Board of Directors and Senior Management

Beginning his career at the London Metal Exchange, James has spent the subsequent 34 years involved in stockbroking and commodities in a variety of roles, including research analyst, equity salesman and specialist corporate broker, which covered mining finance, origination and distribution. He has worked on a wide range of projects worldwide, ranging from industrial minerals, coal, iron ore, precious metals, copper, diamonds, lithium, uranium, plantations, forestry and palm oil. Lately, he has employed his corporate governance skills, having gained substantial experience as an independent director on the boards of several quoted and unquoted companies. In addition, Mr Leahy has direct experience in capital markets, having worked at James Capel, Credit Lyonnais, Nedbank, Canaccord and Mirabaud, where he gained invaluable experience with international institutional fund managers, hedge funds, private equity and sector specialist investors. Additionally, Mr Leahy has been involved in many IPOs, as well as primary and secondary placings, and the development of junior mining companies through to production.

He is currently a director of the listed fund Geiger Counter Ltd, Savannah Resources Plc and Capital Metals Plc.

Michael is a qualified lawyer, qualified investment manager and corporate financier with a broad range of international commercial and legal experience in both Europe and the US over the last 30 years.

After graduating from the University of Cambridge, he practised as a solicitor at Linklaters in London, Hong Kong and New York, working with leading global financial institutions. He then moved to Merrill Lynch & Co. to work in both London and New York, where he became a managing director of Equity Capital Markets, with primary responsibility for origination, execution and commercial negotiation of equity and equity-linked transactions, including a series of major privatisations in the UK and EMEA regions during that time.

Since 2005, Michael has held senior roles in venture capital and portfolio companies in London and Hong Kong focusing on renewable technology companies. He was Chairman of Environmental Recycling Technologies Plc prior to his appointment to the Board of Active Energy Group in 2015. After an initial non-executive role, Michael was appointed as Chief Executive Officer of AEG in July 2018 and is currently based between London and US.

Max Aitken has founded and been instrumental in the financing of several businesses in the energy industry. He founded and is CEO of Estover Energy, a leader in the UK biomass industry which built wood-fuelled biomass CHP plants using over 700,000 tonnes of fuel annually, financed with £350m of capital. He is a trustee of the Beaverbrook Foundation in London, and President of the Beaverbrook Canadian Foundation in Montreal. He is Chairman of 3ti, a fast-growing solar EV charging business.

Jason Zimmermann has over 20 years’ experience in the timber resource sector. He is currently the President of Zimmfor Management Services Ltd (“Zimmfor”), an industry leading consulting firm focused on sustainable forestry management, and Managing Partner at GreenRaise Consulting GbmH (“GreenRaise”) and Global Forest Support GmbH (“GFS”) – both businesses focus on the implementation, maintenance and marketing/sales forest carbon offset projects. Jason has field and technical expertise relating to timberland assets worldwide and Zimmfor has worked with AEG in previous projects in Canada and Ukraine. He is a Registered Professional Forester and a graduate of the University of British Columbia with a Bachelor of Science in Forestry.

Michael is a qualified lawyer, qualified investment manager and corporate financier with a broad range of international commercial and legal experience in both Europe and the US over the last 30 years.

After graduating from the University of Cambridge, he practised as a solicitor at Linklaters in London, Hong Kong and New York, working with leading global financial institutions. He then moved to Merrill Lynch & Co. to work in both London and New York, where he became a managing director of Equity Capital Markets, with primary responsibility for origination, execution and commercial negotiation of equity and equity-linked transactions, including a series of major privatisations in the UK and EMEA regions during that time.

Since 2005, Michael has held senior roles in venture capital and portfolio companies in London and Hong Kong focusing on renewable technology companies. He was Chairman of Environmental Recycling Technologies Plc prior to his appointment to the Board of Active Energy Group in 2015. After an initial non-executive role, Michael was appointed as Chief Executive Officer of AEG in July 2018 and is currently based between London and US.

Steve Schaar is Chief Operating Officer for AEG focussing on the engineering and commercial development the CoalSwitch® program in the US. Steve has more than 25 years’ experience of operations, project development, programme management and new product experience from a broad range of industries.

Before joining AEG, Steve led a $180M capital expansion project for Burnham RNG, developing and operating renewable energy projects in the US. Prior to this role, Steve worked at Enviva Biomass, managing some of their operating production assets and acting as plant manager in the Mid-Atlantic and Wilmington regions for the production facilities at Sampson, North Carolina and Southampton, Virginia. In addition, during his career, Steve has managed global new product programs and large capital growth expansion projects for John Deere Crop Harvesting, and operations for GE Oil & Gas and Ford Motor Company.

Steve holds a Master of Business Administration from Baker College and a Bachelor of Science Degree in Automated Manufacturing Engineering Technology from the University of Akron.

Michelle Fagan appointed interim CFO November 2022. Qualified FCCA accountant with 24 years’ experience as a finance professional. Detail orientated driven CFO, highly regarded for leadership, integrity, and specialised excellences in all finance areas. After completing her training at Bank of Ireland, she then went on to roles as a CFO at Assured Asset Energy Group, Nowtel Group and Chemistry Strategic Communications.

Whilst at the Bank of Ireland, Michelle worked on Sarbanes-Oxley reporting, with the main focus being Balance sheet reporting. At Nowtel Group, she gained experience putting together a restructure of a group set of companies to combine revenue and resources to produce a targeted net profit and improve shareholder return on investment. Throughout her CFO role at Assured Asset Energy Group, she was responsible for complex model reporting to private equity funders.

Brian has spent his entire professional career in the energy industry including natural gas trading, coal buying, coal selling and most recently biomass sales.

After he graduated from Thomas More College, Brian began working in the natural gas industry with a broker that bought and sold natural gas to commercial and industrial users. He then got his start in coal with Duke (a large US power generator) where he bought coal for their midwestern plants. Later, Brian transitioned over to the coal sales side of the business with now Appalachian Resource Co. While at Appalachian Resource Co he’s held the role of VP of Sales and Marketing giving him responsibility of all US domestic and export sales of both thermal and metallurgical coals.