Who We Are

chief executive officer

Lance Coogan

Lance has a distinguished history of innovation in the creation and structuring of financial products.

In 1995, he sold the leading equity and derivatives firm he had founded, Lorenzani & Coogan Inc, to UBS, later becoming Head of Equities and Derivatives for UBS(SA). From 2006 he became a leading figure in the Carbon Market, designing and transacting a large number of new financial products. He was a consultant to the World Bank and many Governments on Carbon and Carbon Derivatives.

Between 2006 and 2011, he brokered over 50% of all CER listed option derivative contracts on the European Climate Exchange. More recently, Lance has applied his knowledge and skills to water, designing a Water Index Methodology for the Murray Darling Basin in Australia and a Water Trading Model and Water Exchange for Southern Africa.

He has also designed and finalised a Water Credit Trading System for the UK, as well as a Pan-US Water Credit Trading System to address the imbalance of water distribution in the USA.

He conceptualised, formulated and created the first ever Water Index Pricing Methodology, which has a provisional patent registered in the USA.

Recently listed The Nasdaq Veles California Water Index (NQH2O) on Nasdaq during January 2019 and now in December 2020 the CME has listed futures on NQH2O.
This creates a new asset class which for the first time gives investors the ability to trade the actual water price.

Recently Lance has designed and patented a Biodiversity Index and a Biodiversity Bond.

 

Legal and Commercial director

Calvin Walker

Calvin is the former Global Head of Project Finance at Baker McKenzie and has worked with Veles on all legal aspects of its development and products since the company’s inception in 2016. Calvin has more than 30 years’ experience as a commercial and financial lawyer and is recognised as a leader in the field of international energy and infrastructure project finance. He has been a partner at two of the world’s leading international law firms with hands-on deal experience across a broad spectrum of the energy and infrastructure space, including Renewables, Water, Oil and Gas, Transport and Health. Calvin is a qualified English law solicitor, currently of Counsel at leading international/Italian law firm, BonelliErede, and is founder and trainer at CCC Training Ltd, a leading specialist project finance training company.  He is a well known speaker and commentator in the global project finance market.

Advisory board

Clay Landry

Clay Landry has over 25 years of experience in water acquisition and valuation projects in the US, including currently managing the largest water rights acquisition program there, on behalf of the Central Arizona Groundwater Replenishment District. As well as being MD and Founder at WestWater Research, He is recognized as a leading authority on water pricing and is routinely called upon as an expert witness for both governmental and private entities.

Advisory board

Duncan Riefler

Duncan Riefler is an investor and advisor with Merchant Bank, Revere Global. Duncan began his career with Discount Corp of NY who were early practitioners in the trading of financial futures for fixed income products. He spent 19 years in the UK with Merrill Lynch as a pioneer in the European high yield and leveraged loan markets. He then co-founded a European credit and distressed debt trading brokerage operation now owned by Guggenheim. Duncan has vested interests in water related businesses. Beyond his involvement with Veles Water, he has interests in Parabel (https://www.parabel.com), which cultivates a plant based nutritional, protein laden food ingredient that is cultivated in aqua-ponds, recycling 99% of the water. He is active with a mitigation bank, EchoLandCo, also located in Florida which manages credits associated with protecting wetlands. He has recently been co-hosting Zoom roundtables for water education on the 361Firm family office network. He is advises and raises capital for European credit funds with ESG initiatives. Duncan is a 1981 history major at Denison University and is now a resident of Florida.

ESG OFFICER

Terry Livingstone

Terry has built a successful career mainly within the SME environment as a business builder with a track record of managing strategic change, developing high performing teams and businesses while delivering both exit strategies and corporate financing solutions. Including the IPO of IMSG Plc a sales and marketing organisation where he held the position of CFO and executive board member. 

 

Terry is equally comfortable in delivering change to larger organisations and has acted as the senior member of consultancy teams implementing transformational cross functional programmes and sustainable bottom line savings to companies such as SABMiller, Ericsson, Volvo and Royal Mail in preparation for privatisation.

 

With a current focus on sustainability he has coupled his qualification and experience as a chartered accountant with the Certificate in ESG Investing to provide support to  businesses that fall within the sustainable framework.