Meet the Azure team.
Azure's mission is to create sustainable aviation fuel using Canadian-based production to help our country become a leader in the SAF market.
The founders of Azure were responsible for advancing the development of a renewable fuels facility in Regina, Saskatchewan. The project was advanced by True North Renewable Fuels Ltd. with plans to include local agricultural businesses and communities. The City of Regina unanimously voted in favour of supporting the project in March 2021. Shortly after this vote, the assets of True North were sold to Federated Co-Operatives Ltd.
Azure was incorporated in spring 2021, later partnering with professionals backed by a Swiss-based family office. Thanks to this partnership, Azure was able to successfully meet funding requirements to work through pre-FEED and is advancing the project to a construction-ready status.
Management
Douglas Cole
President, CEO, and Director
B. Sc. (Chemical Engineering), MBA, SPE, P.Eng.
With over 40 years experience in upstream oil and gas operations, Douglas has long been involved in the international and Canadian oil production world. He has been a founding member of three upstream oil and gas start-up companies with responsibilities including subsurface and operational responsibilities, private and public capital funding, and corporate acquisitions, restructuring, and compliance.
Douglas also built a successful independent consulting practice that used economic and statistical models to evaluate opportunities while also completing several feasibility and pre-FEED studies. Additionally, Douglas was recruited to a Canadian independent producer to oversee their international engineering and business development.
In 2017, Douglas co-founded True North Renewable Fuels Ltd. as the President and CEO. Up until the sale of the company's assets in March 2021, he was responsible for the strategic direction and development of the business in accordance with current and proposed North American regulations.
Stuart Roberts
VP Finance, CFO, and Director
B.Comm., CFA
Stu has over 15 years of capital markets experience, specializing in the Canadian energy sector. Stu’s career began as an investment banking analyst, later an associate, with a boutique Canadian investment bank that focused on both the Canadian Energy Services sector as well as junior and mid-cap Canadian E&P sectors. In 2010, Stu joined Desjardins' energy investment banking team. He held increasing levels of seniority during his tenure and was appointed to Managing Director of energy investment banking in 2017. His responsibilities included the strategic direction of the energy investment banking platform.
Stu started working with True North in September of 2019 as an advisor assisting in sourcing capital to advance the development of the project. During the efforts to secure capital, Stu became a partner with the company and his responsibilities were extended to include the development of off-take and feedstock arrangements, sourcing partnership opportunities, and general business strategy.
Melissa Gibson
VP Engineering
B.Sc (Mechanical Engineering), P. Eng
Melissa has over 20 years of experience in the Canadian energy industry, holding various roles in project engineering, project and portfolio management, operational excellence, project advisory roles, and business development. Melissa’s career began in gas compression where she was involved in the design, implementation, and start-up in gas compression projects. Melissa joined Penn West in 2005 and worked in Facilities, Production Engineering while leading the pipeline repair and maintenance team supporting Western Canada. Melissa joined Cenovus Energy in 2011, supporting front end development and execution of major capital projects in the Oil Sands. Melissa was most recently working as a Senior Project Advisor for a major infrastructure company conducting “cold eye” reviews across all the Capital Projects Portfolio business units across the organization.
In 2022, Melissa joined Azure to lead the engineering efforts with respect to the project’s development.
Darren Ongyerth
VP Business Development
B. Comm.
Darren's 20 years of experience in the Canadian energy industry covers roles in operations, negotiations, acquisitions and divestitures, business development, and corporate finance. Beginning at Canadian Natural Resources Limited, Darren focused on oil and gas regulations and working with internal and external partners before transferring into mineral land negotiations at EnCana Corporation. In 2011, Darren left EnCana and pursued an 8 year career with Desjardins Capital Markets. During his time with Desjardins, he worked with a fully integrated team of professionals assisting clients in sourcing innovative financing solutions.
Darren started working with True North in September of 2019. His efforts and responsibilities were focused on business development, government relations, regulatory and sourcing carbon reduction opportunities. As he helped progress True North, Darren became a partner and aided in the subsequent sale to Federated Co-Operatives Ltd.
Sean Hindmarch
VP Commercial
BA Economics
Sean has over 10 years of capital markets experience, specializing in the Canadian energy sector. Sean’s career began as a research associate with Peters & Co. Limited, a Canadian boutique investment bank. This included coverage of the Canadian senior, mid-cap, junior, and international E&P sectors as well as the Canadian Midstream sector. In 2015, Sean joined National Bank Financial as part of its Institutional Equities desk. His responsibilities included raising capital for a broad spectrum of companies, engaging with institutional investors across North America, and maintaining relationships with senior management in both publicly traded and private enterprises. In 2020, Sean joined Fordwater as a partner and was principally involved in sourcing and evaluating investment opportunities.
In 2022, Sean joined Azure and is principally responsible for the development of business and commercial relations.
Independent Directors
David Gallagher
B. Sc. (Chemical Engineering)
David began his career performing a variety of roles at Mobil Oil in the UK before moving on to Enron Europe as a natural gas trader. In 2003, David started a 10-year career as Senior Partner at Vitol, one of the world’s largest commodity trading companies. Vitol’s activities included crude and oil product trading, shipping, refining, and storage while also focusing on natural gas, power, and emission products.
As Head of Natural Gas, David was responsible for growing Vitol’s natural gas business into a world-wide market leader position. His team at Vitol was instrumental in connecting Western Europe to natural gas suppliers from Eastern Europe.
David is currently a Principal of Stable Assets, a private Swiss based investment company actively investing in the North American energy sector since 2014. He is also an active lead investor and Director in several upstream, midstream, and renewable businesses globally.
Adam Twa
B.Comm., CFA
Specializing in the Canadian energy sector, Adam has over 18 years experience in capital markets and private equity. Beginning in 2004, he joined Canadian boutique investment bank Peters & Company Limited. Two years later he became a Partner specializing in research coverage of the Junior and Mid-Capitalization Upstream Canadian sub-sector.
In 2014 Adam joined Grafton Asset Management as the Director of Business Development. His position required leading the origination, structuring, and business development efforts for a pool of private equity targeting Canadian Upstream oil and gas industry opportunities.
Since 2017, Adam has been a key founder of three private oil and gas companies, two of which (Woodcote Oil Corp. and Woodcote Petroleum Inc.) had successful monetization events in 2020 and 2021, respectively. In early 2022, Adam was a key founder of energy transition trading business Cascade Trading Ltd., a company with a focus on North American power and carbon markets.
Eric Shaw
BA Economics, MBA.
With over 25 years of experience in commodity trading and principal investment activities, Eric is well versed in the oil and gas sector. After an early role in economic consulting for the energy sector, he spent over eight years at Enron Europe in roles of increasing responsibility in trading, asset development, and origination. He then joined Barclays Capital with a team to help establish gas and power trading activities. After a subsequent role setting up Commodities Principal Investments at Citigroup, Eric joined RWE in 2009 to establish the Principal Investments fund.
Eric currently works as Founder and Managing Partner of Polar Rock Energy, an energy focused Principal Investor. He left RWE to establish Polar Rock Energy in 2018.