfoundation.org) in Brussels. He graduated in Economics from Louvain University in Belgium and received his MBA from Sophia University in Tokyo, Japan.

Dr. Frank Dinter, Advisory Board Member

Dr. Dinter joined the Solar Thermal Energy Research Group at Stellenbosch University as the Eskom Chair in 2013. In 2008 Dr Dinter became Head of Solar, at RWE Innogy in Essen, Germany. When RWE made a strategic decision to go on operating more than 25 PV plants in Germany and Spain, and build a 50 MW CSP plant in southern Spain, he was appointed technical director of the project there, which lasted five years. After studying he joined RWE and covered various positions there, including Head of Research & Development which developed the optimization of fossil fired power station. Dr. Dinter wrote his diploma work on Plataforma Solar de Almeria, Spain in 1986/87 on a Dual Medium Storage Tank for a Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) plant. He completed his PhD (Dr.-Eng.) on Thermal Storage Systems for CSP power plants and published a book together with two Co-Authors about "Thermal Energy Storage for Commercial Applications" in 1991.

David Fitzsimmons, Advisory Board Member

David was CEO of Novera from 2005 - 2009. Novera is one of the UK's leading listed renewable energy companies. Previously David spent 27 years in senior management positions at BP. These included Chief Executive of International Oil Trading where he delivered record profits for BP's physical and financial trading. As Director of Planning he led the strategic and management of operations, he also identified pivotal strategic issues with the merger with Amoco. Following  the merger he became Group Vice President and Executive Committee Member during his final 6 years at where he led a review of the strategy for BP's Solar and Power businesses. During this time he was focused on Refining and Marketing, where he led the BP-Amoco US Oil supply and trading operations, Gas and Power, with a focus on LNG and developing successful relationships with Petro China and the Chinese Government which included winning BP a 25 year gas sales contract with Petro China and becoming Chinas only foreign partner in the first LNG Terminal. In 2003 he became the Senior Representative for East Asia and was the Group Vice President for Exploration and Production and regional President for Asia.

Charles Irving, Advisory Board Member

Charles is a founder of Pond Ventures, an early stage technology Venture Capital fund with offices in the UK and in Silicon Valley.  Charles has over thirty years experience in corporate deal-making in the investment and commodities arena, many of these years were spent overseas, including eight years in Brazil. During this time Charles worked at Glencore AG for 18 years, here he became a senior member of the energy trading team with responsibilities including risk management of multimillion dollar positions and developing important and long-term relationships at all levels of companies and across multiple countries.

Dr.Tawfik Jelassi, Advisory Board Member

Dr. Tawfik Jelassi is Dean of the School of International Management at the Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées (ENPC), Paris, France. As a Dean, he is in charge of providing the necessary academic leadership, strategic management and business development of the school’s MBA programs offered in Paris and, through international partnerships, in Casablanca, Shanghai, Beijing and Philadelphia. Since February 2011, he has been Chairman of the Board of Directors of Tunisiana, the leading mobile telecom operator in Tunisia. He is also Member of the Board of Directors of the Sino-French Institute of Engineering and Management (IFCIM). Dr. Jelassi holds a Ph.D. degree in Information Systems and Master of Philosophy (M. Phil.) degree in Information Systems from New York University, Stern School of Business in USA. He also holds a D.E.A in Informatique des Organisations and a Bsc in Informatics applied to Management from University of Paris-Dauphine, Paris (France).

Mutuma Marangu, Advisory Board Member

Mutuma is an investor and company director located in Nairobi, Kenya.  He is involved in forestry, non – renewable and renewable energy companies, as well as real estate, all focussed in sub – Saharan Africa.  Since 2003, he is a Director and major shareholder in Green Resources AS, the largest afforestation company in Africa.  Mutuma has been involved in the physical commodity sector for more than 15 years, having worked at Glencore AG for more than 12 years of that time in London as a market analyst and physical trader.  Prior to this period, he was a financial analyst at Morgan Stanley and commodity trader trainee at Philipp Brothers in New York.  Mutuma has a BA in Economics from Vassar College, NY, USA, an MPhil in Economics and Politics of Development from Cambridge University, UK, and an MBA in Finance from Wharton Business School, University of Pennsylvania, PA, USA.  Mutuma is actively involved in several charities in the field of education.  He has been on the Board of SEO London, a UK registered charitable organization involved in placing and mentoring penultimate year students of diverse geographic, ethnic, religious and gender backgrounds in the field of investment banking.

Senia Rapisarda, Advisory Board Member

Senia has spent over 15 years in private equity as principal and adviser in the telecom & technology sectors. In the past 3 years she has focussed on renewable technologies and she serves on the board of Vaperma. She was previously Managing Director at Ariadne Capital, an advisory boutique to early stage companies and spent 3 years as Head of the Technology Private Equity Team at Nomura International, managing a proprietary fund of over £300 million and investing in early-stage technology companies in Europe, Israel, and California. Earlier, she was Vice-President in the Telecommunications and Technology teams of Salomon Smith Barney and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, mainly involved in structured finance and equity investments in Eastern Europe. Mrs. Rapisarda has a Law Degree from LUISS University in Rome and a Master's in Law & Economics from Columbia University in New York.

Christopher Tilley, Advisory Board Member

Christopher first worked for the Bank of England where he seconded to the Jordan Government in Amman and was the Governors' Private Secretariat. From 1970 -1981 Christopher worked from Morgan Grenfell London, here he worked in Munich and Geneva and became the Main Board Director for Eurobond, International, Project and Corporate Finance. More recently Christopher was adviser to the Executive Board of LGT Bank in Liechtenstein. He held the position of Management Board Director for Private and Investment banking and Corporate Structure as well as Director for LGT Bank in Frankfurt, Holding Board Director and Chairman of LGT Bank Cayman Ltd. Christopher is also Chairman of BI Investment Holdings, Jersey and is an active angel investor in early stage renewable energy and other technology companies.

Jonathan Walters, Advisory Board Member

Jonathan Walters  spent the last 9 years in the Middle East and North Africa Region of the World Bank, first as Energy Manager and then as Director of Regional Programs and Partnerships. He has had a particular focus on the renewable energy programmes being established in the MENA region, such as the MASEN programme in Morocco, advising these Governments on commercial, regulatory and economic issues related to the successful implementation of large scale renewables in the region, and on the potential opening of European markets to those renewables. Jonathan joined the World Bank in 1988, and initially worked on macroeconomic reform in West and Central Africa. He then joined the Europe and Central Asia Region just after the break-up of the Soviet Union, where he focused on energy sector reform and Caspian oil and gas development. In 2001, he joined BP in London and worked on relationships with national oil companies, local economic impact, and on the design of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative. Mr. Walters returned to the World Bank in 2003, and led a major study ("Connecting East Asia") on sustainable infrastructure service provision in East Asia and the Pacific, in collaboration with the Asian Development Bank and the Japanese International Cooperation Agency. Prior to joining the World Bank, he was Economic Advisor to the Government of Swaziland on investment climate and trade policy. He has an M.A. in Politics, Philosophy and Economics from the University of Oxford, and an M.Sc.in Economics from the University of London.  Jonathan has now joined Castalia, the infrastructure economics consultancy, as Senior Advisor, along with other advisory assignments.

Jan-Olaf Willums, Advisory Board Member

Jan-Olaf is the Chairman and founder of InSpire Invest and is the former CEO of THINK, the electric car company, and a co-founder of REC, one of the largest integrated solar cell manufacturers in the world. Previously, he held senior management positions in Storebrand, Norway's largest financial sector company, Saga Petroleum and Volvo Petroleum, and chaired two of the earliest venture capital and investment companies in Norway in the 1980's. In 1990 he was appointed to head the Energy and Environment Office of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) in Paris, and Secretary General of the Industry Forum at the Rio Earth Summit, Brazil in 1992. Jan-Olaf is on the Advisory Board of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and of the World Bank Institute, and member of the Private Sector Advisory Board of the World Bank Corporate Governance Forum. Dr. Willums holds a Masters degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Swiss Institute of Technology and a Doctorate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

 

Nur Energie also maintains close relations with academia and especially Imperial College. Nur Energie principals are regular lecturers at both the MSc in Environmental Policy and at the Tanaka business school. Nur Energie regularly taps into the expertise of Professors and academic departments: Prof. Dr. Goran Strbac (Professor of Power Systems Engineering) assisted in Nur Energie's preliminary analysis of the Italian grid, and Dr. Ned Ekins-Daukes (Research Fellow in Photovoltaic Systems) has assisted in supplier evaluation and technology assessment.