The Vireo Team

Advisors Council

Samuel Leupold

Global energy marketsRenewables & energy system

Samuel Leupold is a 52-year-old Swiss citizen who worked in the energy industry during his whole professional life.

Today he is an independent director on the boards of global energy companies and serves a number of selected clients as senior advisor. Apart from being Chairman of the Board of Corio, Macquarie’s global development platform for offshore wind, he serves on the board of directors of Enel S.p.A, one of the world’s largest utility companies, as well as on the board of Schlumberger Ltd, the leading global provider of oil field technology and services.

Prior to this, Samuel was the CEO of Ørsted Wind Power Ltd in Denmark (formerly DONG Wind Power Ltd). During his time as CEO, he transformed the  European-focused start-up company into the world’s largest and most profitable offshore wind player, with projects in Europe, North America, and Asia.

Earlier in his career, Samuel was Executive Vice President for Commodity Trading at Swiss utility BKW where he was also responsible for the Company’s generation asset portfolio in Germany and Italy. During his career, Samuel has worked at McKinsey & Company and for engineering and technology group ABB Power Generation, as well.

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Louise Hahn

Nordic energy marketsB2C & B2B markets

Louise has 18 years of experience from the energy industry and digital infrastructure in Northern Europe. Louise currently holds the position as CEO of GlobalConnect Denmark, owned by EQT and operating 149,000 km of fiber network and 34,500 sqm of data center in Northern Europe. In this role, Louise drives business development utilizing data & digital infrastructure as well as best practices for handling cyber security on CEO and board level.

Prior to this role, Louise was MD for Ørsted A/S consumer business. She led the transformation to a state-of-the-art digital business and operating model, including an app for customers which was awarded Danish Digital Award in 2020 and today has >50% of activation level. Louise has among other things worked with anthropologists and architects to understand consumer interactions with energy, electrification, and the green transformation as well as brand identity and storytelling. Louise also worked with Ørsted’s venture capital entity in Paolo Alto/Silicon Valley to identify opportunities for expanding Ørsted’s business to the green transformation of private homes.

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Dr. Carl-Peter Forster

Global automotive & mobility marketsMobility & logistics

Carl-Peter has more than 30 years of experience in the automotive and mobility sector holding executive and board positions on three continents. Carl-Peter started his career in the automotive sector at BMW in the engineering department where, after a stint as MD for South Africa, he was the Executive Board Member for Production. He then spent ten years at General Motors, first as CEO of Opel, COO of GM Europe and then President of GM Europe and a member of the Global Automotive Board. He later moved to the Asian side of the automotive industry, first as CEO and MD to Tata Motors and then as member of the board for Geely Automotive and Volvo Cars.

Over the past decade, Carl-Peter has increasingly shifted his focus from the executive towards the board and investor side, connecting the traditional automotive industry with the new mobility world. In that spirit, Carl-Peter held/still holds numerous board positions such as Chairman of the Board at HELLA, Vesuvius, Chemring, Store.Dot, and member of the boards of Babcock International Group, Kinexon, Gordon Murray Design, The Mobility House, LeddarTech, and Envisics.

Carl-Peter combines his long-standing experience in the automotive and assembly industry with his passion for breakthrough technologies and innovations to support companies and startups with transformative impact on industries, society and environment.

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Dr. Marie-Theres Thiell

CCE energy marketsGrid & infrastructure

Marie-Theres has 30 years of experience in the energy and grid industry in Continental and Eastern Europe. 


Until 2020, she was the EVP Eastern Europe of RWE/innogy SE and at the same time Chair of the Board of Power Supply Budapest and North-East Hungary. During that time, she passionately spearheaded the buildup of innogy´s Smart City activities by combining traditional infrastructure and technical competencies with new electrification and digital business models from the startup world, leveraging her extensive personal network in the corporate world and with municipal and government stakeholders. 

 

At present, Marie-Theres is the Managing Partner of the business network „DialogUngarn“ and board member of the German-Hungarian Chamber of Commerce in Budapest – a role in which she helps public and private stakeholders to seek and pursue new business opportunities between Germany and Eastern Europe. Another topic Marie-Theres is particularly passionate about is inter-connecting and supporting women in business, and in that spirit she is part of the Association of German Entrepreneurs (VdU) with executive roles in the VdU Landesverband Westfalen and the International Commission.

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Christopher Burghardt

Benelux/US energy & mobility marketsRenewables & e-mobility

Christopher (Chris) Burghardt is a seasoned impact entrepreneur and c-suite executive active as an independent advisor across technology, energy, mobility and sustainability. Chris was until most recently a member of ChargePoint’s executive management team responsible for leading all aspects of the company’s international growth. Prior to this, Chris held senior executive roles at Uber, First Solar, Anheuser-Busch InBev, Daimler, and Hill+Knowlton Strategies.

Chris holds an MBA in Finance from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, an MA from the College of Europe in Bruges, and a BA from the University of Sussex and the Institut d’Etudes Politiques of Aix-en-Provence. Chris is a dual Belgian/German national and lives in Brussels with his wife and three young children.

Chris is passionate about driving the transformation at the intersection of clean-tech and sustainability that is imperative for society.

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The Vireo Venture Partners

Jason Rees

Venture Partner

Jason has 25 years’ experience holding senior leadership positions at start-up, scale up and corporate level with a focus on strategy, operational and commercial delivery, and growth to exit. He has served on multiple boards including a competitive Joint Venture and founded and ran a consulting start-up. He is excited and driven by the need to make the low carbon, electrified and digitised future a reality to make a more sustainable and equitable world.

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Johanna Holmström

Venture Partner

Johanna has over 25 years experience in finance, strategy, venture capital and fundraising in the venture space, both for funds and start-ups. She has deep knowledge in the Nordic sustainable ecosystem, where she has recently also founded a company. Apart from supporting Vireo, Johanna is outspoken about sustainable growth, impact investing and the importance to include hardware in investment mandates, in order to save our planet.

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Niels Ellwanger

Venture Partner

Niels has 30 years experience in the energy industry. He is CEO of con|energy ag. Niels co-founded con | energy and several other companies and invests in companies within the energy & mobility sectors. Niels holds a Diploma and a PhD from University of Duisburg-Essen.

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Philipp Elsen

Venture Partner

Philipp is the founding partner of an international M&A firm and a seasoned dealmaker with deep knowhow in the eMobility, SaaS, and eCommerce space.​Leveraging his global PE, family office and strategic investor network, he is focused on exits of founder-led companies. After his studies in Lisbon and Maastricht, where he is a regular guest lecturer, he has worked in investment banking and founded several companies.

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Thomas W. Thomas

Venture Partner

Thomas has more than 20 years of experience holding senior management positions in the energy industry, with a strong focus on strategy, portfolio/risk management, and large M&A and commodity transactions. Thomas was Managing Director at innogy Ventures GmbH, leading the venture capital activities for innogy SE (former RWE AG) focusing on series A to D financing rounds in Europe, North America and Israel. In this capacity, he was serving multiple boards of portfolio companies. In addition, he founded and ran two start-ups in consulting and e-commerce. He holds a PhD in Economics from Witten/Herdecke University and was visiting scholar at University of California, Berkeley.

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