Officers and Key Employees
Kerry Dukes, Co-founder, and Managing Partner-Mr. Dukes is responsible for Corporate Finance, Company organization, financing and compliance aspects of the business. Mr. Dukes has over 28 years of experience in the investment banking and securities industry. Prior to Ardour, Mr. Dukes served as Founder/Senior Managing Partner/Head of Global Activities of BlueStone Capital Partners from 1995 to 2001 where Mr. Dukes grew the firm’s brokerage operations from 0 to $62 million dollars in revenues and was instrumental negotiating and selling a significant interest in the company to ABN Amro Bank, N.V. for $62.5 million dollars. Prior to Bluestone, Mr. Dukes served as Chief Operating Officer and Managing Director of Commonwealth Associates from 1988 to 1995. Through his career, Mr. Dukes has managed over 100 public and private offerings. He has served on the board of numerous public companies and has testified as an industry expert witness. He has also acted as a moderator, and guest speaker at the NASD sponsored “New Issue and Regulatory Development Conference” in Washington. Mr. Dukes began his career in the management-training program at Shearson Lehman in 1982.
Brian Greenstein, Co-founder and Managing Partner-Brian has over 28 years’ experience in the financial services industry and is responsible for the development and execution of the company's capital markets activities. Prior to co-founding Ardour, Mr. Greenstein was Managing Director of Capital Markets at Bluestone Capital Partners from 1996 to 2001, where he was responsible for institutional sales and syndicate Prior to Bluestone, Mr. Greenstein was Managing Director of Institutional Sales at Commonwealth Associates from 1991 to 1996. His previous brokerage affiliations include Bear Stearns and Merrill Lynch. He was responsible for marketing the asset management services of ITT/Hartford to the qualified plan market. He began his career in the actuarial field as an associate with George Buck Consulting Actuaries in 1981.
Walter Nasdeo, Managing Director-Walter is a Managing Director in the Investment Banking group. Prior to that he supervised Ardour’s Energy Technology group and was responsible for the equity research effort. Previously Vice President of research and head of energy technology team at Bluestone Capital. At Credit Lyonnais Securities he researched consolidating industries. Walter has frequently appeared on CNBC, Bloomberg, and The BBC. He has also presented at numerous energy technology conferences and been quoted in various publications including The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, CNNMoney, CNNfn, The Street.Com, Bloomberg News, Small Times, Sustainable Business.com, Dow Jones Newswire. He has been named a Bulldog Research Award Winning Analyst for earnings accuracy. Walter received his MBA and his BBA in Entrepreneurship from the University of North Texas. He served in the U.S. Army European Operations, Berlin, Germany, and held a secret security clearance as a member of the Berlin Brigade in the 1980s.
Jean-Marc O’Brien, Director-Jean-Marc has 37 years’ experience in institutional sales, sales management, and trading. He was Director of New Business Development, Medley Global Advisors 2004-2005. He held Senior Capital Markets positions with Credit Agricole Indosuez Securities in New York, Paris and, Stockholm. Previously he was Manager of Fixed Income Sales in Paris from 1989 to 2001. He started his career at Citibank NA 1983-1989. He is a graduate of the M&T Program of the University of Pennsylvania ( Wharton and Engineering) and is fluent in five languages.
Michael Garvey, Director- Mr. Garvey has over 30 years of financial and energy experience. Mr. Garvey provides financial, strategic, development and valuation services with an emphasis on energy transition infrastructure. He has held various research and portfolio management roles at both buy-side and sell-side firms including Longbow Capital Partners, the Galleon Group, Angelo, Gordon & Co., CIBC World Markets Corp and Oppenheimer & Co. His research experience includes energy, utilities, infrastructure and related industries. Mr. Garvey holds a Bachelor of Business Administration in Accounting from Hofstra University.
Brendan Dukes, Vice President- Brendan is a highly experienced finance executive with expertise in debt capital markets and leveraged lending. Before joining Ardour Capital in 2019, Brendan served as Vice President at Madison Parker Financial. He has a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from James Madison University with a minor in Law. At Ardour Capital, Brendan focuses on transitional and renewable energy infrastructure. He leverages his deep understanding of the debt capital markets landscape to help clients achieve their financial objectives in these areas.
Advisors:
Jonathan Treacher- Jonathan has over 30 years of investment banking, fund management and board level senior management experience. He has been Chairman (formerly CEO) of Absolute Capital Management where he was instrumental in formulating and executing the successful restructuring and performance. He was a Director at Farlake Group PLC; an AIM quoted asset management business that grew from L250-800. He executed the sale of this business to a London investment bank. Share price rose from 180p to 780p. Jonathan was founder and director of an emerging markets fund Romanian Reconstruction Capital where there was a 4x value increase during his tenure. From 1998-2002 at Oakes Fitzwilliams & CO, he executed numerous corporate finance mandates. He was the co-founder of the Amoeba Fund an early stage biotechnology fund from 1998-2003. He founded Prokom A.O. a Novosibirsk, Russia focused fund which liquidated after 30% IRR was returned to investors. Previous affiliations were with European Capital Partners, Benchmark Group, Drexel Burnham Lambert1, Hill Samuel & Co Limited. His education includes advanced education at the London Business School, Hague Academy of International Law and DePaul University School of Law.
Thomas Samuelson- Tom has had a diverse 30-year career in finance. Currently, Tom is the CEO of Magellan Yates LLC which advises and supports public companies in Latin America and Emerging Markets on Digital IR initiatives.
Tom managed a Global Investment Fund focused in Emerging Markets from 2014 to 2018. From 2005 to 2013 Tom was an Equity Portfolio manager for George Weiss Associates, a Large Multi-Strategy Hedge Fund. His Geographic focus was Latin America, Greater China, and Russia. Previous to GW, Tom was a partner and founder of Miami based INCA Fund, an equity investment fund focused on Latin America. Before founding INCA Tom ran a boutique advisory firm focused on providing PIPE financing/advisory to Brazilian companies while also consulting for Acon Investments, a Private Equity fund and, TPG subsidiary.
From 1998 to 2001 Tom was head of Equities and Risk for CLSA Emerging Markets New York Office. Prior to CLSA Tom held various senior positions in sales and management for a number of Investment banks including Bear Stearns, Credit Agricole, ING/Barings, WI Carr, and Merrill Lynch. Tom has been a founder and Board Member of a number of companies including The Spanish Beisbol Network, Banco Galicia de Venezuela, and Grow VC and is an advisor to LDJ Capital, a multi-family office. He is currently on the board of directors of Atom Participacoes, an education company listed in Brazil. Tom is a graduate of Columbia University.
Jorge Ruiz del Vizo- Jorge is the founder and CEO of Black Tree Energy Group, a company that develops energy projects in North America, Europe, Western Balkans, and Latin America. He is a member of the Continental Europe Energy Council and the European Technology & Innovation Platform on Deep Geothermal. With a B.S. in Civil Engineering from Metropolitan University and a Master of Business in Development and Real Estate from the Polytechnic University in Madrid, Mr. Ruiz del Vizo holds several degrees from IESA Business School on International Hydrocarbon Business Management and Finance, as well as Climate Change and Carbon Capture and Storage from the University of Edinburgh.
Nicholaus Rohleder- Nicholaus Rohleder is the Co-Founder of Climate Commodities, a climate economy-focused platform company with operating subsidiaries in physical trading, mineral processing & refining, transportation & logistics, renewable power, insurance, and financial services. In addition to this, he teaches the Climate Technology: Finance & Policy course at the University of Pennsylvania as an Adjunct Professor and serves as a Visiting Fellow at the National Security Institute. Mr. Rohleder attended the University of Oxford, the University of Pennsylvania, and Columbia University, studying engineering and finance, and is a former Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree in the energy category.
