Ecokraft Team

Björn D. Fischer

Chief Executive Officer (CEO)

CEO, Björn D. Fischer responsible for corporate strategy, business & financial model, fundraising, team recruitment, partnerships acting as project coordinator for this project. Björn is a social entrepreneur, carbon market pioneer and climate finance expert active globally since the early 2000’s. He is an innovator in digital platforms and early adopter of blockchain. After more than 17 years of living and working abroad, he moved to Frankfurt at the end of 2015. Since 2016, he has led a clean energy pilot program in Malawi with a clean energy project pipeline of up to € 50 million. Björn was the Director of the Indonesian Climate Change Trust Fund from 2013-15 in Jakarta and successfully raised more than $20 million for new projects. Previously, Björn was the Managing Director of First Climate USA and built a subsidiary of First Climate headquarted in Frankfurt, Germany, with offices in Washington D.C and San Francisco. Björn received a BA Real Estate Asset Management from Real Estate Management Boarding School, Ratingen, Germany in 1995 and graduated in 2003 as MSc in International Management from the International University of Maastricht, The Netherlands. He is a 2018 graduate of the Frankfurt School of Management and Finance ‘Certified Expert in Climate and Renewable Energy Finance’ Program.

Kai Buntrock

Associate Partner

Kai Buntrock, Associate Partner of EcoKraft, responsible for corporate and business development and financial solutions. Kai provides 16 years of experience as renewable and social enterprise executive, development banker and infrastructure investment professional. He has structured and financed more than 7,000 MW of renewable projects across four continents and five technologies.

From spring 2012 to summer 2016, Kai was CFO at SOWITEC Group, one of the largest family controlled renewable energy project developers with 250 people, teams on the ground in 12 frontier and emerging markets, more than 90 operative portfolio companies and an active project pipeline of some 16+ Giga Watt. He drove and managed the corporate & business development, accounting, corporate finance, corporate governance and risk management evolution, lead numerous sell side transactions across eight countries and headed the group’s project finance activities. Before that, Kai spent 10+ years as an Investment Professional in the European Utilities Sector and as a development banker.

Kai holds an MBA from Steinbeis University Berlin and has an academic background in accounting and management from Cardiff University

Alastair Marke

Chief Innovation Officer, Alastair Marke is responsible for the innovative applications of distributed ledger technologies and artificial intelligence which underpin the entire design of the world’s first Digital Climate Funding Platform to accelerate the global climate finance flows to developing countries. Alastair is the Director of the Climate Blockchains Innovation Centre. On top of his business, Alastair undertakes a range of public duties in the blockchain climate community, including the Director-General of the Blockchain Climate Institute; and BFI Western Europe Director of the Blockchain Commission for Sustainable Development, where he works with a number of UN agencies to deploy blockchain in achieving SDGs. He also chairs the Climate Change, Green Finance and Sustainability Committee of the British Blockchain Association; and sit in the ISO panels on climate/sustainable finance (ISO 14097), green bond (ISO 14030) and blockchain governance (TC 307) standards.

Alastair is a seasoned sustainability and innovation policy advisor who has supported a wide range of institutional clients such as DFID, GIZ, European Commission, AusAID, and NDC Partnership, etc. Aspiring to be a thought leader in this field, he has published papers on various policy issues, including food and energy security, climate finance, low-carbon investment planning, emissions trading, and associated green growth issues in many regions. Seeing the dire need to accelerate global efforts to fill the current climate finance gap, Alastair has co-founded the Blockchain Climate Institute composing over 70 experts from 25 countries, who have produced the world's first book on blockchain and climate change issues - "Transforming Climate Finance & Green Investment with Blockchains" released in July 2018. He is also a founding member of the UNFCCC-backed Climate Chain Coalition. Alastair is a recognised incubator or strategist of a series of blockchain innovation projects that aims to culminate at a sustainable, inclusive economy. His forthcoming book will be on blockchain and emissions trading law.

Alastair has been awarded an MSc with Distinction from the University of Surrey. He is a certified expert in renewable energy, climate and adaptation finance with the Frankfurt School of Finance & Management and fintech entrepreneur with the University of Oxford. Currently a candidate for LLM in Climate Change Law and Policy at the University of Strathclyde and MSt in Sustainability Leadership at the University of Cambridge, Alastair continues his professional development with further courses from the Greenhouse Gas Management Institute.

Francisco Martín Rubio

CMO, Marketing Manager

Francisco Martin: (MBA, finance & operations) + Engineer, responsible for digital marketing, fundraising campaigns and digital finance. He provides +20 years professional experience in executive positions in various companies, including +10 years in the energy industry, including promotion of renewable plants (solar PV, Biomass) & fostering energy efficiency in buildings and industries. Francisco has + 10 years in technical assistance to EU-funded programmes (FEDER, FSE). He also structured and project-funded a 2 MW solar PV plant in Spain, including a crowdsales among regional +150 engineers, and obtaining bankability and insurance from various financial institutions. In past 4 years gained high-level experience in Digital Marketing positions in various businesses, including an international ICO/crowdsales. Francisco graduated as Master in Business Administration (MBA) from I.I. SanTelmo (Spain), as Master in Small Businesses Management at EOI Business School (Spain) and as Industrial Engineering, at both Fachhochchule Muenchen (Germany) and the University of Seville (Spain). Role in the Project ECOKRAFT: External and Internal Communication (communication strategy, digital marketing, fundraising campaigns)

Ansik Mahapatra

Financial Manager, ICO Analyst

Ansik Mahapatra, Financial Manager at EcoKraft brings in a complex understanding of financial modeling, engineering and software development. Ansik is very versatile and brings strong analytical skills to the team. He has developed applications such as the Black-Scholes Calculator to optimize portfolios, developed a pricing model for constant maturity swaps delta, created an algorithmic trading application to program time-series momentum trading and bet-against beta strategies and automated and modeled an investment strategy using Modern Portfolio Theory.

Ansik conducts market research and analysis to develop new and innovative tools, such as the country investment ranking and spearheaded the development of the platform’s click dummy, making use of his programming and coding skills. He is also very well connected to public and private networks in India, providing important market intelligence to enter the attractive Indian market. He also has experience in ICOs, namely in the areas of modeling Token economics, business plan, and the associated marketing strategies.

Ansik graduated as M.Sc, Finance from the Frankfurt School of Finance and Management (Germany) and as M.Tech, Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Madras (India). He has also qualified FRM L1.

Peter Dauenhauer

Head of Energy Development

Peter Dauenhauer has a combined background in economics and sustainability of off-grid energy projects. His past work has included the design of off-grid projects in developing countries, management of the Malawi Renewable Energy Acceleration Programme (MREAP), sustainability evaluations and feasibility studies for energy access projects. These projects have been conducted in Malawi, Gambia, Kenya and ZambiaP. He has served as co-chair of the IEEE Power and Energy Society Working Group: Sustainable Energy Systems for Developing Communities (SESDC) since 2014 and leads the Energy Use Task Force. His research interests are in sustainability of all types of off-grid projects, business model design and implementation, energy consumption patterns for newly connected communities, and enabling effective policy for off-grid rural electrification. He actively volunteers with Kilowatts for Humanities (KWH) (business model design and research support) and with IEEE Smart Village (Malawi development Liaison).

Peter holds a BA Economics from University of Washington, MSc Economics from University of Amsterdam, and is currently completing his PhD at the University of Strathclyde in Energy for Development.