Solar 350 is pleased to welcome onboard two very experienced project procurement experts to lead our South American business development programme. Axel Schmid will be heading-up our growing deal stream in South America, assisted by Jennifer Rivera Opazo. Together they bring with them the expert local business knowledge and contacts that are essential for operating projects like ours. Our team now brings together Chinese solar industrial partners (led by Bill Goldie) European and American financial partners (led by CFO Justin Passfield) and European engineering and carbon trading services (led by Nick Dimmock and Doug Marett of Grue og Hornstrup A/s). In his role as Head of Project Origination, Axel joins Bill, Justin, Nick and Doug to complete our Fab Five senior management team.
Axel has over 23 years of professional experience in the photovoltaic industry and telecoms, as well as spending some of that time as a management consultant and coach. After graduating in Industrial Engineering and completing a postgraduate in Psychology, his first management role was at telecoms tech OEM Siemens in Munich, moving on to work at various locations in Europe as a senior management consultant before taking up a five year stint as the sales director for semiconductors in Glasgow. In 2011 he founded SolSet renewables in Chile, where one of his roles was acting as the local Commercial Director for LTi Re-Energy, part of German automation and electrical engineering giant Körber Group.
Axel brings expert local knowledge of the Latin American renewables industry into our local operations, based in Chile. He is joined by Jennifer Rivera Opazo, also an engineering graduate with a background in mechanical and agricultural technology, quality assurance processes and financial management for consulting firm Norval. For the last five years, Jennifer has been the CFO of Solset and has worked with Axel developing and managing renewable projects as part of his team.
By joining Solar 350, Axel and Jennifer complete our ideal line-up of senior management with experience of both engineering and renewables, combined with financial operations and international deal structuring. It also means we will be accelerating our South Atacama projects and expanding our operations to include more highly profitable renewable energy projects, which in turn means we can offset even more CO2e with commercial means in this global hotspot for solar power development.
Our Latin America team is building the kind of renewable investments that provide sustainable reductions in carbon emissions, using the optimal mix of technologies, financial incentives and geography needed to build commercially viable solar energy generation. It takes an experienced multidisciplinary team to pull it off, and we’re delighted to announce ours is up and running. As we announced in January, 2015 continues to be very successful year for the 350 group.