Senior Management Team
The Nur Energie management team is composed of successful and passionate professionals with extensive international experience and deep local knowledge. Together they have all the required skills and expertise:
Kevin Sara, Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Kevin has been involved with start-ups and entrepreneurs for most of his career. After earning his MBA at Ecole National des Ponts et Chaussées, he co-founded the European Telecom and Media Investment Banking practice at Salomon Brothers, advising governments on privatisation and entrepreneurs on entering deregulated markets, and deploying emerging technologies such as wireless telephony and the internet. Later, at Nomura International, Kevin founded a technology principal investment group and invested in over 35 European and US emerging technology companies. More recently, while working on his PhD in Energy Policy at Imperial College, Kevin co-founded Hazel Capital, a clean-tech investment management company with investments in private clean tech companies.
Dr. Till Stenzel, Chief Operating Officer
After earning his BSc in Environmental Policy and Economics at the London School of Economics, Till completed his PhD in Energy Policy at Imperial College. His PhD thesis examines the renewable energy strategies of the major European utilities. During his PhD studies, Till worked as an expert consultant to the International Energy Agency (IEA) in Paris and the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) in London. After his PhD studies, Till joined Hazel Capital to focus on opportunities in the solar energy space. He advised on investment decisions in solar companies and researched and modelled a space of over 100 companies. Together with Kevin, Till developed Nur Energie’s initial business model and now leads Nur Energie’s strategy development and modelling of solar PV and CSP projects.
Mike Coombs, Chief Financial Officer
Prior to Nur ENergie Mike spent five years as Group CFO of Renewable Energy Systems (RES) an international wind farm developer which saw annual revenues increase from £160m in 2006 to £500m by 2010. RES, a member of the Sir Robert McAlpine Group, is one of the renewable energy sector’s market leaders with over 5,000MW of wind projects developed and built and 600MW under ownership in various markets including the UK, Ireland, France, Sweden, Canada and the US. Mike sat on the RES Limited board which focused on all aspects of wind farm development both in the UK and overseas including construction with the objective of rapidly growing the project financed operating portfolio. He also sat on the boards of RES Heat and Power Limited and Inbuilt Limited which targeted investment opportunities in other renewable technologies including bio-mass, geo-thermal, solar and sustainable building consultancy. Before RES Mike was Group Finance Director of Biwater Plc a water utility and construction group with interests in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, North and South America and the Far East. Mike is a fellow of the Institute of Chartered Management Accountants (FCMA) with more than 10 years of senior board experience within the utility sector including significant international experience both in the developed and developing world.
Alex Phocas Cosmetatos, Chief Technical Officer
Alex joined Nur Energie in May 2008 to co-ordinate the development of the CSP projects in Greece and is currently focusing on solar resource analysis and on the technological aspects of different PV and CSP technologies. Prior to Nur Energie, Alex worked as a renewable energy consultant, including working for the Greek Regulatory Authority for Energy on an energy storage project whose scope was to simulate and quantify the increase in renewable energy capacity on the island of Crete, Greece, with the use of electric vehicles as storage devices. Previously, Alex worked for eight years as a fixed income derivatives trader in Credit Suisse, Lehman Brothers and ABN AMRO. Alex holds a MEng in Renewable Energy Technology from Loughborough University and a BSc and MSc in Physics from Cambridge University.
Maurizio Scaravaggi, Chief Engineer
Maurizio gained experience as General Manager in a privately owned company developing power generation from renewable sources in Italy: photovoltaic as well as wind, hydro, biomass & biogas. From 2000 to 2007 Senior Manager within the Swiss utility BKW, dealing with both the liberalized Italian and European energy market as well as EPC for power generation from renewable sources and co-generation. From 1990 to 2000 in CESI (Enel group), excellence centre for electrical engineering, as project leader involved in design, technical assistance and consultancy for conventional and renewable energy producers, transmission and distribution systems, industrial installations and equipment manufacturers. He graduated in Electrical Engineering at Pavia University and achieved the Postgraduate Business Diploma ‘Innovation and business management’ from Milan Polytechnic Business School.
Jose Beriot, Senior Advisor Nur Energie SAS
Jose graduated from Ecole Polytechnique (maths, physics) and ENSAE (statistics, economy). He started his career at EDF – GDF, at that time the French national utility company, as a technical engineer and then negotiator of purchase and transport of Russian natural gas. Jose was elected to his town council at the age of 23 and later joined the close staff of three Ministers and was involved in privatization of French TV and liberalization of radios. Jose has also worked for 20 years in investment banks (French, Dutch and Japanese) where he raised equity and debt on behalf of corporations and recently led some cross border renewable energy transactions. He acted as CEO of Banque Nomura France from 2000 to 2008 and joined Nur Energie in October 2008 bringing along his experience of the energy sector, project finance and contacts with the national administration.
Mihalis Boutaris, Senior Advisor Nur-MOH
Mihalis joined Nur Energie in May 2008 with a mandate to identify and secure sites in Crete and Rhodes to develop CSP plants using BrightSource technology. Mihalis has been since appointed as Managing Director of NUR-MOH SA, the subsidiary of Nur Energie and Motor Oil Hellas. Mihalis brings a diverse experience in jointly developed projects of clean tech, most notably a 5MW small hydroelectric plant by PPCR and the field trials of Eden Research plc for its low-risk pesticides ultimately licensed to Redestos Group. Educated at Harvard University, Mihalis has worked at the Boston Consulting Group and serves in the Board of Directors at Kir-Yianni Estate, a winemaking business owned by his family.
David Fitzsimmons, Senior Advisor
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.