Wal van Lierop
President & CEO
Dr. Wal van Lierop is Co-Founder, President & CEO of Chrysalix Energy Venture Capital. He is responsible for fund raising and strategic partnerships with leading financial and industrial companies all over the world, oversees the overall strategy and operations of the Chrysalix funds and actively supports a number of portfolio companies. Wal initiated the Chrysalix Global Network, is co-founder of Chrysalix SET in Europe and he is actively leading the expansion of Chrysalix into Asia. He has a significant track record as a VC and has had hands-on involvement in dozens of innovative companies. Between Chrysalix and its portfolio companies Wal has been directly responsible for raising more than $1 Billion for early stage technology ventures.
Wal has a rare background in energy and cleantech with deep operational knowledge and experience. He is a recognized leader in the industry having seen its evolution from multiple sides:
- for more than 10 years as a VC with Chrysalix.
- before co-founding Chrysalix in 2001, he was for six years an Executive and VP of Strategic Planning at the leading Canadian energy company “Westcoast Energy” which he helped sell to Duke Energy.
- prior to that Wal was for more than seven years with McKinsey & Company, the international management consultant, where he focused on change management, and corporate and R&D innovation - primarily in the energy, chemical and financial services industries.
- before McKinsey, he worked for approximately ten years as an Assistant and Associate Professor at the Vrije University of Amsterdam in The Netherlands, doing research in economics and econometrics, and teaching urban, regional and environmental economics, while also consulting to businesses, government, and major international institutions such as the European Community and the World Bank. In this position he gave guest lectures at many of the world’s leading universities.
Wal is the founder and a Director of New Ventures BC, the successful new ventures and business plan competition in British Columbia; he has been on the Advisory Board of the Cleantech Group LLC for many years; and is a founding member of the Alliance of Cleantech CEOs of British Columbia. He is also an advisor on energy and cleantech to various Canadian politicians; a member of the Clean Energy Tech Advisory Committee of the BCTIA (British Columbia Technology Industry Association); and a Board Member of CERC (the University of British Columbia’s Clean Energy Research Centre). In the past 15 years Wal has been a part-time adjunct professor teaching Venture Capital and Entrepreneurial Finance in the MBA program of the University of British Columbia, and International Business and Change Management in the EMBA program of Simon Fraser University. He has written and edited several books and many scientific and popular articles, and is a regular speaker on energy innovation and efficiency, entrepreneurship and global competiveness at conferences around the world. Wal holds a PhD in Economics from the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam where he wrote his thesis on Probability Theory.
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