Daniel J. O’Leary - C.E.O., Co-Founder
Daniel is the CEO and co-founder of PT IndoGreen Resource Solutions. He has over twenty years experience operating in Indonesia during which time he has gained experience in a wide range of industries and been involved in several business creation and development opportunities. In 2006, he founded a consultancy firm to provide advisory services to foreign investors and manufacturers seeking a presence in Indonesia, and particularly in Sumatra. He has since provided advisory services to companies in a diverse range of industries including international furniture designers and manufactuers, biofuels companies, retailers, and electronics manufacturers among others. The areas where he has provided assistance range from sourcing manufacturing capabilities, components, and technical services, to assisting in complex negotiations with local organizations and government departments. He has also performed consulting roles with NGOs operating in Sumatra and he set up a foundation in early 2004 to raise funds to channel direct aid to people in Aceh provence.
Prior to becoming a consultant, for five years he managed the Indonesian manufacturing operations for the McGuire furniture company (a division of Kohler Co., Wisconsin, U.S.), one of the best known privately held U.S designers and producers of high end furniture. The operation employed over 500 people and clients included Ritz Carlton, Mandarin, Sheraton and InterContinental hotel chains.
Before that position he worked throughout South East Asia and China as an electronics engineer with Racal Survey, installing and upgrading positioning and communications systems supporting the exploration and development of oil and gas fields. Since co-founding IndoGreen, Daniel has conducted extensive research into the jatropha sector in Indonesia and established strong relationships with other industry players, local government leaders and central government departments who are responsible for the research, support and regulation of the biofuels industry in Indonesia. Daniel holds Indonesian citizenship and speaks fluent Indonesian.
Michael A. O’Leary - Director, Energy Consultant
Michael O’Leary brings over twenty five years of renewable energy industry experience to the company having managed the development of large new power projects both in the US and overseas, including overseas start-up ventures. In effecting these projects, he supervised the critical viability assessment, permitting process, construction management and later, managed the day to day operations of the built plants. He has also provided consulting and management services to existing plants including troubled projects where he was able to leverage his industry and technical expertise to develop turn-around strategies or implement upgrades for a range of power generation facility types. More recently he was responsible for identifying and evaluating new international projects in the renewable energy sector on behalf of a publicly traded U.S. biofuels company. This involved a range of project types including jatropha plantations, which were predominatly located in Africa and Central and South America.
Prior to becoming an independent consultant Michael spent seven years as Vice President of New Charleston Power, a U.S. firm providing consulting and project management services to utilities, private power producers, government agencies, and multinational corporations. His responsibilities included assisting clients in evaluating acquisitions of power generation assets, development of re-powering options for existing plants, and the negotiation of contracts between regulated utilities and renewable energy providers, covering power sales, system interconnection, contract restructuring and termination. He also served as Project Manager of the Mesquite Power Project, a biomass fuelled power facility located in California’s Imperial Valley.
Before joining New Charlestown, Mr O’Leary was Chief Engineer/Technical Manager of a division of Lonrho plc in Southern Africa primarily involved in cane sugar production and associated power generation. He was responsible for managing facilities in Malawi with processing capacity of 2 million tons of cane per year, and supervising the conversion to 100% biomass sourced energy.
Tony Hogg - Operations Consultant
Tony’s background is in plantation development and management. He has over 30 years experience in all areas of the plantation industry covering all types crops including palm oil, rubber, tea, cocoa and coconuts and has worked throughout Southeast Asia and Africa. He has held positions from Assistant Manager on a 1,200 hectare estate to Production Director for a foreign owned company with over 50,000 hectares. He has performed numerous consultancy assignments where he was tasked with performing due diligence studies, field reports and project evaluations on behalf of existing plantation operators, potential acquirors and investors.
He has vast experience of estates in many areas of Indonesia and Malaysia which qualifies him to identify specific challenges faced in establishing plantations in any specific area. He also has strong working relationships with a range of professionals involved in the plantation business including surveyors, agronomists and mill operators. Tony is also very familiar with the permitting and approvals process. He has gained a reputation as a much sought-after consultant and trouble shooter for foreign owned companies operating plantations in Indonesia.
Brendan O’Leary - Co-founder, Director of Business Development
Brendan is a co-founder and Director of IndoGreen. He has over 10 years experience in the investment banking and corporate finance advisory sectors. At IndoGreen, he is responsible for business development, evaluating financing opportunities, business plans, managing communications with investors and potential joint venture partners as well as many other common day to day business matters pertinent to start-up companies like Indogreen.
From 1998 to 2003, Brendan was a Vice President in the Restructuring Department at the New York office of Chanin Capital Partners. He lead deal teams which provided financial advice to large international corporations in a wide range of industries which were undergoing complex financial and operational restructurings. These assignments included such companies as Worldcom, Fruit of the Loom, Hayes Lemmerz, Mercury Finance, Purina Mills, Inc, Covad Communications and Atlas Environmental. He has extensive capital markets experience, expert knowledge of securities valuation, business plan formulation and review, and significant experience in negotiating with lending institutions, investors, and other stakeholders to formulative creative solutions.
Prior to Chanin Capital Partners, Mr. O’Leary worked in the corporate finance group at BDS Securities, a New York broker dealer and advisory firm specializing in financing complex and special situations. At BDS, the group specialized in private placements, financings of small to middle market public companies, privately held start-ups and one-off individual projects or developments. Clients served included companies in the healthcare, technology, recycling and real estate sectors. More recently before joining IndoGreen, he served as a Director and Head of Business Development for K.P.M. Ltd, Irelands third largest property management company with over 10,000 units under management. Mr. O’Leary has a B.Sc. from Trinity College, Dublin, and is currently pursuing his CFA designation.
Lee Kim Seng (Pak Lee) - Consultant - Accounting & Auditing
Pak Lee is originally from Malaysia and qualified as a Chartered Accountant in the UK. He has seventeen years of senior financial management experience in Indonesia, which included thirteen years as Financial Controller with Raja Garuda Mas, a large consortium that owns oil palm plantations and forestry concessions. In 2003, Pak Lee performed the due diligence evaluation on behalf of Verdaine Investments Ltd on their acquisition PT Sahabat Mewah & Makmur (a large oil palm plantation Company on Belitung Island).
In the period 2004 – 2006, Pak Lee held the position of Vice President of Internal Auditing with Sinar Mas which is a large forestry and oil palm company. He is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (F.C.A) and a Chartered Member of The Institute of Internal Auditors, Malaysia ((CMIIA), He is fluent in English, Chinese, Malay and Indonesian.
Allan Harley, Consultant - Natural Resource Management
Allan has over 15 years experience in the biofuels, natural resource management, sustainable forestry and plantation sectors. His assignments have ranged from acting as arboriculture consultant to the London Parks Service to chief adviser to an EU funded sustainable forestry project in Kalimantan, Indonesia. Most recently, he worked for Biogreen Oil B.V., a global biofuel company, where he formulated and coordinated its strategy to identify and evaluate suitable land for the development of jatropha plantations.
His responsibilities in previous projects included most aspects of forestry plantation and management. He was responsible for ensuring conformity with internationally accepted standards of forest sustainability and implementing related measures as well as introducing new technologies to improve standards of land resource management. He was also responsible for setting up provincial forums involving all stakeholders to address issues associated with natural resource sustainability, conservation policy and conflict resolution in various land-use and forestry projects. He holds a BSc. in Forestry Management and is fluent in Indonesian.
James Vander Leitch (Jim), Consultant - Forestry & Plantations
Jim specializes in providing consultancy services to companies in connection with sustainable forestry planning and management. He is originally from New Zealand, has been involved in forestry projects throughout the southern hemisphere with twelve years work experience specifically in Indonesia. He has significant experience liaising with business groups, government agencies, conservation groups and other stakeholders in environmentally sensitive projects. For example, over a period of eight years as Forestry Group Planning Manager with Raja Garuda Mas Internaional, a large pulp / chip wood producer, Jim developed good working relationships with environmental groups which were critical to the success of the company.
During his time at Raja Garuda, Jim also established a comprehensive mapping division, which surveyed the 300,000 hectares of company properties and is therefore also experienced in that field. He has extensive experience in performing due diligence evaluations and obtaining licensing approvals. He holds a M.Sc. in Forestry Planning & Natural Resource Management, a B.Sc. in Botany & Maths and has written several articles on sustainable forestry management and planning.