Leadership

Management

 
Bertan Atalay

Bertan Atalay

President and CEO

Bertan held leadership positions in public and private corporations in Canada, the USA and Europe.  He helped structure and place more than $4.5bn in limited and non-recourse project finance and led the raising of more than $150mn in start-up, seed and working capital equity in infrastructure, energy, heavy industrial manufacturing and cleantech sectors.  He took part in several M&A transactions in the energy and infrastructure sector, covering much of the entire value chain. Bertan has hands-on experience and has had leadership roles in Engineering, Construction and Procurement of numerous resource and heavy industrial assets in North America and Europe.

Following his engineering career at Golder Associates Ltd. of Canada, Bertan, in his more than 25 years career in project engineering, development and financing, held various professional positions at Shell in Amsterdam, Enron in London and Northland Power in Toronto.

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Phil Shane

Chairman

Mr. Shane was the Market Development Director for the Illinois Corn Marketing Board (“ICMB”) and the Illinois Corn Growers Association (“ICGA”) from 1993 to 2006.  Prior to joining ICMB and ICGA, he was a partner and general manager of a large farming operation in Illinois.  Mr. Shane served for five years as an advisor to the Biomass Technical Advisory Committee for the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Department of Energy.  Mr. Shane holds a Master’s degree in agricultural economics from the University of Illinois and is a graduate of the Agricultural Leaders of Tomorrow (ALOT) program.

Mr. Shane led the scale-up of licensed corn oil and protein extraction (COPE) technology from benchtop research to pilot plant completion and commercial readiness; built a 2400 sq. ft. class I, division II pilot plant and for two years tested processes related to the COPE technology; raised US$4 million dollar seed investment in addition to a similar amount of federal agency grants; and, secured an additional US$4 million grant from the state of Illinois to build a class I, Division II, 600,000-pound zein extraction and purification plant.  Mr. Shane has advanced the COPE process to its commercial readiness stage of development.

 

Board Members

 

John Gibson

John is a serial entrepreneur who founded Integral Wealth Securities Limited. Headquartered in Toronto, Integral is a national investment dealer engaged in investment banking, market-making and wealth management. Integral’s investment banking group finances emerging and growth-stage companies in both the private and pubic markets. Prior to founding Integral, John was in commercial real estate both building business and allocating capital.

John founded Patriot Equities, a TSX-listed shopping centre company, acquired distressed mortgage pools in joint venture with Brazos Fund / Lone Star Opportunity Fund, and was a co-founder of the Jones Lang Wooton Canada (now Jones Lang LaSalle).

 

Michael Feola

Michael is a serial entrepreneur who started his first business at age 16. That first venture in the printing industry led to acquisitions/turnarounds in a range of industries. Michael’s discipline in allocating capital and understanding capital structure led to an evolution from financially savvy operator to financier with operating experience.

Michael is the founder and managing partner of MMF Equities, a private equity firm, and founder of PM4 Partners Inc. which has interests in financial services, real estate, hospitality and public securities.

 

ADVISORY BOARD

Prof. Dr. Alejandro Marangoni

Alejandro Marangoni, Ph.D., Professor of Canada Research Chair Food, Health and Aging was recently appointed to the order of Canada for his work in Organic Chemistry. Dr. Marangoni has devoted his career to Food Science research yielding impactful and sustainable change for the health of humans and the planet. He believes in educating the public and about conscience decision making and personal accountability as informed choices can lead to a greater change in the right direction for our communities. More information on Dr. Marangoni can be found here: https://www.tln.ca/university-of-guelph-food-science-professor-appointed-to-the-order-of-canada-tln-connects/