Contributors
Andrew Affleck, Chairman, Low Carbon Accelerator
Andrew chairs the Investment Committee for Low Carbon Investors (LCI) and also represents Low Carbon Accelerator on the boards of Proven Energy and Lumenergi. Andrew joined LCI as a non-executive director in October 2007, before being appointed executive director and Chairman in September 2008. In order to take up this position Andrew moved to London from Singapore in early 2009, having spent 20 years living and working in Asia before this.
Prior to joining LCI in executive capacity, Andrew was responsible for fund management at Devonshire Capital, a firm he co-founded with partners in 1995. All in all he has 18 years of asset management and investment banking experience, having specialised in private equity, private placement and cross border M&A.
Andrew holds an MBA in Finance from Leicester University and a PGCert in Climate Change and Sustainable Development from De Montfort University.
Mark Brown, Managing Director, Head of Barclays Natural Resource Investments
Mark Brown is a Managing Director within the Commodities Principal Investments business at Barclays Capital. Based in London, he is responsible for making equity investments in businesses such as renewables.
Mark joined Barclays Capital in July 1998 from Dresdner Kleinwort Benson where he was a member of the structured finance group. Prior to that, he was part of the structured finance group at Rabobank.
He graduated from The City University with a first class degree in Actuarial Science.
Mark Dominik, Vice President, Climate Change Investment Research, DB Climate Change Advisors
Prior to his current position, Mark Dominik was a consultant at McKinsey & Co. He was a Fulbright Scholar, was educated at the Ecole Normale Superieure, Paris, and at Stanford University.
Robert Markus Feldmann, Managing Director, Corporate Finance Advisory, Deloitte & Touche Corporate Finance GmbH
Robert Markus Feldmann joined Deloitte & Touche Corporate Finance in Germany as a partner in the beginning of 2008. As practice leader for Clean Tech & Renewable Energies (CTRE) for Europe, he is responsible for deal generation, international coordination and the practice's business development. Further, he actively supports the partnership with the Cleantech Group by serving on the advisory board. Previously, Mr. Feldmann worked for six years as a director in private equity and mid-cap investment banking at Dresdner Bank & Dresdner Kleinwort.
Mark Fulton, Global Head, Climate Change Investment Research, DB Climate Change Advisors
Mark Fulton is Global Head of Climate Change Investment Research and Strategy with DB Climate Change Advisors in New York. Mark Fulton joined Deutsche Asset Management (DeAM) in 2006 after 29 years of investment experience in senior roles in research and management at Citigroup in the US, Salomon Smith Barney and NatWest in Sydney, Potter Partners in Melbourne and James Capel in London.
Mark Fulton holds a BA from Queens College at Oxford University.
Nigel Grierson, Managing Director, Doughty Hanson Technology Ventures
Nigel Grierson is Co-Managing Director and Founder of the Doughty Hanson Technology Ventures. Previously he was Co-Head of Intel Capital in Europe prior to which he held other senior management positions within Intel, AT&T and Group Schneider.
Vinod Khosla, Founder, Khosla Ventures
Vinod Khosla is an Indian-American venture capitalist. He is an influential personality in Silicon Valley. He was one of the co-founders of Sun Microsystems and became a general partner of the venture capital firm Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers in 1986.
In 2004, Khosla, driven by the need for flexibility to accommodate four teenage children and a desire to be more experimental, to fund sometimes imprudent "science experiments", and to take on both "for profit" and for "social impact" ventures, formed Khosla Ventures, funded entirely with family funds. His goals remain the same - work and learn from fun and knowledgeable entrepreneurs, build impactful companies through the leverage of innovation, and spend time as a partnership making a difference. He has a passion for nascent technologies that can have a beneficial effect and economic impact on society.
Vinod's greatest passion is being a mentor to entrepreneurs, assisting entrepreneurs and helping them build technology based businesses. He is a charter member of TiE, a not-for-profit global network of entrepreneurs and professionals founded in 1992 that now has more than forty chapters in nine countries. He is also a Founding Board member of the Indian School of Business. His current passion is social entrepreneurship with a special emphasis on microfinance as a poverty alleviation tool. He is a supporter of many microfinance organizations in India and Africa. He has been experimenting with global housing. Vinod is also passionate about alternative energy, petroleum independence, and the environment. He can be reached at vk@khoslaventures.com.
Thomas Martin, Senior Vice President, PCG Asset Management
Thomas Martin leads the identification, analysis, due diligence and selection of private market investments. He is a member of the firm’s Management Committee and Investment Committee. Prior to joining PCG in 2002, Mr. Martin was a Vice President at Laffer Associates, a boutique investment research and consulting firm where he was responsible for producing investment research and analysis for a global client base of institutional investors.
Thomas Martin received a Master’s of International Affairs from the University of California San Diego, a Master of Science in International Economics and Business from the Stockholm School of Economics, and a Bachelor of Arts from Bucknell University. Thomas Martin also attended special educational programs at the London School of Economics and Doshisha University in Kyoto, Japan.
Ashish Patel, Managing Director, Intel Capital EMEA
Ashish Patel is a Managing Director and voting Member of the Management Review Committee of Intel Capital. He has the overall regional responsibility for the EMEA region specifically in telecom, media, and technology sectors. Ashish Patel was a founding member of the firm in Europe and opened the London, Moscow, and most recently, Dubai offices. Ashish Patel has been investing in young businesses for best part of a decade and has been with Intel for more than five years during which time he has invested in more than 25 technology start ups. Prior to this, he was an Investment Director with Actis and was a member of the telecom team. Ashish Patel qualified as an ACA with Coopers & Lybrand where he was engaged with corporate finance advisory activity mainly with large-cap international businesses. He serves on the Board in various capacities, of AVG, Colibrys, Freedom4, and IP Access. Ashish Patel holds a B.Sc. in Economics from London School of Economics.
Ashutosh Shastri, Director, EnerStrat Consulting
Ashutosh Shastri is the founder of EnerStrat Consulting, a specialist technology-policy and strategic advisory firm in the energy-climate and cleantech space. Prior to founding EnerStrat in early 2003, he was a specialist consultant in the global energy practice of McKinsey and Company. He also conducts bespoke capability building workshops for VC and PE investors in the energy-carbon and cleantech markets.
EnerStrat Consulting’s client base is primarily energy sector participants and private equity and institutional investors. The range of services offered include bespoke training and workshops as well as bespoke strategic, techno-economic and policy related advisory in conventional-renewable-climate and cleantech markets on issues ranging from topics such as geo-politics of energy and climate to policy analysis to techno-economic assessments and conducting strategic due-diligence and multi-client advisory assignments primarily in Europe and the US.
Jim Totty, Partner and Senior Investment Manager, Osmosis Capital
Jim is a Chartered Financial Analyst, and holds an MA in Physics from the University of Cambridge and an MSc and PhD in Physics from Imperial College, University of London. Jim has 16 years experience in sustainable and clean technology, gained through his previous role in private equity at Citi Alternative Investments/Nikko Principal Investments and earlier advisory and academic work. He has worked on leveraged buyout, growth capital and venture capital transactions, and undertook portfolio management through board and observer roles and taking investments through to successful exits. Before moving into private equity he was a management consultant at PricewaterhouseCoopers in the Energy and Utilities group.
Jim brings to Osmosis his extensive financing and investing background combined with broad Cleantech knowledge and expertise in developing technologies. His venture capital and private equity experience are core to selecting the best investment opportunities in the rapidly evolving market. His financial and technological skills enable Osmosis to develop low carbon investment solutions with a thorough understanding of the risks and returns associated with deployment of capital in the Cleantech sector.
Amanda Williams Palmer, Executive Editor, European Venture Capital Journal
Amanda Williams Palmer is the executive editor of Thomson Reuters’ European Venture Capital and Private Equity Journal (EVCJ). She was the formerly the editor of HFM Week and Hedge Fund Manager Magazine and the news editor of Hedge Funds Review. In the past, Amanda has written for Investment Week, MultiManager Magazine, Global Finance Magazine, Bloomberg Money and Legal Week. She has been quoted in the Financial Times and the International Herald Tribune, as well as, by Bloomberg and Thomson Reuters. She hails from Oak Ridge, Tennessee but lives in London. She is a popular addition to the European conference circuit and launched the EVCJ Awards and the EVCJ European Venture Capital Forum. Williams Palmer is currently an MBA student at Cambridge University. In 2009, she was named one of the Five Extraordinary Women in Thomson Reuters.
Samer Zureikat, Managing Director, MENA Cleantech AG
Samer Zureikat has over 13 years of experience working in highly-regulated environments throughout the Middle East and North Africa. In 1995, he co-founded a chemical manufacturing company in his native Jordan and stayed with the company for 11 years. During that time, Samer was responsible for establishing the company’s North African subsidiary in Algeria, concluding the company’s joint manufacturing and distribution agreements with leading multinationals in the agrochemical sector, and running the company from 2000 to 2006.
In 2006, Samer moved to Germany, where he worked as a Venture Partner with a Swiss-based Venture Capital fund focused on the European Cleantech sector. In March of 2008, he launched MENA Cleantech in order to develop renewable energy projects in the Middle East and North Africa, with a particular focus on Concentrating Solar Power.
Samer earned his Bachelor of Science in Economics from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, USA. He speaks Arabic, English, French, and German.