Board & Governance

Céline Bak

Céline Bak is President of Analytica Advisors and Associated Partner of Kearney, a global management consulting firm with a 100-year history of serving corporate clients. She holds an MBA from Bath University and has 30 years of international business experience in more than 25 countries. Bak’s career has spanned global management consulting to Fortune 100 companies, management of high-growth companies in telecoms as well, as leadership in international energy, investment, and climate policy. In 2018, the President of France knighted her for mobilizing the Canadian private sector to support signing of the Paris Agreement by 195 countries in 2015.

Céline is engaged with leaders globally in the private sector, government, and climate diplomacy. She enjoys working with others to build the institutional capacity needed to develop and execute business strategies aimed at addressing both the physical risks brought about by climate change and the business, social, and industrial opportunities that come with stabilizing the climate and keeping warming to 1.5 ºC.

As a Board member of ERA and Chair of ERA’s Audit, Investment and Finance Committee, Bak contributes to the work of her board and management colleagues through governance processes such as risk management, strategic planning, governance and reporting, energy and climate, sustainability and environment, technology and innovation, as well as communications, government and stakeholder relations.

Bak is trilingual in English, French, and Spanish.

Mark Blackwell

Mark Blackwell is a General Partner at Builders VC, which is a leading venture capital fund with $400 million in assets under management (AUM) investing in the future of agriculture, industrials, and the built world. Previously, Mark was a Product Manager at SolarWinds, which develops IT monitoring and network management tools. Mark joined SolarWinds when it acquired GNS3 Technologies ($30MM), an enterprise networking startup where Mark was the Chief Operating Officer. While there, Mark contributed to over 1MM monthly active users, 16MM downloads, and a customer base that included the US Department of Defense, AT&T, Walmart, Google, and Facebook.

Prior to GNS3, Mark was an Investment Manager at Cenovus Energy’s corporate venture fund, where he led the financing in HiFi Engineering and Skyonic Corporation and was a Board Observer for both. Earlier in his career, Mark worked in the technology investment banking division at CIBC World Markets and as a Business Development Analyst at Enbridge, an energy transportation company; both roles were based in Calgary.

Mark is a graduate of the University of Calgary, where he studied Business. He was honored by the Order of the University, Avenue Magazine Top 40 Under 40 Rising Star the 2021 Rising Star with Venture Capital Magazine. Mark is also very active in the Canadian ecosystem as the current Board Chair of the $100MM Opportunity Calgary Investment Fund, on the Board of Governors of the University of Calgary and Vice Chair of the UCalgary $1.2B Endowment Fund and Budget Committee.

Vittoria Bellissimo

Kate Chisholm

Capital Power’s SVP, Chief Strategy and Sustainability Officer Kate Chisholmleads a team of 50, specializing in strategic and sustainability planning and reporting, market forecasting and analytics, regulatory, government relations, internal audit, ethics and compliance, stakeholder engagement, community investment and communications. Prior to this, she was responsible for all company legal matters, including her integral role in the company’s creation.

A vocal DEI advocate, Kate initiated the company’s equity journey, which she elevates at every opportunity. She’s founded a mentoring program for young Edmonton women and received a Canada’s Top Diversity Champion and a Top 100 Most Powerful Women award.

Dave Collyer

Board Chair

Dave Collyer is an experienced strategic and operational leader in the Canadian energy sector, with a strong focus on integration of technical, economic and public policy considerations in business decision-making. He currently provides consulting services to the Canadian energy sector and serves on a number of not-for-profit and corporate boards.

Mr. Collyer was President and CEO of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) from September 2008 until December 2014. In this capacity, he was responsible for leading CAPP’s activities in education, communication and engagement, and policy / regulatory advocacy. Prior to joining CAPP, Dave Collyer was President and Country Chair for Shell in Canada. During his thirty-year career with Shell, Mr. Collyer held a broad range of technical, business, marketing, and senior leadership roles. He also participated in a two-year Executive Exchange assignment with the federal government in Ottawa (1989 to 1991) as Director, Supply Branch at the National Energy Board.

Dave Collyer holds a Bachelor of Science in Mineral Engineering specializing in Petroleum Engineering (1977) and a Masters of Business Administration (1978), both from the University of Alberta.

Jamie Curran

Jamie Curran is the Assistant Deputy Minister for the Strategy and Governance Division with the Department of Alberta Environment and Parks. His division provides integrated, coordinated, and results-based business support services for continuous improvement, risk management, and business continuity. The division delivers intergovernmental, Indigenous and community engagement and education activities, and provides oversight on external partnership in addition to delivering client services for field services operational responsibilities. Strategy and Governance division also leads and coordinates strategic services to enable effective results-oriented delivery of top department priorities.

Jamie was raised on a farm in rural southern Alberta and has worked as a college instructor, environmental consultant and in various senior leadership positions throughout the Government of Alberta, including the departments of Agriculture, Forestry and Rural Economic Development; Economic Development, Trade and Tourism; Environment, Sustainable Resource Development; Education and Health. Jamie presently resides in the Edmonton Capital Region with his wife and two daughters.

Joseph Doucet

Vice-Chair

Joseph Doucet is Dean of the College of Social Sciences and Humanities at the University of Alberta. He was formerly Dean of the Alberta School of Business, Canada’s first and longest accredited business school. A respected academic, Joe’s research interests focus on the areas of energy and regulatory economics and policy; he also regularly provides strategic advice to firms and governments on these topics.

Joe currently sits on the boards of the Emissions Reduction Alberta (ERA) and La Fondation franco-albertaine. He is also a member of the C.D. Howe Institute’s Energy and Natural Resources Policy Council.

Johannes Dyring

Johannes Dyring is a seasoned and diversely experienced business executive, entrepreneur and nurturer of start-ups, with a career defined by recognizing untapped markets and responding with innovative products and technology.

Before joining the University of Saskatchewan as Managing Director for the commercialization unit Innovation Enterprise, Johannes was CEO of SLU Holding AB (Inc.) providing seed investment and business development services to spin-off companies emerging from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. Previously he was engaged as founder, CEO or board member/chairman in several high-tech or knowledge intensive organizations in materials technologies, machine-to-machine communications, advisory networks, finance and early stage investments. Johannes held board positions at JTI, the Swedish Institute of Agricultural and Environmental Engineering, as well as in several growth companies in Sweden and the US.

During his career Johannes has worked with innovators, entrepreneurs and investors in several countries and established international networks across Europe, Asia, USA and Canada. Since 2007 Johannes has been closely engaged with early-stage investment and business development in the natural resource and broader sustainability sectors comprising agriculture & food, water, energy and environment, human and animal health.

In 2013 the Royal Swedish Academy of Agriculture and Forestry elected him an International Fellow for his contribution to the development of the ’green economy’ through purposeful efforts with innovations, entrepreneurship and commercialization of research results. Johannes holds a Postgraduate Diploma in Financial Strategy from Saïd Business School, University of Oxford and a PhD in Subatomic Physics from Uppsala University, Sweden, and has completed several leadership programs at Harvard Business School and Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto.

Sara Hastings-Simon

Sara Hastings-Simon is a Research Fellow at the University of Calgary. Her research explores innovation and energy transitions at the intersection of technology, business, and policy. She also leads Business Renewable Centre Canada, a modern marketplace educating corporations and institutions on renewable energy procurement.

As an energy and climate policy expert Sara’s experience includes her work as a management consultant and manager of the cleantech practice at McKinsey and Company, as an academic researcher in physics, and as a policy researcher and advocate. She holds a PhD in quantum physics with high honors from the University of Geneva.

Clive Mather

Clive Mather is the Chair of the Church of England Pension Board. In this role, he is responsible for the Board’s $5 billion pension investments and all its retirement services. The Board is one of the world’s leading asset owners in its approach to responsible investment and climate change. It has convened worldwide consortia to promote a low carbon transition through initiatives such as the Transition Pathway Initiative (TPI), addressing corporate climate change lobbying, and developing a low carbon index. For example, 320 investors with over $33 trillion combined AUM use TPI data in the CA100+ initiative aimed at ensuring the world’s largest corporate greenhouse gas emitters take necessary action on climate change.

Clive is also a Director of Emissions Reduction Alberta (ERA), Chair of Tearfund USA–the Christian relief and development agency, and Chair of Relational Peacebuilding Initiatives in Switzerland, which facilitates behind the scenes consultations to establish a peaceful unification in the Korean Peninsula. Previously, he was President and CEO of Shell Canada Ltd, Chair of Shell Pensions Trust and Chair of Iogen Holdings, a Canadian bio-tech corporation that develops technology for making renewable cellulosic biofuels (also known as second generation biofuels, or advanced biofuel) from agricultural residues and other organic wastes.

David Moss

David Moss is the Director of Business Development – Animal Health, TELUS Agriculture and former General Manager of the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association (CCA) where he led the animal health file for CCA and worked closely with the Government of Canada and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency on numerous files, including co-chairing the working group responsible for Canada gaining negligible-risk status for bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) by the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE). He was Co-founder and Vice President of AgriClear LP – an enterprise level online agri-business marketplace joint venture with the TMX Group and Natural Gas Exchange.

An entrepreneur by nature, David has been in the Ag. industry his entire life. He helped build ranch to retail alliances in the United States, Australia and South America. He brings a focus on innovation, data technology, and international business knowledge and experience.

He holds a MA in Leadership Studies from the University of Guelph (honours), B.Mgmt. degree (Marketing) from the University of Lethbridge (distinction) and a Project Management Masters Certificate from York University. He serves on numerous industry committees and is an active volunteer in his Okotoks community.