Can we have some text here Executive Team

Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board of Directors

Mr. James Fierro is an international businessman and social entrepreneur. He founded HomeGrocer.com, the first company in the world to provide fully integrated Internet grocery shopping, warehouse and delivery services. HomeGrocer was sold three years' later in a merger transaction for approximately $1.2 billion. Mr. Fierro has been involved in the identification, development and financing of emerging growth companies. He has over thirty years' experience as the Founder and CEO to a range of start-up ventures and is the visionary behind industry innovators in RFID technology, Strategic Planning, Event Marketing, Internet Commerce, Electronic Trading Systems, Online Travel, and Life Safety. Mr. Fierro began his career as a planning and business strategist, consulting to leading companies in the packaged goods sector including Kraft General Foods, H.J. Heinz, Nabisco, Nestle and Campbell Soup. Mr. Fierro was a long-standing active member of the Young Entrepreneurs Organization and served as both the President of the Vancouver Chapter and a member of its Board of Directors.

President

Mr. Adrian Saunders has had 30 years' experience as a global sales and services leader in the IT industry. His most recent appointments have focused on Cloud, Big Data and Application Software solutions for the Enterprise / Corporate sector as Senior Regional Director with EMC Corporation, and previously as Global VP for Professional Services and Channels with Micro Focus. Cumulatively, Mr Saunders has managed sales and revenue targets in excess of $3 billion. Mr. Saunders began his career with IBM where he spent 10 years' in Business Management and Sales. He went on to run a number of global sales & services teams as Vice President at BT Global Services and then Managing Director at Colt Technology Services. His industry verticals knowledge includes Financial Services, Oil & Gas, Automotive, Pharma/Life Sciences and Telecommunications. Mr. Saunders has worked across Europe, Middle East, Asia Pacific, North America and South Africa. He holds an Honours Degree in Humanities (major: English Literature and History) and an MBA from Warwick Business School.

Chief Operating Officer

Mr. Rikki Chow was the President and CEO of the clearinghouse for futures and options traded on Canadian financial exchanges (CDCC), where he was appointed after moving from Europe to Canada. A Swiss/Canadian dual citizen, Mr. Chow was previously with Euroclear in Brussels where he led initiatives to develop ancillary services in support of revenue diversification and was head of Financial Reporting & Analysis. Before Brussels, Mr. Chow had an extensive career with JP Morgan in Switzerland during the 1980s, where he was successively Director of Systems Development, Head of Finance and Vice-President of Cross-Divisional Projects. Prior to his career as a financial services executive, Mr. Chow served as commanding officer of an artillery battery. He was also a teaching assistant in Mathematics at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL) and at the Université de Lausanne where he had obtained his degree in Pure Mathematics.

Managing Director, Social Development

Mr. Hoffman has a solid track record over three decades as a pioneering architect of scalable and sustainable market and enterprise-based solutions to major social and environmental problems in both mature and emerging economies. Early in his career, Mr. Hoffman spent 10 years as a Senior Fellow in International Economic Development at the Science Policy Research Unit at the University of Sussex. From the mid 1980s through the mid 1990s, he independently advised many governments, foundations and international agencies on how to best promote small business development in poor countries and successfully launched a social enterprise and two venture-funded, commercial start-up businesses. From 1997 to 2008, Mr. Hoffman designed and then directed the Shell Foundation – an innovative global corporate social investment vehicle. During his tenure, Mr. Hoffman was responsible for five different social investment platforms, deploying $40 million of Shell’s social risk capital and triggering $1.4 billion of investment. One of these platforms, Grofin Capital, was one of the most successful African SME financing facilities, with over $400 million investment capital under management. Following on for four years through 2011, on behalf of The Hewlett Foundation, Mr. Hoffman was Director of TransFarm Africa – an influential independent finance and policy change initiative targeting the equitable commercialisation of small farmers in sub-Saharan Africa. In parallel and still ongoing, Mr. Hoffman and a Mozambican partner launched a specialist commercial services company in Mozambique now valued at over $1 million. More recently through November 2012, Mr. Hoffman was Chief Executive of the Institute for Philanthropy (London and New York) – a global leader in providing bespoke training to leading philanthropists to help them maximise the social value of their philanthropy and catalyse sustainable social change. In the ten months prior to joining ECO Capacity Exchange, Mr. Hoffman became a Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Innovation Management at the University of Brighton from whence he published a series of articles on the state of philanthropy and social enterprise in the UK and conducted a strategic review of opportunities to deploy innovative financing techniques and products and for harnessing market drivers to move, on a large scale, the developing world’s most vulnerable communities onto market-based routes towards long term economic sustainability.

Member of the Board of Directors

Mr. Ken Foxcroft was Deputy Chairman for TD Securities and Executive Vice President, Corporate and Investment Banking, at Toronto Dominion Bank. He has over 35 years of experience in the international banking and money market arenas. Mr. Foxcroft is a well-known and respected leader with senior relationships within the Canadian and provincial governments, as well as with significant institutional investors, supra-nationals and Central Bank clients.

Frederic Abbal has over 30 years of executive level experience in business development and transformation Mr. Abbal began his career in 1991 at Philips Components followed by Valeo in 1993.  He later joined Schneider Electric as Purchasing Manager and was then appointed Director of Operations Division of Merlin Gerin Alpes and in 1998, Mr. Abbal took over the subsidiary management of Sarel. In 2002, Mr. Abbal was appointed President of Schneider Electric Northeast Africa Operations, based in Cairo. In 2006, he returned to France and took up the position of Country President of Schneider Electric.  And, in March 2012, he was appointed as Executive Vice-President, of the Infrastructure Business. Between January 2014 and June 2020, Frederic Abbal was a Member of the Executive Committee of Schneider Electric group. From 2011 to 2015, he was President of Gimelec, which brings together 230 French companies providing power and automation solutions for the energy, building, industry and infrastructure markets. In July 2015 besides leading the Energy Business, Mr. Abbal enlarged his scope creating and heading the Middle East and Africa Operations. In January 2019, Frederic was appointed to lead all the Professional Service (including digital and software) activities of Schneider Electric group. Mr. Abbal has been a board member of several international companies (10+) in Europe, Middle East and Africa. In June 2020, Mr. Abbal founded Nexilium Consulting DMCC, a company specialized in business transformation (including Digital IOT). Mr. Abbal graduated as an Engineer from the ECAM Lyon (1985), from INSEAD (1988) and completed the Tuck Executive Program at Dartmouth College (2001).

Vice-Chairman of the Board of Directors

Mr. Barry Davenport was previously head of the Capital Markets Division at the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI), the Canadian federal regulator of financial institutions. Prior to being a regulator, he had extensive experience in capital markets and international banking as Senior Vice President, Global Treasury for Bank of Montreal, and spent several years managing the foreign exchange activities of Wood Gundy Ltd. a leading Canadian investment dealer.

Managing Director & Regional Head, MENA

Mr. Janowski has over 28 years of senior level experience in the banking industry. He was recently instrumental in the development of an independent private equity investment boutique connecting Asian investment needs with European business opportunities, before which Mr. Janowski’s professional positions included that of CEO, executive committee member, business manager, and various risk management and project management responsibilities. Mr.Janowski was the former Head of Institutional business for Asia and Middle-East for Julius Baer (Hong Kong); CEO Private Banking Asia for Credit Agricole (Hong Kong); CEO Private Banking North Asia for BNP Paribas (Hong Kong); CEO Middle East BNP Paribas (Dubai); and Global Head Risk Management BNP Paribas (Paris). Mr. Janowski has also held various positions in Project Financing at BNP Canada and was Head of Inspection Generale at BNP Paribas Head office in Paris. He was educated in France and holds a Master’s Degree in Finance.