Dr. Wal van Lierop
Executive Chairman & Founding Partner
Wal is an award-winning venture capitalist, business leader and visionary in innovation, sustainability and cleantech, with unique industry insights gained through deep operational experience as a venture capitalist, corporate executive, international consultant and university professor.
Wal founded Chrysalix in 2001, and shaped it into one of the most respected venture capital firms globally for cleantech and industrial innovation. He built the strong foundation of large international corporations and financial institutions that form Chrysalix’s traditional LP support base. He has sourced, invested in and advised numerous companies, assisting them from the start-up phase to scaling up their breakthrough solutions for the new “post-fossil fuels” economy, while engaging them with large multinational companies for their innovation strategies. Currently, Wal is a member of the Boards of Chrysalix portfolio companies General Fusion, Svante, Axine Water Technologies and Enbala, while also assisting various other Chrysalix companies.
Wal is an Advisory Board member of the Cleantech Group, a judge of the Cleantech 100 Awards, a Canadian Clean50 and Clean16 award winner for outstanding contribution to Clean Capitalism, a regular contributor to Forbes, and a frequent speaker at events like the GLOBE Series, Oil & Money, the BCTECH Summit, Energy for Tomorrow and the Cleantech Forum. Wal has been a longstanding contributor to the tech community in British Columbia and abroad as the founder and Chairman of New Ventures BC, co-founder of SET-ventures in Amsterdam and Evok ventures in BC/Alberta, a founding member of the BC CEO Alliance, contributor to various Vancouver greenest city projects and advisor to the BC Cleantech Cluster initiative CORE amongst others.
Prior to Chrysalix, Wal was the VP of Strategy at Westcoast Energy, at the time one of Canada’s largest energy companies. Earlier, he advised energy, chemicals and financial services blue-chip companies on strategy, innovation and change management while working with McKinsey & Company for more than seven years. Prior to this, Wal was an Associate Professor in economics at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and consultant to the World Bank and European Union. He has also been an adjunct professor at Vancouver’s SFU Beedie School, teaching Change Management and International Business, and at UBC’s Sauder School of Business teaching Entrepreneurial Finance and Venture Capital.
Wal holds a PhD in Economics from the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam and has completed courses at MIT in probability modeling and Change Management.
Team
Fred van Beuningen
Managing Partner
Fred is a Managing Partner based in the Netherlands. His industry expertise spans C-level, Executive Board and CEO positions in oil & gas, chemicals, logistics, innovation and sustainability, and scaling up ventures.
Richard MacKellar
Managing Partner
Richard is a Managing Partner based in Vancouver. He is an entrepreneur and startup CEO with industry expertise in electric power, material science, mining and metals.
Dr. Wal van Lierop
Executive Chairman & Founding Partner
Wal is the Founder of Chrysalix and a Managing Partner based in Vancouver. He launched Chrysalix in 2001 and is recognised for his expertise and thought leadership in industrial innovation, energy and cleantech.
Dr. Charles Haythornthwaite
Senior Partner
Charlie is a Senior Partner based in the United Kingdom. He leads the opportunity recognition and investment selection process in the Chrysalix RoboValley Fund and has a special interest in mining innovation.
Dr. Alfred Lam
Partner
Alfred is a Partner based in the Netherlands. He has incubated and launched ventures from academia and is involved in the development of investment theses, deal sourcing and due diligence with a special interest in energy and resource productivity.
Wendy Leong
Vice President, Finance
Wendy is the Vice President of Finance based in Vancouver. She has nearly 25 years of experience in private equity investment management and works closely with the investment team on valuation and finance matters.
Alicia Lenis
VICE PRESIDENT
Alicia is a Vice President based in Vancouver. She works on investment theses development, deal sourcing, due diligence and portfolio management. Alicia has close to 15 years of industrial technology sector experience.
Nicholas Andruschak
Associate
Nicholas is an Associate based in Vancouver. He is responsible for deal sourcing, due diligence, and developing investment theses. Nicholas is particularly interested in companies developing sensor systems and intelligent systems to facilitate Industry 4.0.
Giuliana Unger
Analyst
Giuliana is an Analyst based in the Netherlands. She has expertise in cleantech innovation and carbon capture and utilization (CCU), and she is responsible for sourcing new deals and due diligence.
ADVISORY BOARD
Matthias Bichsel
Matthias is a former member of the Executive Committee and Director of Projects & Technology at Royal Dutch Shell. His previous roles include Executive VP of Development & Technology, Managing Director of Shell Deepwater Services and Director of Petroleum Development Oman.
Mark Dudzinski
Mark is the former Chief Marketing Officer at GE Energy responsible for $45B in business including thermal & renewable power generation; oil & gas exploration, development & transport; electric transmission & distribution; and industrial controls.
John Thompson
John is the former VP, Technology and Development at Teck Resources. John left Teck to form PetraScience Consultants Inc., providing exploration and technology services to the mining industry. He is the Wold Professor in Environmental Balance for Human Sustainability at Cornell University.
Stefan Heck
Stefan is the CEO at Nauto, an AI platform for urban mobility. Previous roles include consulting Professor at the Precourt Institute for Energy at Stanford University; and Director at McKinsey where he cofounded the Cleantech and Sustainability Transformations practice. Stefan is the co-author of the Resource Revolution.
Peter Bryant
Peter’s expertise is in growth and innovation, natural resources and energy, software, technology commercialization and corporate venture capital. His former senior leadership roles include GE and Computer Associates. Peter is a senior fellow at the Kellogg Innovation Network and a Partner at Clareo.