Phil De Luna
Board Chair
Expert, Sustainability
McKinsey & Company
Phil De Luna advises executive leaders in corporations, governments, and non-profits on how to decarbonize their business to enable sustainable inclusive growth. Leads engagement teams of associates, business analysts, and specialists to deliver the highest impact to clients.
De Luna is an entrepreneurial technologist having raised $2M in non-dilutive funding as a carbontech co-founder and Carbon XPRIZE Finalist (1 of 10 globally). He is also serving as a founding Mentor of the Matter and Climate Streams in Creative Destruction Lab, helping science-based startups bring advanced technology to market. He sits on the OECD Advanced Materials Steering Committee where he contributes to public policy recommendations around international collaborative research platforms.
Phil earned his PhD in Materials Science & Engineering at the University of Toronto under supervision of Prof. Ted Sargent. He has held competitive research internships at the IBM TJ Watson Research Centre and Toyota Research Institute, as well as visiting scholarships at UC Berkeley, Lawrence Berkeley National Labs, and Stanford. He has published 40 scientific papers in world-leading journals like Science and Nature and his work has been covered by mainstream media outlets like CBC, Forbes, Vice, the Independent, etc.
Phil is a 2019 Forbes Top 30 Under 30, a 2020/21 Mission Innovation Champion – Canada, a 2020/21 Action Canada Fellow, a 2019 GreenBiz Top 30 Under 30, a Governor General’s Gold Medalist, an NSERC Canada Graduate Scholar, and a Massey College Junior Fellow.
Dan Zilnik
Partner, EY
Dan Zilnik is Partner – Environment Social, Governance for EY. He has extensive experience in helping make distinctive, lasting, and substantial improvements in sustainability performance, which strengthen the entire business, including working with the world’s largest consumer packaged goods company, federal and municipal governments, global oil and gas producers, and working with the largest technology companies in the world. Dan is a recognized sustainability expert, receiving CSR Daily’s “Best Sustainability” and “Best Report” awards, and the Responsible Canadian Energy Awards for environment. He was one of Calgary’s Top 40 under 40 and was named part of Canada’s Clean16. Dan has a breadth of international experience including working in Canada, the United States, Norway, Russia and the Middle East. Dan has an MSc in Environment and Economics from the London School of Economics and is a Harvard trained negotiator.
Martin Davies
Managing Partner
Corporate Capital Solutions
Martin Davies is a Managing Director of Corporate Capital Solutions – a Calgary-based partnership providing non-traditional debt financing to organizations. Davies is also Managing Director with Brickburn Asset Management Inc. Prior to joining Brickburn in 2004, Davies was a Senior Partner, Institutional Sales with Peters & Co. Limited for 22 years and specialized in Canadian capital markets; specifically oil and natural gas exploration and production, midstream, and oilfield service industries. Davies has served 12 years at the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada (IIROC) as a judicial panel member. From 1997 to 2004, he served as a member and Chairman (2002-2004) of the Alberta District Council of the Investment Dealers Association (IIROC processor). Davies holds a BA (Honours) in Economics from the University of Calgary and is a Fellow of the Canadian Securities Institute.
Nishka Gupta
Vice President
ARC Financial Corp.
Nishka Gupta is a Vice President at ARC Financial Corp., Canada’s largest energy-focused private equity firm. Her responsibilities include deal evaluation, structuring, and execution as well as portfolio management. Nishka represents ARC as observer or director on the boards of a few ARC portfolio companies and works with them on company corporate strategy, risk management, and financial matters.
Nishka is a Professional Engineer and has prior experience as a field operations engineer at a major multinational energy company. She has a Bachelor of Arts in Business Administration from the Ivey Business School and a Bachelor of Science in Engineering from the Faculty of Applied Science at Western University.
Darlene Halwas
Chartered Financial Analyst
Canada Development Investment Corporation
Darlene Halwas currently serves on the boards of Canada Development Investment Corporation, the Commission for Complaints for Telecom-television Services, and Alberta WaterPortal Society. She has almost 30 years of work experience, with 15 years focused on leading risk management functions for companies. In the past, she has served on a number of boards, including the Safety Codes Council, Aquatera Utilities Inc, CKUA Radio Foundation, the Management Employees Pension Board and the Calgary Police Commission.
Darlene holds a Bachelor of Commerce (Hons.) from the University of Manitoba, and the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA), Financial Risk Manager (FRM) and Institute of Corporate Directors (ICD.D) designations as well as certification in tribunal administrative justice. Since 1995, she has been an active volunteer with the CFA Institute, and she completed a four-year term on the global Disciplinary Review Committee. She was awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal for her contributions to Canada. She is a member of Diversity 50, and was awarded an Exemplar from the Director and Chief Risk Officers Group in 2019.
Dr. Steve Larter
Canada Research Chair and Professor of Petroleum Geology
University of Calgary
Dr. Steve Larter is a Professor of Geochemistry and the Associate Vice President (Research & Innovation) at the University of Calgary, helping build a functional innovation ecosystem by supporting research-based start-up activities. Steve is a Chairperson of the Board of Innovate Calgary and is also Professor Emeritus of Geology at Newcastle University. He is an experienced technology start-up founder, CEO, CSO and Director with M&A and exit experience.
Steve was the founding scientific director of Carbon Management Canada (CMC) and has been a scientist, director and board chair with CMC since its opening activities in 2009. Educated in the UK (Cambridge, Newcastle), with a background in industrial energy and mining R&D (UNOCAL, SCHLUMBERGER), he has worked with the Universities of Oslo, Newcastle and Calgary, on a range of research topics including studies of the deep subsurface biosphere and topics related to carbon management at scale. Steve has worked on CCS technologies, transition technologies for zero-emission energy recovery from oil and gas fields such as hydrogen or electricity and currently, negative emission technologies including direct air capture and soil carbon approaches. Steve’s numerous students work in industry, academia, education and government, many working on the social and energy transitions of our time.
Steve is the cofounder of multiple start-ups in the energy, environment and IP space. He is also a founding Scientist and mentor at the Creative Destruction Lab Rockies Energy and Prime streams and is active with the CDL West Climate including the new Minerals streams.
Steve is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (FRSC 2012), a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS 2009), and a Foreign Member of the Norwegian Academy of Sciences and Arts (DNVA 2004). Steve has received awards from The Geological Society (UK), from The Geochemical Society (US), and in Canada, from CSPG and APEGA.
Darcy Ell
Chartered Professional Accountant, CA
Darcy Ell has spent his entire career in Calgary in a wide variety of financial and management roles. Upon joining the CMC Board, he was Vice President, Finance for ILF Consulting Engineers, an international engineering consulting firm specializing in complex industrial and infrastructure projects. Prior to that he was the Chief Financial Officer for both Brickburn Asset Management Inc., a private investment and portfolio management firm and Brickburn Funds Inc., a public mutual fund corporation. Previous roles included Vice-President of Finance for Nevada Bob’s Canada, a specialty golf retailer, President of Manta Sport Ltd., a Calgary-based wholesaler of squash racquets and distributor of premium sunglasses and Manager, Special Loans Group at the National Bank of Canada. Darcy also served as Interim President and CEO of Carbon Management Canada in 2022/2023.
Darcy is a graduate of the University of Saskatchewan and obtained his CA with KPMG, where he worked in the Insolvency, Private Business and Audit groups.
Dr. John Loughhead
John Loughead served as Chief Scientific Adviser to UK Government Departments from 2014 to 2020, firstly for Energy & Climate Change and subsequently for Business Energy & Industrial Strategy. In these roles he was responsible for assuring the quality and completeness of technical and scientific evidence, underpinning policy development and advising Ministers on technical issues. He was previously Executive Director of the UK Energy Research Centre. Until 2004 he was Vice-President Technology & Intellectual Property for the Alstom group, based in its Paris head office, following various research positions in its predecessor companies GEC and GEC ALSTHOM. He is a graduate in Mechanical Engineering from Imperial College, London where he also spent five years in computational fluid dynamics research. His professional career in industrial research and development included work on advanced, high power industrial gas turbines, new energy conversion systems, spacecraft thermal management, electrical and materials development for electricity generation and transmission equipment, and electronic control systems. He also led activities on fuel cell development and superconducting devices and is recognized as an expert in energy systems and technologies.
For many years he has been extensively involved in national and European public sector technology programmes, as a member of various advisory committees and chair of policy reviews in future power systems. He was a member of the UK Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council and Chair of its User Panel, Non-executive Director of the MoD Technology Board, and is Assessor for UK Government and European Union technology support programmes.
John is the Professor of Clean Energy at University of Birmingham, Chair of the Investment Committee of Low Carbon Innovation Fund, Governing Council member at the University of York, GE Vernova Pension Trust Board member, Adviser to the Parliamentary Science & Technology Committee, a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering, the Chinese Academy of Engineering and of the Chinese Society of Electrical Engineers. He is Past-President of the UK Institution of Engineering & Technology, Fellow of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, the City & Guilds of London Institute and of the Royal Society of Arts, and Freeman of the City of London.