Jacques has been a member of the CBOE since 1998 when he started trading single stock equity options as a local market maker. In 2004 Jacques joined Consolidated Trading where he headed their S&P 100 (OEX) index operation. In 2007, Jacques left Consolidated to become a founding partner at TORO Capital Management, where he was appointed to several CBOE advisory committees such as the VIX and Index Market Performance. In 2016, Jacques became a partner at Lupo Holdings, Inc., and is a managing member of MDF trading where he currently manages the S&P 500 derivative portfolio. Jacques graduated from St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia.
Eli D. Scher is an investor and operator with a deep analytical skill set developed across a broad range of securities and industries. He has invested in and built Technology Media and Telecommunications businesses in both China and the United States. He was most recently the founder and CEO of New Continuum Holdings Corporation a greater Chicago region data center and internet exchange point (IXP) operator before selling that business to SBA Communications.
Prior to founding New Continuum, Scher worked as an investment analyst at multi-strategy hedge funds where he analyzed corporate securities. He served as Vice Chairman of the board of Plastec Technologies from the time of the merger until Plastec disposed of its operating assets and returned capital to investors through special dividends. Earlier in his career, Scher spent 5 years living in Shanghai China where he co-founded and served as CEO of GSME Capital Partners, a private, early-stage investment partnership, and GSME Acquisition Partners I, a publicly traded special purpose acquisition corporation (SPAC). In his role as co-founder and CEO of GSME Capital Partners, Scher served as CFO of MCG Shanghai, a subway-based networked large format LED-screen advertising company and President of Fundamental Films a film distribution company. As CEO of GSME Acquisition Partners Scher led all aspects of capital formation, target identification, deal structuring and closing on the merger with Plastec Technologies, a precision manufacturer.
Currently he advises several digital infrastructure businesses and investors and serves as the Chairman of the Open-IX Association, a data center and internet exchange standards organization. Additionally, he serves on the board of directors of HMMI, a closely-held, WOSB, oversize precision steel parts fabricator. Scher resides in New York City with his wife and twin 8 year old daughters. He is a graduate of Princeton University.
Jose Lima is a founding member of Quartz Energy Partners, an energy and infrastructure advisory firm based in Houston.
Prior to the formation of Quartz in 2016, Lima spent 27 years at Shell, starting in his native Brazil and going on to the company’s natural gas, LNG, renewables and petrochemical operations around the world. Lima held several senior positions in London and in the Americas, including president of Shell U.S. Gas and Power. He was also responsible for new business development and joint ventures for Shell Chemicals, serving on the boards in companies in Japan, Singapore, Saudi Arabia and the United States, bringing a diverse geographical and cultural experience. Lima has also served on several executive and non-executive boards, including Petrobras and Prumo Logistics in Brazil, the American Chemistry Council and other nonprofits such as the Houston Grand Opera. Today he is particularly interested in the interface of energy, infrastructure and technology, especially as it relates to AI applications.
Lima holds a civil engineering degree and an MBA from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro and extension programs from ESSEC and INSEAD in France.
Tom Kieffer is a career-long technology entrepreneur. His most recent venture was Virteva, an IT services provider he founded in 2005 and merged to become Crossfuze in 2019, where he remains on the board. Tom was an early participant in the PC industry in 1981, and founded Connect, an information technology consulting and services provider, in 1986. Following Connect’s merger with Norstan in 1996, Kieffer served as Norstan’s Executive Vice President of Strategy and Business Development until 1998. In the dotcom boom he founded Agiliti, a pioneer in cloud computing and Software-as-a-Service that was ultimately sold to SunGard in 2007. Tom has also built successful IT skills training company (Connect Education Services) and an enterprise software company (Oculan.)
He serves on several Boards of technology firms, enjoys mentoring entrepreneurs and growth companies, is an active early-stage investor, and continues to dabble with several startup ideas. Tom was awarded a technology device patent in 1988, authored, ‘Get Connected, A Guide to Telecommunications’ in 1983, and is an active pilot, adventurer and grandparent.
Marshall Johnson is an entrepreneur and leader with a passion and successful track record of growing companies. Marshall founded North Point Capital Partners, a private equity firm created to acquire and operate high potential companies. North Point Capital acquired Asset Recovery, an IT services provider. Marshall served as CEO and implemented strategies to generate record revenue and profitability. Asset Recovery was successfully sold to Arrow Electronics.
Prior to founding North Point Capital Partners, Marshall was the Vice President of Sales and Operations for Weathernews, a weather risk management company. Previously he worked at Amoco Oil in various marketing and management roles. Currently, in addition to serving as an advisor on the Board of Directors at Compute North, Marshall is Managing Director of Arctic Capital, an acquisition holding company.
Marshall received his MBA from Duke University and his BA from Bucknell University. He is on the board of directors of Columbus Hydraulics and Think Small, a non-profit that promotes early childhood education. Previously boards include Parsons Electric and Parent Aware for School Readiness. Marshall is a member of YPO (Young Presidents Organization.)
PJ Lee is a Chairman and Co-Founder of Compute North and a sustainability and innovation infrastructure investor with over 27 years of experience in finance, energy and technology.
PJ has founded, cofounded, invested in and served on the boards of numerous companies in asset management, infrastructure and technology including: EverStream Capital Management, Enfinity Global, NewPath Energy Capital, and several others involved in areas such as solar, wind, geothermal, green methane, green hydrogen, compressed and liquefied natural gas, waste to value, energy efficiency, telecommunications, fiber optics, electrical and data center equipment manufacturing. PJ was a co-founder of EverStream Yield, the predecessor company of TerraForm Power (NASDAQ: TERP), which was one of the world’s largest aggregators and operators of solar and wind projects and now owned by Brookfield Renewable Partners (NYSE: BEP).
During his career, PJ has helped facilitate over $10 billion of financing for infrastructure projects, energy and technology companies and private equity funds.
PJ also worked as an investment banker for 8 years in Silicon Valley and 4 years in emerging market energy, sustainability and infrastructure project finance with Chase Manhattan Bank in Hong Kong and New York. PJ graduated from Union College in New York.
Nate Hubert is a 20-year veteran of the IT and managed security services space, and is exceptionally attuned to the cryptocurrency industry. He was also a co-founder of SecureConnect, and managed and scaled the data center and operations team from its founding to the eventual sale to Trustwave. Since leaving Trustwave, Mr. Hubert has served in a Product Management leadership capacity at WAND Corporation, driving forward their technical product offerings. Mr. Hubert has a passion for technology and scaling both systems and processes. He holds a BS in Economics from the University of Minnesota.
Jeff Jackson is a business development leader with a core competency in renewable energy site development, project implementation and transactions. He is passionate about Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance (ESG) and energy markets.
Jeff has held project development and M&A roles for leading renewable energy independent power producers (IPP)’s. He has secured roughly 100,000 acres of property across the United States, originated over 1200MW of new renewable projects and led project development at two operating wind projects. Prior to coming to Compute North, Jeff led business development and marketing for the wind business unit of the largest renewable Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) firm in the United States.
Jeff has a BA in Economics from Saint John’s University in Minnesota. When he is not thinking about power markets and future applications of blockchain technology, Jeff enjoys outdoor adventures with his wife and three young children. On most days, he can be found having dance parties with his children while simultaneously doing household tasks.
David is a technology lawyer with more than twenty years of experience helping clients develop and implement strategies to leverage their intellectual assets, mitigate risk and create alignment with their business objectives. As Compute North’s General Counsel, David is responsible for overseeing the company’s worldwide legal affairs.
Prior to joining Compute North, David worked in private practice where he represented a wide range of clients, from startups and early-stage companies to publicly traded corporations, not-for-profits, and governmental bodies. He covered a wide range of areas, working with clients on business and technology issues such as intellectual property protection, enforcement and monetization, technology transfer, litigation, mergers and acquisitions, equity investment and data privacy.
David earned his juris doctorate, magna cum laude, from American University Washington College of Law, his bachelor’s degree in computer science from the University of Puget Sound, and is registered to practice before the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
Kristyan Mjolsnes is a strategic marketing leader with more than 15 years of experience in developing, implementing and optimizing omnichannel marketing programs in the cybersecurity and financial services sectors.
Prior to joining Compute North, Kristyan served as the worldwide demand generation leader at Trustwave. As an experienced technology marketer, she brings a breadth of knowledge, global perspective and energy to the team. Kristyan has been a part of, and led, many different aspects of the marketing organization including field, channel and partner, product, and corporate marketing as well as business development. She was also part of the team that helped build SecureConnect, a managed security, data center and internet service provider, ultimately leading to the successful sale of the company to Trustwave in 2013. Kristyan has a passion for building a brand, creating a strategy to win in the market, and working collaboratively with commercial leaders to generate growth opportunities, develop pipeline and drive revenue.
Kristyan has a Bachelor’s in Business Administration from Hamline University, with a focus in Marketing and Economics. In her free time, Kristyan enjoys travelling with her husband and three children.
A 25-year veteran of the IT and information security industry, Dave has been keenly immersed in the cryptocurrency mining industry and blockchain technology since its formative days. He founded and subsequently sold two technology companies, including an Internet Service Provider/Managed Security Provider, SecureConnect, which was acquired by Trustwave Holdings in 2012. He also served as CEO of Wand Corporation, a leading point-of-sale and Digital Menu board provider to the Quick Service Restaurant industry. Dave has extensive experience in networking, data center engineering, scaling large IT systems, and security. He holds a BS in Management Information Systems and an MBA in Finance from the University of Minnesota. Dave has been a member of YPO (Young Presidents Organization) since 2015 as part of the Twin Cities (Minneapolis, Minnesota) chapter.
Kyle Wenzel is an energetic, instinctive, and highly motivated sales management professional with a consistent record of achieving break-out revenue and profitable organizational development. His more than 15 years in Fortune 100 and emerging market experience positions Compute North for rapid, scalable growth.
Prior to Compute North, Kyle was instrumental in SAP’s SMB business where he spent nearly 7 years helping grow the organization to $600M+ and was part of the senior leadership team. He is passionate about building high-performing teams with a culture-first mentality, and his contagious energy pushes all those around him to thrive to new heights.
Kyle has a BS in Marketing and Management from the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management. He is married with two kids and stays busy with an active real estate business and the occasional round of golf.
Drake has focused on delivering organizational excellence in B2B and B2C businesses for the last 25 years. He has led a number of high growth startups, most recently serving as a senior leader at Web.com.
Throughout his career in operational leadership roles in telecom, technology and SaaS businesses, he has maintained a hands-on approach with an emphasis on team building and organizational effectiveness. His diverse background gives him a unique perspective on achieving success with a focus on improving customer support, client satisfaction and on-time delivery.
Drake holds a BS in Business Administration from the University of Delaware.
Nelu Mihai is a technology executive and computer scientist, bringing more than 30 years of experience to Compute North. He started his career as a researcher in distributed operating systems at several prestigious European nuclear institutes and universities. At Ready Systems, Nelu built VRTXmc, a microkernel deployed in more than one billion processors. As Division Manager at AT&T Bell Labs, he pioneered the principles of cloud computing (Geoplex project), open programmable networks (now SDN) and received the AT&T award for “pioneering role in developing AT&T’s Internet Architecture.” Nelu served as CEO of CPlane, an early pioneer of SDN. As EVP at CloudShield and Packeteer, his teams built high-performance, open platforms for DPI, NPU-based network security solutions, and IShaper, the first Branch-Office-in-a-Box system in the industry. From there, Nelu held senior leadership positions at SunEdison and Enphase where he pioneered the AC PV modules, introduced the first ASIC-based microinverter into mass production and large-scale, public cloud real-time SaaS for solar systems.
Since 2014, Nelu has focused on multi-cloud computing, AI and blockchain as founder and CEO of Composure.ai (formerly Mosaixsoft). He also leads “Cloud of Clouds,” an open-source project building a theoretical model of multi-cloud computing based on the product and technology of Composure.ai and Mosaixsoft.
Nelu Mihai holds an MS in Computer Science from University “Politehnica” of Bucharest, Romania. He did his Ph.D. work at CERN Geneva, Switzerland.
Tad Piper acts as a catalyst to growth for emerging businesses. He has spent over a decade working with early stage companies and was a nationally recognized Wall Street research leader in the software and technology marketplace. Tad has served in roles ranging from CEO, President, CFO, Chief Strategy Officer and Product Development, helping drive innovation and sales to achieve rapid growth across multiple industries. His broad background in financial and business analysis, market strategy, and operational leadership has allowed him to quickly assimilate with diverse leadership teams to focus on early market traction, raising capital and success.
Tad has a BA from Williams College, a graduate diploma in Financial Analysis from Stirling University, Scotland and is a Charter Financial Analyst charter holder.
Tad is married with two kids and enjoys biking, Nordic skiing, and spending time with extended family.
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