Our People

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Our people are the difference. Learn more about Eavor’s Board of Directors, Senior Leadership Team, and Advisory Board.
Transitioning from traditional energy is a highly complex challenge that requires the best and brightest minds in energy.

Directors

Douglas Beach

Chairman of the Board

Chad Bown

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Cynthia Johnston

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Tetsuro Takano

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Nenad Kosorok

Robert Winsloe

Finian Tan

Leadership

Robert Winsloe

Chief Executive Officer

John Redfern

Strategic Advisor

Matt Toews

Chief Technology Officer

Jeanine Vany

EVP / Corporate Affairs

Bailey Schwarz

EVP

Advisory

Michael Liebreich

Advisory Board Chair

Dr. Eric Van Oort

Professor in Petroleum Engineering

Dr. Jesse Jenkins

Professor in Energy Systems Engineering

Eavor's Documentary: Underground, Underdog: The Eavor Story

Underground, Underdog: The Eavor Story, spotlights Eavor Technologies Inc., a trailblazing cleantech company aiming to make geothermal energy scalable worldwide for the first time in history. This documentary follows the founding members, offering a glimpse into their story, narrating their origins, and illuminating the challenges faced in repurposing oil and gas expertise for new ventures in clean energy.

Douglas Beach

Chairman of the Board

Douglas Beach brings three decades of international energy, commodity and financial market experience to EavorTM. His career at Koch Industries included leadership of various trading, supply, and oil asset operations in England, Switzerland, U.S., Canada, Russia, and Singapore. Executive leadership of international commodity supply and trading businesses capped a career that includes successful business development, acquisitions, trading, directorship contributions, and innovations in infrastructure, trading, and analytical approach. His experiences include responding to counterparty bankruptcies, ship groundings, spills, pirates, and nearby terrorist attacks, creations of financial derivative products, business opening thrills, business closing sadness, a disgruntled oligarch, a successful public offering, failed trades, and the lists of smaller mistakes that add up to formative experience. Mr. Beach has a B.Sc. in Business from Emporia State University and is a graduate of the Directors Education Program at the Haskayne School of Business, University of Calgary.

Chad Bown

Chad Bown is a Managing Partner on the bp Ventures team which has invested over $750m in disruptive technology companies across more than 40 entities with the backing of more than 250 co-investors. Chad’s investment focus for bp is in support of delivering efficient hydrocarbon operations in addition to advancing low carbon energy solutions. Chad brings financial leadership and commercial expertise alongside energy operational and business development roles with prior managerial work experience at Shell and Jacobs Engineering. Chad was a Captain in the United States Air Force and holds a degree in business from Texas A&M University as well as an MBA from Loyola Marymount University. Chad currently sits on the boards of Belmont Technology Incorporated (US), Fotech Solutions Limited (US), BiSN Limited (UK), Stryde Incorporated (US) and Silicon Microgravity Limited (UK). Chad was recognized as a Global Corporate Venturing Top Emerging Leader in 2020.

Cynthia Johnston

Cynthia Johnston is a Corporate Director. She was Executive Vice President, Gas, Renewables and Operations Services at TransAlta Corporation from 2015 until her retirement in 2017. Between 2009 and 2015, she held various positions, including Executive Vice President, Enterprise Risk and Corporate Services and Executive Vice President, Corporate Services at TransAlta. From 2013 until her retirement, she was Chief Operating Officer and served as a non-independent Director of TransAlta Renewables. Prior thereto, Cynthia held several executive leadership positions with TransAlta and FortisAlberta.

Cynthia has over 30 years of diverse experience in strategic planning, complex project management, operations, sales and marketing, customer service, stakeholder relations, economic analysis and regulation. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from the University of Calgary and a Masters in Applied Economics from the University of Victoria.

Cynthia serves on the Board of Directors of AltaGas Ltd. and Russel Metals Inc. and is a member of the Institute of Corporate Directors.

Cynthia was appointed by Canada Growth Fund Inc. (CGF)

Tetsuro Takano

Tetsuro Takano is an Executive Advisor at CHUBU Electric Power Co. Inc. He brings over three decades of global energy industry experience, having held key leadership roles across Japan, Singapore, and the United States. He retired from ExxonMobil in January 2025, where he most recently served as Vice President of ExxonMobil LNG Market Development Inc. and President of ExxonMobil Japan G.K.

His career at ExxonMobil spanned diverse domains including automotive lubricants, fuels marketing, and strategic global accounts—most notably with Toyota. He played a pivotal role in LNG market development, serving as Chief Representative in Japan and leading regional initiatives from Houston and Singapore.

Tetsuro holds a BA in Political Science from Waseda University and an MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College.

Nenad Kosorok

Nenad Kosorok, based in Austria, is an accomplished commercial and financial executive with over 25 years of experience in the energy sector, with deep knowledge across the upstream and downstream oil and gas value chains, and more recently, in open-loop geothermal developments.

He currently serves as Senior Vice President Commercial & Joint Ventures at OMV, where he leads strategic partnerships and drives commercial excellence across global operations.

Nenad holds a degree in Business Administration from the Vienna University of Economics and Business (Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien) and has completed executive financial leadership programs at INSEAD and the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth.

Robert Winsloe

Chief Executive Officer

Robert Winsloe is Chief Executive Officer at Eavor. He is a co-founder and architect behind Eavor’s market development strategy and the pipeline of projects around the world.

Robert Winsloe brings with him almost 40 years of experience in international business development, sales, marketing, and management in the energy industry. He spent the first seven years living and working in Indonesia, Australia, and India for Schlumberger. Returning to Europe he joined IBM as a salesman, before going on to build and manage international sales and marketing organizations for Halliburton and IHS, as well as personally closing multi-million-dollar contracts across Europe, Asia and Africa and North and South America.

Robert Winsloe has been a frequent consultant to the World Bank on projects ranging from energy planning in Angola to infrastructure development and capacity building in Mauritania, and has advised state companies in China on strategic gas development. Robert Winsloe has a degree in Mechanical Engineering.

Finian Tan

Dr. Finian Tan founded Vickers Venture Partners in 2005 with four partners. He is currently based in Singapore. Before starting Vickers, Finian was a Managing Director at Draper Fisher Jurvetson, acting also as the founding partner of its Asia Pacific Operations, he discovered Baidu and led all the investment rounds into Baidu, and remained its largest backer until IPO. Prior to DFJ, Finian was Deputy Secretary of Trade and Industry for the Singapore Government where he oversaw the creation of the billion-dollar TIF fund and was subsequently appointed as chairman of the fund. As part of his earlier career path, Finian ran Goldman Sachs Asian trading arm. Finian received his Doctor of Philosophy and Master of Philosophy in Engineering from Cambridge University. He received his B.Sc. in Engineering from the University of Glasgow.

John Redfern

Strategic Advisor

John Redfern is the Strategic Advisor at Eavor. To this role, John brings his expertise as an investor, advisor, and serial entrepreneur in the data analytics, oil service, and energy tech verticals.

He has held executive roles at multiple international oil companies and oil service companies, including as a Director at Hess in London, President of Accumap in Calgary, and President of IHS Energy in Denver.

Prior to Eavor, John spent 13 years in China co-founding a series of start-ups, the most recent of which is LocalGravity, a leading retail data analytics platform in China.

He holds a degree in Engineering Physics from Queen’s University in Kingston, Law degrees from McGill University in Montreal, and an MBA degree from INSEAD in France.

Matt Toews

Chief Technology Officer

Matt Toews is the Chief Technology Officer at Eavor, based at the company’s head office in Calgary, where he oversees technology development, intellectual property, and the overall technology strategy of the firm.

As a co-founder of the company, Matt’s leadership has played a pivotal role in building Eavor’s core technical teams and successfully guiding the development and testing of the company’s innovative technology from the lab to the field. He has a professional engineering background and 16 years of experience, and previously worked in a variety of technical and managerial roles in the energy industry.

A graduate with Distinction from the University of Calgary in Oil and Gas Engineering, Matt’s contributions to the industry are reflected in over a dozen patents granted or pending.

Jeanine Vany

Executive Vice President / Corporate Affairs

Jeanine Vany is a Co-founder and Executive Vice President, Corporate Affairs at Eavor Technologies Inc., headquartered in Calgary, AB. Jeanine spearheads worldwide policy initiatives and energy advocacy efforts, driving Eavor’s policy agenda and overseeing public affairs initiatives. She also actively shapes industry policies and advancements in the geothermal sector. 

Jeanine plays a key role in Eavor’s innovation and strategic growth and has over two decades of experience as an APEGA-registered professional geologist in the oil, gas, and geothermal industries.  Prior to her current role, she built and led the Geoscience team in delivering specific geoscience subsurface characterization methods for Eavor Loop technology demonstrations in addition to establishing a global land portfolio.

Jeanine holds an Honours B.Sc. degree in Geology and Environmental Studies from Saint Mary’s University and a Business Essentials Certificate from the Haskayne School of Business, University of Calgary. She is an active community volunteer, serving on several nonprofit boards, the Geothermal Rising Board as Vice President and as a Director on the GeoConvention Board in Calgary.

Jeanine was honored with the inaugural Patricia J. Lee Trailblazer Award in 2021 and the Young Women in Energy Award in 2019.

Bailey Schwarz

EVP

Bailey Schwarz is the Executive Vice President for North America, based in Calgary Head office location. She is accountable for managing the North American project portfolio and development strategy. 

Bailey has over a decade of hands-on engineering experience and a strong passion for innovation. She led construction of the Eavor-Lite facility in Rocky Mountain House and execution of the Eavor-Deep project in New Mexico. Prior to joining Eavor, Bailey worked at Cenovus Energy where she led a multi-disciplinary team of engineers to commission and operate industry-leading, large-scale steam assisted gravity drainage facilities spanning cogeneration, steam generation, processing, and water treatment.

She graduated with a Degree in Chemical Engineering from McGill University and passed her CFA Level I exam.

Michael Liebreich

Advisory Board Chair

Michael Liebreich is Chairman and CEO of Liebreich Associates, but he is perhaps best known as Founder and Senior Contributor to Bloomberg New Energy Finance – the world’s leading provider of information and research on clean energy and transport. He is a Visiting Professor at Imperial College, a member of the UK Department for International Trade’s Capital Investment Advisory Board and the Policy Committee for the UK Climate Change Committee’s 6th Carbon Budget, a member of Equinor’s International Advisory Group, and recently joined Sustainable Development Capital LLP (SDCL) as a Senior Adviser. In June 2019 Michael joined the IEA’s Global Commission for Urgent Action on Energy Efficiency. Until recently he was a long-standing board member of Transport for London and a member of the high-level group for the UN’s Sustainable Energy for All initiative. Michael is an angel investor and philanthropist and skied for Great Britain at the 1992 Albertville Olympics

Dr. Eric Van Oort

Professor in Petroleum Engineering

Dr. Eric van Oort became Professor in Petroleum Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin in 2012, after a 20-year industry career with Shell Oil Company. He holds a PhD degree in Chemical Physics from the University of Amsterdam. He has (co-)authored more than 200 technical papers, holds 14 patents, is a former SPE Distinguished Lecturer, an SPE Distinguished Member, and the 2017 winner of the prestigious international SPE Drilling Engineering Award. At UT Austin, he directs drilling-related R&D in two industry consortia (RAPID and CODA) with over 25 industry company sponsors, covering drilling automation & control, sensor design, big data analytics, complex well construction challenges, and well abandonment & decommissioning. Recently, he has become involved in deep closed-loop geothermal drilling through UT’s new GEO initiative, for which he is the technical lead. In addition, he is the co-founder of 3 start-up companies and is the CEO of his own consulting company.

Dr. Jesse Jenkins

Professor in Energy Systems Engineering

Dr. Jesse Jenkins is an assistant professor at Princeton University with a joint appointment in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and the Andlinger Center for Energy and Environment and courtesy appointments at the School of Public and International Affairs and the High Meadows Environmental Institute. He is a macro-scale energy systems engineer with a focus on the rapidly evolving electricity sector, including the transition to zero-carbon resources, the proliferation of distributed energy resources, and the role of electricity in economy-wide decarbonization. Jesse leads the Princeton ZERO Lab (Zero-carbon Energy systems Research and Optimization Laboratory), which focuses on improving and applying optimization-based energy systems models to evaluate low-carbon energy technologies and generate insights to guide policy and planning decisions in national and sub-national jurisdictions transitioning to net-zero emissions energy systems. Jesse earned a PhD and SM from MIT, worked previously as a postdoctoral fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School, and spent six years as an energy and climate policy analyst prior to embarking on his academic career. He also works with DeSolve, LLC and independently to provide decision support, analytics, and policy advisory services to non-profit and for-profit clients working to accelerate the deployment of clean energy.

Get In The Loop

Paul Cairns

Chief Business Development Officer

Paul Cairns is the Chief Business Development Officer at your head office in Calgary. His responsibility is to focus on the development and incubation of new ventures in the energy and technology verticals.

Paul has spent close to 20 years in these sectors. He has been on the executive team that has spanned the entire start-up life-cycle and brought firms from initial inception to IPO. After years with Acumen Capital Partners and Stephen Avenue Securities, Paul founded Cairns Capital Corporation to provide capital solutions to the energy and technology sectors. He is a well-known incubator and developer of new and IP-grounded ventures.

He holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of Calgary.

He is one of Eavor’s Founders and sits as an observer to the Board.

Matthew Seager

Chief of Staff

Matthew Seager is Eavor’s Chief of Staff, based at the corporate headquarters in Calgary. Matthew is responsible for supporting the CEO in the execution of his duties and facilitating the effective and efficient functioning of the company, while serving as a trusted advisor on all matters of the corporation.

Matthew joined Eavor in 2021 and has served in development engineering and management roles, focused on advancing Eavor-Loop™ projects in Europe and North America. Prior to joining Eavor, he spent a decade working in the oil and gas industry, with experience in operations, resource development, and commercial agreement origination and evaluation.

Matthew graduated from the University of British Columbia with a degree in Geological Engineering.