Claude Letourneau
President & CEO
Svante“Excited to join a company with a strong technical team, experienced Board, collaborative partnerships, clear vision and the drive to help solve one of the greatest challenges the world faces today―climate change.”
Claude Letourneau is an industrial projects veteran who brings to Svante a broad range of experience leading large world-class projects. His leadership style is underscored by effort, energy, and excitement – the 3Es of visionary thinkers. At ease bringing about change, Mr. Letourneau will leverage his 30 years’ experience in advanced technology development and commercialization to help steer the company to be a global leader in building a CO2 Marketplace.
Previously, Claude held senior management roles with Canam Group Inc., SNC-Lavalin Inc., and Kontron Embedded Computers AG. He also founded two technology companies, Vaperma, Inc. (membrane-based gas separation) and Avestor Inc. (thin-film lithium polymer battery).
These past experiences provide the necessary insight for the bilingual executive to forge new strategic alliances and partnerships with like-minded industry leaders and to guide the company’s scaling-up of the business with an aggressive time-to-market game plan.
Claude received a Bachelor of Applied Science in Chemical Engineering and a Masters in Chemical Engineering from University Laval, Quebec.
Matthew Stevenson, CFA
Chief Financial Officer (CFO)
Svante“Addressing climate change while unlocking tremendous economic opportunity is a humbling challenge. I’m grateful to be part of such a talented team that has a chance to play a real role in a prosperous low carbon economy.”
Matt brings a unique background in finance, energy, and technology to Svante, combining the skills of a strategic finance professional with the problem-solving approach of a chemical engineer and broad experience in the capital markets and the energy sector.
Matt is responsible for managing Svante’ strategic initiatives and fundraising efforts, striving to find the right partners and investors to continue to fuel the company’s path towards commercializing a breakthrough energy technology. Matt also oversees the finance operations, commercial and legal aspects of Svante’ business, ensuring the company is positioned to scale rapidly with best practices in place.
In his role, Matt leans heavily on past technical and corporate finance roles touching upstream and downstream oil and gas, oilfield services, energy infrastructure and utilities, as well as corporate development and capital project experience in the commodity chemicals and alternative fuels space.
His career began with early career technical roles in upstream oil and gas and process engineering, followed by equity research, corporate finance and M&A advisory roles with a multinational investment bank. Most recently, Mr. Stevenson was in corporate development with Methanex, one of the world’s largest producers of methanol— a commodity chemical and increasingly important alternative fuel.
Matt holds a Masters degree in Chemical Engineering as well as a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) professional designation.
Karen Miller, CPA, CGA
Corporate Controller/Treasurer & Administration
Svante“When you have a technology so unique that it could contribute to a healthier planet, closely managing the use of corporate financial resources to ensure this can happen is crucial.”
Karen Miller leads Svante’s financial reporting, accounting, tax reporting, and treasury functions, among others. As part of the senior management team, Karen supports the Board of Directors in the development and execution of the overall corporate financial strategy.
She’s held senior management roles with The Rick Hansen Foundation, Spectrum Signal Processing, and QuestAir Technologies. As Interim CFO of QuestAir, Karen contributed to the completion of the merger between QuestAir and Xebec Adsorption. As Controller, she contributed to QuestAir’s initial public offering, the first company to list on both the Toronto Stock Exchange and the Alternative Investment Market, a sub-market of the London Stock Exchange.
Karen holds the following professional designations: Chartered Professional Accountant (CPA) & Certified General Accountant (CGA).
Brett Henkel, PEng
Co-Founder & VP, Strategic Accounts & Government Affairs
Svante“It is empowering to know, given my Alberta heritage, our technology can change the climate impacts of the Alberta oil sands regions and generate significant additional economic benefits.”
Brett Henkel’s unabashed optimism tempered by his mechanical engineering background and gas separation experience combine to bring a rare perspective to his position on Svante’ executive team and board.
Transferring the company’s breakthrough CO2 capture technology to customers’ sites will rely heavily on Brett’s strengths for identifying and understanding the technical and business details and relating those details to partners’ teams, approving agencies, and stakeholders.
As co-founder, he was instrumental in creating the process and the hardware used to prove the technology’s effectiveness as well as mobilizing external support throughout the path to becoming a successful innovation. These experiences strengthened his knowledge of business development and program management priorities.
Prior to launching Svante, Mr. Henkel was the program manager for QuestAir Technologies’ compact hydrogen production system with its partner, ExxonMobil. He is credited with designing the world’s first solenoid-driven rapid pressure swing adsorption test station.
Brett received his Bachelor of Science in Physics, with distinction, and a Mechanical Engineering degree from the University of Victoria.
Pierre Hovington
VP, Research & Development
Svante“I am very excited to join a company based on rigorous research background able to work with world experts to bring materials at the forefront of the technology to commercialization and help fight climate change.”
Pierre is responsible for the strategy, planning, direction, and execution of all R&D activities for structured adsorbents at Svante. Dr. Hovington joined Svante in 2017 to set-up a microstructure characterization laboratory for sorbent nano-materials. He was also instrumental in scaling up the manufacturing process to make structured adsorbent beds (filters) to supply our 30 tonnes per day demonstration plant at Husky. Pierre is a world-expert in characterization and post-mortem analysis of metallic lithium polymer and lithium-ion batteries for electric and hybrid vehicle applications.
Pierre has earned a BASc degree in engineering physics from Ecole Polytechnique of Montreal and a PhD from University of Sherbrooke and University of Tennessee where he works at Oak Ridge National Lab to develop a Monte Carlo expert program for the simulation of electrons in mater. He is the co-author of more than 10 patents, has published over 130 papers in peer review journal, and was invited speakers in several conferences.
Guy Pearson
VP, Products
Svante“I am excited to be part of a team developing technology that captures carbon from industrial sources and leaves it safely under ground where it belongs. Being able to help make an immediate positive contribution to solving the growing climate emergency is very rewarding.”
Guy is a highly experienced manufacturing and engineering leader. Starting his career in automotive design and engineering with companies such as Jaguar and Land Rover, Guy has enjoyed a career of helping teams in the UK and Canada grow in capability to successfully develop new products and new manufacturing processes in multiple industries.
As a Lean Manufacturing champion, Guy has a track record of nurturing team engagement and instilling the Lean principles of respect, waste reduction and continuous improvement resulting in a track record of performance and profitability optimization.
Guy holds a diploma in Mechanical Engineering from Royal Leamington Spa College.