TEAM
William J.P. Dale
Chief Executive Officer
Mr. Dale has over twenty-eight years experience in both retail and institutional financial services. He is a specialist in the creation and commercialization of innovative portable investment strategies and investment product structures that can be traded and scaled on a global basis. Bill is an inventor of patented intellectual property used to form industry transformative investment products such as the first active managed ETFs approved by the SEC, currency hedged ETFs (including some of the most popular ETF products launched in this category), the first ETF structure to securitize spot FX contracts (a single ETF product that is both 40 Act and UCITS compliant) and currency hedged Despositary Receipts (ADRs).
Mr. Dale founded the Curex Group of companies in 2007 and served as Chairman and CEO for seven years during which time Curex created and commercialized the world’s first real-time, executable FX fixing rates, built to IOSCO standards, for the real-time valuation of spot FX and foreign assets in regulated investment products. He negotiated and secured exclusive global partnerships with leading index product distribution partners (such as FTSE International and LSE Group, NASDAQ) and some of the world’s largest global asset managers and custodians (such as Blackrock, BNY Mellon).
Over the past four years, Mr. Dale has been focused on transferring his knowledge from equity financial product innovation into the Green Bond market with new Green Bond product designs that allow risk-averse investment capital to be more easily directed into new green energy infrastructure development. Mr. Dale founded GreenBond Advisors LLC along with an ecosystem of companies and partnerships designed to help conservative investors earn competitive rates of return while making a measurable impact on the transition to a world powered by clean energy.
Prior to starting the Curex, Mr. Dale was a portfolio manager with Royal Bank of Canada for 15 years where he ran an entrepreneurial investment advisory team that self-sourced and managed over $750 million in investor mandates across a variety of investment and hedging strategies.
Jonas Englund
Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer
Mr. Englund has over twenty-five years of expertise in various Investment Banking, Trading and Capital Markets capacities. During this time, Mr. Englund has developed an extensive network of relationships with Asset Owners, Asset Managers, Private Investment Funds, Family Offices, Government and Agency Issuers, Central Banks and Treasurers of Public and Private Corporations.
Since 2011, Mr. Englund has been responsible for establishing the Fixed Income operations of Swedish Investment Bank, Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken AB, (“SEB”), in the United States, as well as providing Cross Asset placement capacity for Corporate Finance, Structured Finance, Equity Capital Markets and Debt Capital Markets, primarily in Green Bonds, Energy and Shipping.
SEB, together with the World Bank, innovated the fixed income markets with the issuance of the first Green Bond in 2008, and is recognized as a market pioneer in this space. During his tenure with SEB, Mr. Englund was the first “Boots on the Ground” leading the introduction of Green Bonds to North American institutional capital markets.
Mr. Englund worked for Credit Suisse First Boston’s (CSFB) central treasury in London responsible for bank relationships, Foreign Exchange and Interest Rate Swaps hedging, new business development and general liquidity management of a $4 Billion USD loan portfolio. Following his time at CSFB, he ran a Swedish consultancy firm advising top management of Nordic investment banks on structured products. This led to his joining the Icelandic Bank, Kaupthing, where he was instrumental in establishing their US broker dealer. Thereafter, he launched Swedbank First Securities’ Fixed Income operations in the US before joining SEB in New York. Mr. Englund co-founded GreenBond Advisors LLC and its affiliated companies and partnerships, to accelerate the growth of Green Bond supply, enable Green Project Financing and facilitate Transition to a low-carbon Economy.
A frequent speaker and panel member on Sustainability and Green Bonds, his engagements include: Advisory Board member at Nasdaq Sustainable Bond Network (NSBN), Member of Columbia University Sustainable Finance Seminar, Guest Lecturer at Columbia University SIPA and University of Michigan on Green Bonds and other Sustainable Funding structures. He currently is a member of various roundtable discussion groups, such as Dutch Pension Fund APG's roundtable on expanding US Corporate Green bonds issuance. Mr. Englund is a Board Member of High Ground, Inc., a corporation focusing on innovative agricultural sustainability solutions.
Anita “Weezie” Roberson
Executive Vice President and General Counsel
Anita “Weezie” Roberson has over 25 years of experience in both the international and domestic energy industry, including 18 years of experience developing renewable energy generation and related infrastructure projects She has extensive legal, commercial and leadership experience in every aspect of project development, acquisitions, procurement, construction, financing, operations and risk management issues related to renewable energy projects. She has provided her expertise to large public companies as well as privately held entrepreneurs in the energy sector throughout her career; including NextEra Energy, Inc., Entergy Wholesale Operations, Sunfinity Renewable Energy, the Bankruptcy Estate of Enron Corporation and The Wing Group.
During Weezie’s 13-year tenure at NextEra, Weezie was instrumental in the company’s growth of its renewable energy business across the U.S. and Canada and its accomplishment of becoming the largest producer of wind and solar generation in the world. She was the lead attorney for NextEra's expansion of its business into Canada from its inception, which began in 2006 and grew to over a $2.5 billion portfolio of renewable energy projects and related infrastructure; including wind, solar, battery storage and transmission. She also advised C-level executives and NextEra’s Corporate Development team on major corporate initiatives such as the IPO of NextEra Energy Partners.
Weezie most recently served as the General Counsel of Sunfinity Renewable Energy, a privately held solar developer and engineering procurement and construction company providing services to both residential and commercial & industrial solar customers. In addition, Weezie worked with various types of clients on complex commercial transactions in the energy sector and other heavily regulated markets while in private practice at the law firms of Eavenson, Fraser & Lunsford (Palm Beach Gardens, FL) and Andrews & Kurth (Houston, TX). Over her extended career, Weezie has contributed to the deployment of over 5 GWs of renewable energy.
Weezie is licensed to practice law in Alabama, Florida, Texas and North Carolina (voluntarily inactive in North Carolina). She has served on the boards of various industry and charitable organizations; including the Solar Energy Industry Association, University of Alabama School of Law Farrah Law Society, NextEra’s Women in Energy Employee Resource Group and as an Ambassador of The Honda Classic PGA Golf Tournament.
Leonard Silverstein
Vice Chairman, President and COO
Mr. Silverstein has over 37 years in the legal and business communities. He commenced his legal practice in 1983 in Atlanta, GA and was a securities and corporate finance/mergers & acquisitions partner at Powell, Goldstein, Frazer & Murphy (1983-1994) and later at McKenna, Long & Aldridge, LLP (1994-2004). His practice focused on advising publicly listed companies and investment banks as well as privately held companies.
Mr. Silverstein left the law firm environment in January 2005 to partner with a client to offer three private real estate investment funds, raising an aggregate of $500 million of capital commitments and investing in over $1.5 billion of real estate investments. In 2009, Mr. Silverstein and his partner, Mr. John Williams, co-founded Preferred Apartment Communities, Inc. and commenced operations as an externally managed REIT concurrently with its initial public offering in April 2011 (NYSE: APTS). APTS focused its business on the ownership and operation of Class A multifamily communities with a secondary focus on Class A office properties and grocery-anchored shopping centers primarily in the southeastern US, the mid-Atlantic and Texas. Mr. Silverstein also helped design the company's real estate loan investment program designed to partially finance the development, construction and pre-stabilization carrying costs of new multifamily communities. As Vice Chairman, President and COO, Mr. Silverstein helped guide APTS' growth to approximately $5.0 billion in assets, $470 million in annual revenues and over 500 associates by the end of 2019. Mr. Silverstein designed and launched in 2012 an innovative non-listed preferred stock for APTS sold through the independent broker dealer and registered investment advisor channels the net proceeds of which fueled APTS' growth. To date, the company has sold over $2.4 billion of its preferred stock. APTS internalized its external management structure in January 2020. Mr. Silverstein stepped down from day-to-day operations of APTS in March 2020 and from its board of directors in May 2020. Following APTS, Mr. Silverstein joined the international law firm, Dentons, as Special Counsel focusing on advising both publicly and privately held companies and funds on securities, corporate finance/mergers & acquisitions, and real estate matters.
Mr. Silverstein has been an active member of the community, serving on the Board of Directors of numerous organizations such as the Institute for Portfolio Alternatives, American Jewish Committee--Southeast Region, Atlanta Symphony Associates, Jewish Federation of Atlanta, Vanderbilt University National Alumni Association, and Zoo Atlanta. Mr. Silverstein also served on the Advisory Board of Mayer Electric Supply Co., Inc., a regional electrical equipment and supply wholesale distributor, and as Vice-Chairman of the Securities Law Subcommittee of the State Bar of Georgia. Mr. Silverstein graduated from Vanderbilt University (B.A., magna cum laude, 1980) and the Vanderbilt University School of Law (J.D. 1983) where he served as the Associate Managing Editor of the Vanderbilt Law Review.