Project Finance Expertise Meets Innovation for 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 M 120MW On-Shore Wind farm in Vietnam
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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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Ugochukwu Ihejirika
Chief Risk Officer
16+ years Global Experience in Legal, Finance and Compliance
14+ years as Legal Executive, Corporate Secretary
and ArbitratorBoard Member and Strategic Advisor to SMEs
MIPAD Top 100 in support of the United Nations
Chair, UN Working Group on SGDs and
Sustainability, UNGCNAdvisory Board Member, Axiom Law
Faculty Member and Fellow,
Chartered Institute of Arbitrators UKChartered Secretary, The Governance Institute UK
University College London | New York Bar
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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