Rus is the CEO of Gerard Developments Ltd. which owns and manages ten hotels in Alberta and BC and has a number of other investments including Grove RV, Solaris Equestrian, plus other properties and business interests in the Edmonton area, Jasper, Canmore, and Valemount, BC.

Rus has played key roles in launching and growing a number of financially oriented or industry focused associations or initiatives in Alberta, including ACTia, Deal Generator, VenturePrize, Banff Venture Forum, and InfoTech Alberta. Rus continues to be active as a board member or volunteer with both private and public organizations and brings 30 years of management experience in different industries.

Rus holds a B.Ed. Business with Distinction from the University of Alberta.

Jason Switzer joined ACTia as Executive Director in April 2016, after over 15 years in international development and corporate environmental management with positions including leading the Pembina Institute’s national sustainability consulting team, and championing environmental excellence and greenhouse gas leadership at Cenovus Energy Inc. and Shell Canada’s Oil Sands.  Prior to this Jason provided consulting to a range of conservation and development agencies on natural resource-intensive business in conflict zones. Today, Jason is vice chair of the Clean Resources Innovation Network, a founding director at Biological Carbon Canada, and a member of the CSA Committee on Transition and Sustainable Finance.  Jason holds master’s degrees in environmental engineering and in public policy from MIT and is a Harvard-trained environmental mediator, a Clean 50 recipient, an alumnus of Leadership Calgary, and a fellow at the World Commission on Dams. 

Nathan is a professional engineer with approx. 20 years building projects, technology and business development centered in the energy sector: oil sands, upstream, gas plants, pipeline and terminal facilities, refinery, environmental and tailings projects. In Nathan’s roles as process engineer and engineering and project manager on small, medium and multibillion dollar projects he has traversed the globe through North America, Europe, Middle East and Asia. He is a champion of new concepts and technology commercialization from idea through to successful operation.

Nathan’s sweet spot is his ability to draw high performers together into world class teams. He is a registered professional engineer member, 2008, APEGGA (Alberta, Canada) and Chartered Engineer, Institute of Mechanical Engineers, UK (IMechE). He further holds a B.Eng. (Hons) Aeronautical and Mechanical Engineering, University of Wales – 1998, and is a member of PMI.

Mr. Banica is a serial entrepreneur who founded two successful technology ventures in the last 20 years. The first was an electronics engineering company which designed a number of advanced oil and gas and space satellite systems and was acquired in 1999 by Belgium based Rhea Space Systems.

His second enterprise, publicly listed Synodon Inc., is an advanced remote sensing company which successfully commercialized a methane sensing technology originally deployed on a NASA satellite by the Canadian Space Agency. The resulting helicopter based system called realSens™, is used primarily by oil and gas pipeline operators to detect leaks and emissions from their networks as well as other potential integrity issues. Mr. Banica has helped secure over $25 million in financing for the venture and assembled a strong management team to design, develop, commercialize and sell the resulting services directly to US and Canadian pipeline operators.

Apoorv Sinha has a Bachelor’s of Science degree from Georgia Institute of Technology in Chemical and Bio­molecular engineering. Apoorv resided in Kuwait for 8 years before moving to Atlanta in 2007.

Apoorv is Co­-Founder of the logistics start­up TOHL (Tubing Operations for Humanitarian Logistics). He is also leading the commercialization of various technologies in his capacity of Research Manager at zEroCor Tubulars, a Calgary­-based oilfield service company, and also leads Carbon Upcycling, a startup focused on the production of carbon nano­particles from sequestered CO2.

Candice is the Executive Director – Clean Technology at Alberta Innovates. She and her team partner with industry, academia and entrepreneurs to accelerate the development, demonstration and adoption of innovative cleantech solutions that will benefit Alberta; particularly with respect to our energy transition to a low carbon emissions future.

Candice is passionate about energy technologies and the efforts required to move the needle on environmental performance. She holds a B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering and a M.Sc. in Chemical Engineering.

She is registered as a Professional Engineer with APEGA and is a Fellow with the Energy Futures Lab.

She has recently been recognized as an honorary leading female innovator as part of the Alberta Chapter of SHEinnovates.

Connie joined the ACTia Board in April 2017.    Most recently Connie has been working with Innovate Calgary leading a variety of Innovation Ecosystem project including the pilot program Green Tech Mentors.  During this project, Connie and the team built a network of early stage clean tech companies.   The team also proactively built national and international connections to global best-in-class clean tech incubators and accelerators along with investors and connections to corporates in the sector.   She continues to work on projects involving the development of the clean tech sector and innovation in general across Western Canada.

Connie has assisted organisations of all sizes over her career and has deep knowledge in the development of strategy and finance.  She was an investment banker at Deutsche Bank cumulatively working on over $100 billion of transactions.   She also mentors smaller sized organisations on their corporate finance needs.   Connie teaches Advanced Finance and Innovation at The University of British Columbia, Okanagan.

Jana Hanova has over 12 years of CleanTech, Power and Oil & Gas experience across North America and the Middle East. Prior to joining Evok Innovations (a Canadian CleanTech Fund) as a Director, Jana worked with Creative Destruction Lab – Rockies as the CleanTech and Energy Stream Venture Lead, connecting tech start-ups with Smart Money & Mentorship.

In addition to her tech start-up ecosystem experience, she led and managed multiple large Private & Public company engagements as a management and strategy consultant with PwC –  in both the Middle East (UAE, Qatar, Oman, Saudi) and Alberta (Canada). She also worked with the International Energy Agency and the CTO Office of BC Hydro on accelerating the deployment of emerging technologies, with particular focus on electrification, decentralized energy and alternative energy systems.

Jana holds a M.Sc. in Resource Management and Environmental Science from the University of British Columbia and a B.Sc. (First Class Hons) in Geology/Geophysics from the University of Calgary.