Sam Reynolds. Director, Corporate Finance

Sam has approximately 10 years' experience working in Corporate Broking, Equity Capital Markets and M&A. He is a degree graduate in Commerce from the University of New England, majoring in Accounting and Marketing. After graduating, Sam was selected to join the Elders Limited Graduate Cadet Program in 1999. Following this Sam moved into Elders Rural Bank as a Risk Analyst before moving to ANZ Banking Corporation in Sydney as an Account Manager in Corporate Finance in 2002.

Sam relocated to Edinburgh, then onto London joining the Corporate Finance team of independent investment bank Execution Noble & Company Limited in 2004. During his time with Execution Noble he has managed a large range of UK and European mergers & acquisitions and capital markets transactions.

Sam joined Ventura as a Director in September 2010.

William Rae. Director, Project Finance

William is a Commerce graduate from the University of Sydney, majoring in Finance and Accounting and in 2004 joined Ernst & Young's Financial Services Advisory division. 

After qualifying as a Chartered Accountant in 2006, William joined Ernst & Young's corporate finance division, specialising in valuations, business modelling and environmental M&A and project finance working on numerous international transactions including European Wind, Geothermal in Asia and UK Wave and Tidal (for the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC)).

With the vision of embracing the private sector in solving the problems of climate change, and structuring clean energy investments, William co-founded Ventura in 2009.

Hassen Bali. Director, Climate Finance

Joining Markit Group Limited in 2008 as part of their Environmental Markets team, Hassen focused on business development and strategy for a range of environmental products. This encompassed interaction with key participants globally and involved furthering the development of international sustainable activities, comprising Carbon (including REDD, land use, renewables, and community based initiatives), Energy Efficiency, Water and Biodiversity.

Leveraging his experience in both financial markets and the environmental sector, Hassen drove the development of new financial based environmental products. Hassen worked with a spectrum of entities, from project developers to institutional investors and corporate clients in order to accelerate global market growth and innovation.

Hassen commenced his career in financial markets in 2002 providing business and technology consultancy to global financial institutions.

Hassen joined Ventura as a Director in June 2011.

Nathan Rockliff. Director, Group Legal

Nathan is a Lawyer dual qualified in both Australia (N.S.W) and the UK. Nathan has lived and breathed entrepreneurial law since a young age with a family of lawyers at his family law firm Rockliffs, in Sydney.

Having commenced working at Rockliffs in 2002 in a variety of corporate, insurance litigation and personal legal matters, he relocated to London in 2007 where he worked in two London Law firms in corporate finance, mergers and acquisitions, and a number of corporate transactions including PLUS and AIM listings. In September 2009, Nathan was seconded to assist Carbon Trade Exchange in developing its trading platform, which included advising on and structuring a number of its commercial, registry and banking relationship negotiations and the development of its trading rules.

Nathan is also qualified in Corporate Finance with the Securities & Investment Institute in the UK.

Driven by the desire to encourage entrepreneurship and forward thinking in the carbon, clean-tech and renewable energy markets, Nathan co-founded Ventura in 2009. 

Ben Stuart. Director, Carbon Trading

Ben comes from a multi generation farming background in both animal husbandry and pastoral development. He has a lifetime passion to implement a modern environmental impact into these sectors, and has now made the connection of how to monetise rural assets into the carbon sector.

Ben joined Tullet Prebon in March 2008 as a broker within the European carbon market. Specialising in the secondary carbon market, Ben was integral to business development within Europe, USA and Australasia.

Ben has extensive knowledge in the Agricultural sector, specialising in Australian based project development, and is a founding Director of Ventura.