The GCE management team has extensive financial and operational backgrounds in the renewable energy, manufacturing, IP, IT fields, having built and sold companies in the hundreds of million-of dollars over the last 20 years. With broad experience in many disciplines and industries, our customers have ranged from large independents through to government agencies, mass distribution entities and Fortune 1000 companies. The team’s industry background affords the company with vital insight and a valuable network of plant construction, manufacturing and EPC resources.
Dr. Earl Azimov, Chief Executive Officer
Dr. Earl Azimov has been the Chief Executive Officer and President of Global Clean Energy, Inc. since April 30, 2009.
He served as the Chairman of Global Clean Energy, Inc. from August 2006 to April 30, 2009 and he has been a Director of Global Clean Energy Inc. since August 29, 2006.
Dr. Azimov served and co-founded Miazzi Internet Ventures Inc. where he has assumed leadership roles in early stage companies since 1996, including Mamma.com, which was sold in 1999 for an eight-figure valuation.
He has 20 years of private equity experience, focusing on seed capital investments in early stage companies. He has been active as an advisor and board member of the PME startup fund since 2003 and is an accredited commodity trading advisor (CTA).
From 1992 to 1995, Dr. Azimov co-founded a national Optical Center that was sold to National Vision Associates of Atlanta, which operated the Wal-Mart Vision Centers.
Dr. Azimov has a Bachelor of Science from the University of South Carolina and a Doctorate of Optometry from the University of Montreal School of Optometry, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
Steven R. Mann, Chief Development Officer
Steven R. Mann has a solid background in renewable energy projects dating back to the mid 1980s. At this time, he championed a 3rd-party funded solar technology which allowed condominium communities to leverage solar energy without any upfront investment. From this implementation, these communities enjoyed a shared savings program which saved up to 15% on the energy bills. Some of those solar systems are still currently in operation.
Mr. Mann founded MicroEnergies in 2007 to fill the niche of smaller on-site waste-to-energy projects. He currently is developing alternative energy projects that would convert waste tires and plastics into fuel and carbon char. Mr. Mann has proven his skill in business and leadership at executive levels, through managing over 200 employees, while building the business he founded into one of the nation’s largest companies in its category successfully selling the company to private equity in early 2007.
MicroEnergies currently has numerous waste to fuel projects in development. Some of these include feedstock agreements for waste plastics and waste tires using proven conversion technologies that will convert the waste into high value marketable fuel. As well, there exist off-take agreements for gasoline, naphtha, diesel and jet fuel. MicroEnergies has merged with GCEI to accelerate the development of energy projects in their development division
Hakim Zahar, Chief Technology Officer With more than 35 years of experience in the clean energy and environment sectors, Mr. Zahar has implemented more than 400 successful programs/projects in both developed and developing countries. Since 2002, Mr. Zahar became very active in the climate change mitigation and adaptation fields with several references in Asian and African countries and around the World. Mr. Zahar is familiar with coordination, management, strengthening and delivery of demand-driven practical services to a large team of experts.
In January 2010, Mr. Zahar joined the International Finance Corporation (IFC)- World Bank Group as Program Manager (STC) to develop a resource efficiency program targeting the SSA region. The program has a cross-sectoral approach to achieve sustainable results in different environments. During this period, he also developed a resource efficiency program targeting the mining sector. In addition, he developed a governmental program for the residential sector in Seychelles targeting the set-up of a guarantee fund to facilitate the funding of interventions in clean energy (Energy efficiency and renewable energy). Also, he contributed to develop pilot clean energy projects in several sector-specific interventions: pulp and paper, glass, agri-business, chemical and tourism.
With a large experience in developing and implementing innovative programs like ESCOs, Mr. Zahar can deliver expert services related to clean energy in partnership with local and international stakeholders. |