Expertise Meets Innovation in Climate Action
About Us
SPONSOR’s team of project finance experts, AI engineers, and data scientists, are committed to streamline climate deal structuring to enable the industry to scale.
Mobilizing capital to meet the climate funding gap at the pace needed requires combining expert knowledge with the latest technology in a scalable, streamlined solution accessible to all.
Meet Our Co-Founders
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Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer
•17-years in Finance
•12-years in Project Finance
•7-year Entrepreneur
•~$30bn in Project Finance deals
•Experience in 20+ countries & on 80+ deals
• SMBC, Nomura, US DOE, ADB, Lehman
•Stanford, Thunderbird, Western Michigan University
•World Bank Report: Enabling Institutional Investment In Climate-Smart Infrastructure
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Co-Founder & Chief Technology Officer
•21-years in Software Engineering
•17-year startup veteran
•10-year CTO/Head of Engineering
•Cross platform development
•Process automation and pipelines
•Analytics and data visualization
•Rights management
•Expert in bringing technology from 0-1
•University of Manitoba
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•Co-Founder & Head of Business Development and Investor Relations
•Ambassador for Peace & Tolerance: International Royal Diplomatic Club for United Nations
•11-years in Garments industries, Shipbreaking, commodities trading
•6-years in Finance| Project & Trade
• USD$900+ Million annually in trade finance for south Asian countries
•12+ countries - project & trade finance deals
Our team experience includes past involvement often as financial advisor, lender or deal lead in dozens of deals.
Involvement as Roles and Renewable Energy Projects
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USD 2.8 BN 804MW Vineyard Wind Off-Shore Wind Project
USD $12BN 3.5-gigawatt Sunzia onshore Wind Farm and 550-mile Transmission
USD 150 MM 69MW Kawailoa Wind On-Shore Wind Project
USD $5.9BN Champlain Hudson Power Express 339 miles Transmission Line
USD 150 MM 120MW AES DE Distributed Solar Portfolio
USD $300 million green loan for 44MW Vantage 13 Data Center Construction
USD $1.3BN financing for 100MW Edged / Koch Data Center Construction
USD $572 million 468MW Orsted / Energy Capital Partners Wind and Solar Equity Sale
USD $410 million 862MW Orsted / Energy Capital Partners Wind and Solar Equity Sale
USD 167 MM 222MW Invenergy On-Shore Wind (Japan) Project
USD 1.8 BN 725MW Calpine Geysers Geothermal Project
USD 1.6 BN 330MW Sarulla Geothermal Project
USD $9.5BN JFK Airport New Terminal One Redevelopment Project
USD $29.4BN financing for Intel / Brookfield Semiconductor Manufacturing Facility
USD $4.2BN JFK Airport Terminal 6&7 Redevelopment Project
450MW solar + BESS project in Puerto Rico under Tranche I
100MW solar + BESS project in Puerto Rico under Tranche II
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300+80MW solar farm in Argentina bidding under RenovAr
30MW solar farm in India
USD 200 MM 120MW On-Shore Wind farm in Vietnam
Sumitomo Corporation for the USD 3.0 BN Van Phong I Coal-Fired Project
Marubeni & KEPCO for the USD 2.3 BN Nghi Son 2 Coal-Fired Project
EGCO and Diamond Generation for the 800MW & 400MW Sumsel 9 & 10 Coal-Fired Project competitive tender
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1 GW Solar, On-shore Wind, and Energy Storage Hybrid Project in the Caribbean
Meet the Team
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Stacy Charles
Chief Marketing Officer
•20+ years in Integrated Go-to-Market Strategy
•14+ years in Tech, Media & Telecom
•Enterprise SaaS | Digital Media Platform as a Service
•Strategic, Brand & Product Marketing | Sales Enablement, PR, AR, SEO / SEM
•Caribbean Climate Resilience
•Verizon | Financial Times | ATN | Viya | Fazer
•Thunderbird MBA | HEC Paris | Rutgers
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Dana MacKinnon
Head of Financial Institutions & Lending
•20 years in Banking
•10 years in Project Finance and Aviation
•Group Head and Team Leader
•Relationship Management and Originations
•Project finance lender for various asset types: Renewable Energy | Critical Infrastructure| Data Centers
•Thunderbird, MBA | Saint Michael’s College, MA | UMASS, Amherst, BA.
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Seun Oloruntimehin
Chief Legal Officer
•14 years Legal Counsel
•International Contracts & Transaction law, Arbitration, M&A, Corporate Law, Property Law
•Axiom, Advisory Board and Managing Consultant
•Faculty Member, Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (CIAb)
•Chair UN Working Group, United Nations Global Compact
•University College London
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Goran Mickovski
Chief Advisor
•20 years in finance and law
•5 years with fintech/banking/tech start-ups as director
•4 years in government as minister for FDI
•Expertise in sourcing finance/fundraising
•Policy development
•Business development
•Risk and regulatory compliance management
•University of Melbourne
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Doddy Astra
Head of Indonesia
•30+ years in renewable energy (geothermal)
•5+ years in field operation and maintenance steam power plant
•3+ years in health, environment and safety
•Geothermal resources exploration, reservoir management and surveillance
•M.Sc ITB Bandung, Indonesia, MBA VUT Melbourne, Australia
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Mahfuzur Rahman
Head of Bangladesh
•15 years in Urban Planning & Architecture
•Business development, marketing, advertising for corporations, innovative startups, and global brands
•Investment structuring and financial planning
•Investment advisor on trade finance, project funding, and corporate investment solutions
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Nipunika Kabadi
Product Manager
•12 years in financial technology global product management
•10 years in technology development
•5 year Entrepreneur
•MBA certification, Rutgers University
•BA Computer Science, Rutgers University
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Katheryne Brokate
Designer
•17+ years in Design and User Experience
•7+ years as Lead Product Designer
•Strategic design execution for B2B and B2C
•Designed solutions for streaming media, e-commerce, and digital publishing
•8+ years in Senior Design roles
•Ringling College of Art and Design, Minneapolis College of Art and Design
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Farnoosh Khodakami
Senior AI Engineer
•15+ years in Software Engineering
•8+ years in Machine Learning & AI
•Generative AI, MLOps, Graph Analytics, Biotech & Enterprise AI applications
•Computer Vision, NLP, and Multimodal AI, Scalable AI infrastructure and high-performance computing
•Ph.D. in Computer Science , Amir Kabir University
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Zahra Sarayloo
Senior AI Engineer
•10+ years in AI, machine learning & deep learning
•3+ years leading AI-driven product development
•Expert in LLMs, retrieval–augmented generation, natural language processing, Generative AI
•Expert in transformers, reinforcement learning, diffusion models, graph neural networks, computer vision and agentic AI systems
•Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering
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Jaleel McDowell
Software Engineer
•12 years in Game & Software Engineering
•5 years in multiple start-up environments
•2 years as Lead Software Engineering Manager
•Expert in full-stack development
•Experienced in mobile development
•Experienced in developing 0-1 scalable software.
•Experienced in DevOps and server architecture
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Hamish Anderson
Software Engineer
•10 years in Software Engineering
•2 years Engineering Manager
•0-1 Specialist
•Cloud Architect
•University of Sydney
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Nick Jang
Software Engineer
•10+ years in SaaS Engineering & Development
•5+ years in Healthcare & Fintech Enterprise Solutions
•5+ years in Geospatial & Cloud Innovation Development
•3+ years in Technology & Engineering Leadership
•BS in Computer Science from Simon Fraser University
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Haylemicheal Mekonnen
Software Engineer
•5 years in Software Engineering
•Expert in coding and developing AI applications
•Completed 10 Academy’s Data Engineering, Machine Learning, and Web 3 program.
•BA Computer Engineering, Addis Ababa Science & Technology University
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Misganaw Mekennen
Software Engineer
•3 years in Software Engineering
•Good at both front-end and back-end development.
•Completed 10 Academy's Data Enginering,
•Machine learning and Generative AI program.
•BA in Electrical and computer engineering
Meet Our Advisors
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Mike Barrow
Senior Advisor
•38+ years in project finance, corporate finance, development finance
•18 years at the Asian Development Bank (ADB)
•PF advisory, PF sponsor, capital markets, & restructuring
•Infrastructure, energy, financial institutions, & climate finance
•Regional expertise in Asia-Pacific, Europe, MENA
•Morgan Grenfell | Deutsche Bank | Asian Development Bank| Itochu Corporation | SMBC
•Asia Climate Partners Fund – Board member
•InfraBlocks Capital – Advisory Board member
•Seraya Partners – Senior Advisor
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Takamitsu Ito
Senior Advisor, Japan
•20 years in Information Technology
•14 years as C-level executive – COO, CFO, Country Manager both in the US and Japan
•7 years in Corporate Finance – in Start-ups and Public Companies.
•Ex-Investment Banker – M&A
•MBA from Thunderbirds, Global School of Management
•BS in Finance and Information System from New York University
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Ryan Galloway
VC Advisor
•17 years in Financial Services
•Country Director Funding Societies Vietnam
•Serial start-up veteran
•CFO, Board Member, or Advisor to many start-ups
•Multiple successful IPOs and exits
•MBA & JD Law & Finance
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Peter Attanasio
KYC Advisor
•49 years of experience in the banking industry
•10 years AML | KYC | Regulatory Operations | Client Onboarding
•25 years sales middle market relationship management , 8 years domestic & international correspondent banking, U.S. regulatory consent JPMorgan Chase | Intesa Sanpaolo S.p.A. | Apple Bank | Ridgewood Savings Bank
•St. John's University MBA & BS
•Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialist
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Hemali Shah
Data and Analytics Advisor
•14 years of Financial Industry
•8 years of leadership in Digital, Data & Analytics
•6 years in Software Development & Innovation
•MBA (Finance) University of Alabama, Birmingham
•B.E. Electronics Engineering, PUNE University
SPONSOR is being built by experts in finance, renewable energy, machine learning and technology.
Discover opportunities to join our team