After months of phone calls, coffee and lunch meetings, and harnessing small world/Notre Dame community connections, we’re happy to announce the appointment of two outstanding individuals to the Inovateus Solar board of directors: Gary Gigot, co-founder and CEO of Vennli, and Tim Sutherland, founder, chairman and CEO of Middleburg Capital Development.
These additions come at a significant turning point for us at Inovateus. In 2016, we’ve taken on bigger projects than ever before, diversified and expanded our team and strengthened our brand, and intensified the laser focus on our purpose and mission to build a brilliant tomorrow. Things have really lined up for us over the course of the year.
Our continued expansion meant that we needed more resources to manage our growth. As much as Ashley Brickley, George Howard (the other members of the Inovateus ownership group) and I believed in the company’s purpose and strongly supported this growth, we realized that something was missing. We came to understand that we needed to evolve and mature from a leadership and ownership perspective if we wanted to achieve our ambitious goal of becoming a Top 5 solar developer in the U.S. To do that, it was critical that we bring in some outside business acumen and expertise: we needed to create a “proper” board of directors.
As I stated in the press release, the addition of Gary and Tim to our board “represents a major evolutionary milestone for Inovateus. They have a wealth of executive experience in the corporate world. They have started up and scaled companies, managed large teams, negotiated with leading banks, and secured financing for major projects. Together with Ashley, George and myself, Gary and Tim will help ensure that the Inovateus team gets the support and leadership it needs as we continue our mission of building a brilliant tomorrow.”
We had our first official board meeting at Inovateus HQ on November 17. It was, in a word, fantastic. Gary and Tim exceeded our already high expectations, as they shared their profound knowledge and ideas, asked many great questions, and offered to introduce Inovateus to the deep Rolodex of connections they have. After the meeting, it became even clearer that the core values and mission of Inovateus align well with what they want to do. We can’t wait to unleash the incalculable benefits that Gary and Tim will provide to Inovateus as we move forward.
Welcome aboard, Gary and Tim!
To learn more about the expansion of the Inovateus board, click here to read the press release and click here to check out the members’ biographies and board responsibilities.
By TJ Kanczuzewski, president and board member, Inovateus Solar
