The Alacrity BC Cleantech Initiative

Imagine a net-zero economy, made possible by clean technology

British Columbia is a clean technology hub and through Alacrity’s global network and demand-driven approach, we are attracting the talent, opportunities, and investments needed to build the strong tech ecosystem that will help us accelerate our transition towards a net-zero economy. As human understanding of the climate crisis and its effects increases globally, we’re here to help transform increased public attention and urgency into tangible benefits for companies trying to address the most pressing environmental issues.

Defining cleantech

Cleantech can be a challenging term to define. Broadly speaking, the term is used to refer to products or services that somehow improve upon, and have a more positive environmental impact, than existing technologies. For the purposes of our Cleantech Program, we work with ethical, mission-driven cleantech companies whose products help to, for example, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, produce renewable energy, recycle existing products or materials, or address known industrial environmental issues.

Meet our team

The Alacrity Cleantech team is on a mission to support British Columbia’s cleantech companies as they scale-up and commercialize. Read about each of our team members to find out what they bring to Alacrity Cleantech.

We believe different perspectives make Alacrity Cleantech a better organization. We’re committed to building a diverse, equitable and inclusive environment where our team members feel that they belong.

All

Advisors

Cleantech

Martijn Schouten

Northern Europe Advisor

Martijn Schouten is Alacrity Cleantech’s in-market advisor for Northern Europe. Martijn is based in Utrecht, the Netherlands and brings decades of valuable experience in business development in the marine industry.

Born on a boat and raised in a maritime family, it is perhaps unsurprising that Martijn has spent such a great deal of his career working in the marine sector. Through his work with one of the leading maritime equipment companies in the world (their work focus involves dredging, mining, offshore renewables, and oil and gas), he has gained experience organizing global shipbuilding activities and overseeing acquisitions and the launch of new offices on each continent as the company’s Director of Mergers and Acquisitions. Martijn has also served as global sales director, putting him in charge of managing half a billion dollars worth of revenue, and has served as CEO/CFO of a subsea contractor focused on renewable markets and technologies like autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) and artificial intelligence (AI).

During his career, Martijn also established a dredging and offshore mining equipment company called IHC Mining. The company had offices in The Netherlands, South Africa, and Australia and brought in annual sales of 20 million euros. Through that experience, he was introduced to Canadian subsea technology companies and learned that many Canadian companies are ahead of what is available on the global market. Today, Martijn serves as CEO of a corporate start-up which he launched himself and which has developed some of the most sophisticated subsea equipment in the world.

Martijn chooses to work with Alacrity Cleantech as an advisor because he is obsessed with technology and Earth’s oceans and is convinced that technology holds the key to a better and cleaner world.

Martijn Schouten

Northern Europe Advisor

Federico Goroztieta

Mexico/Latin America Advisor

Federico Goroztieta is Alacrity Cleantech’s in-market advisor for Mexico. Federico is a Civil Engineer by trade and is interested in any industry that helps advance and improve human societies and lives. Federico has started and scaled a variety of companies over the course of his career, including a construction company, a furniture manufacturer, a data processing firm, a creative studio, and a golf academy. His guiding belief is that all failure teaches resilience and that resilience is the character trait that leads people to success.

Federico has enjoyed an influential career as a Business Advisor to institutions and corporations of all sorts, focusing on enabling them to optimize their performance as they grow and strengthen their competitive position in their market. He has honed his business diplomacy and high-level project management skills over many years of identifying emerging opportunities in diverse sectors and his intimate understanding of both Canadian and Mexican business culture and society makes him a perfect aid to any Canadian company looking to explore opportunities in Mexico or Latin America.

Federico served as Head of Economic Affairs at the Consulate General of Mexico in Vancouver, BC from 2001 to 2010 and served as CEO of TechBa Vancouver, an international business accelerator funded by the Mexican Federal Ministry of Economy, in 2010. Federico is the founder and acting president of Derivative Integrated Solutions Society and Malabar Studio. Over the course of his career, he has supported and advanced more than two hundred small to medium sized Mexican companies, more than thirty Central and South American companies, eighteen Canadian companies, five American companies, and two Spanish companies, altogether selling more than $750 million in USD.

Federico takes inspiration from the legacy of Sir Terry Matthews and appreciates Alacrity Cleantech’s focus on leveraging relationships, new and established, to connect Canadian clean technology companies with new opportunities and revenue streams.

Federico Goroztieta

Mexico/Latin America Advisor

Munish Saini

India Advisor

Munish Saini is Alacrity Cleantech’s in-market advisor for India. Munish is formally educated in Electronics and Communications and has held manager and director roles at a variety of technology and electronics companies throughout his career.

Munish has played a crucial role in many technological advancements in the Indian cleantech industry, including designing and developing a variety of technologies or introducing innovations to the Indian market. His concept promotion and performance optimization skills have been key to streamlining businesses and elevating technologies of all sorts. Munish’s work on developing the world’s first Vehicle Black Box designed to safeguard vehicles from theft highlights his visionary and strategic skills.

Munish brings to Alacrity his rich history of results-driven, innovative, and strategic business development. He loves to work on improving products and services and enjoys diving into new partnerships with companies and clientele around the world. He highly values his work with Alacrity because it brings him closer to new technologies and companies as he finds ways to bring their products to new markets.

Tuck Wai Lee

Singapore/ASEAN Advisor

Tuck Wai Lee is Alacrity Cleantech’s in-market advisor for Singapore and the ASEAN region. Tuck is currently the Managing Director of Upconverge and is particularly knowledgeable about the water industry, climate adaptation, clean energy, and sustainability.

Tuck brings twenty years of technical experience involving delivering strategy, engineering studies, master planning, concept design for detailed engineering and construction projects, and operations optimization. He also has considerable business experience in client service management, business development, consulting operations, technology management, and talent development and management.

Tuck chooses to work with Alacrity Cleantech because of the broad and exciting range of technologies, services, and solutions that he gets to learn about and help improve. While the context for each portfolio company is always a little different, he finds that the work taps into his broad industry knowledge and experience, pushing him to continue thinking creatively and strategically about how to advance new technologies and businesses. He is passionate about introducing new companies to the Singapore and Southeast Asian markets and loves that his role involves both learning and teaching.

Cec Primeau

Senior Advisor, Canada

Cec Primeau is a senior mentor for the Alacrity Canada Cleantech Program. Based in Canada, Cec works closely with Federico to pursue opportunities for cleantech companies in the Mexican market. He spends his time with multiple portfolio companies to provide advice on business modeling and financial modeling, as well as market discovery and business development.

Cec currently serves as Principle of Solutions Plus Consulting in addition to his role with Alacrity Cleantech. Cec is a true business veteran, with decades of strategic information technology and financial and management experience in a vast array of industries. He has served in senior management positions such as Chief Financial Officer, Chief Operations Officer, and Chief Innovation Officer in a number of sectors. In his role as an eBusiness Principal at PricewaterhouseCoopers in the late ’90s, he was a thought leader who helped his firm understand how the business world would be impacted by emerging internet and web-based technologies.

More recently, Cec served as CFO of a clean technology company and helped take the company from startup to profit generation within just a few years. He also oversaw the successful sale of a telecom software company as COO and CFO.

Cec’s work with Alacrity Cleantech’s portfolio companies centers primarily around providing business strategy and fundraising consultancy. He is integral to Alacrity’s ongoing work to evaluate and bring on new companies for the portfolio, as well as managing relationships with partners and Provincial and Federal Government stakeholders.

Peter Van der Gracht

Senior Advisor, Canada

Peter Van der Gracht is a senior mentor for Alacrity Canada’s Cleantech program, supporting portfolio companies with market penetration, business model development, and alternative financing solutions. Based in Canada, Peter also works closely with in-market advisors and cleantech companies pursuing opportunities in the India and Northern Europe markets.

Peter, a Master of Electrical Engineering and Applied Sciences by trade, is a powerful resource for cleantech company development. He currently serves as a member, chairman, or director of a significant number of boards and provides independent financial and management advice to multiple companies at Alacrity and through other organizations.

With more than forty years of business experience in a variety of industries ranging from natural resources to technology and telecommunications to retail and cleantech, he has a wealth of business acumen and established relationships with a diverse and expansive global network of business leaders.

Peter excels at making connections between companies, finding new customers, pitching investors, and folding in partners, connecting very valuable dots for companies both small and large. He also has experience managing operational build-outs, acquisitions, and buy-outs and has successfully led and exited multiple technology companies headquartered across North America with global footprints.

Peter works with Alacrity because he values giving back to the business community and to the environment. “Working with a not-for-profit that works to support entrepreneurs and inventors and green the planet at the same time feels like a pretty worthwhile calling to me.”

Peter Van der Gracht

Senior Advisor, Canada

See who we're working with

Alacrity Canada acknowledges and is grateful to be working on the traditional and ancestral territory of the Lkwungen peoples (Songhees and Esquimalt), where the Songhees, Esquimalt, and WSÁNEĆ peoples’ relationship with the land continues today.