
Meet the Team
Our Leadership team are all Entrepreneurs with 20+ years experience in their respective fields.

Connie Ekelund
CEO & Cofounder
Connie is the essence of an entrepreneur and life-long learner and thrives on experiential and transformational learning, seizing every opportunity for growth and development. Her passion is to develop innovations for a more sustainable world and it’s this passion that drives her to entrepreneurial activities and to her big picture thinking and strong business acumen. As a certified Sustainability Professional, she has created programs and frameworks on ‘United Nations Sustainable Development Goals’ (UNSDG); ‘Environment, Social & Governance’ (ESG); and ‘Diversity Equity & Inclusion’ (DEI).
Her ability to create corporations from the ground up, in a myriad of industrial sectors including Management Consulting, Marketing, Industrial Construction, Sustainability, Renewable Resources, Industrial Innovations, CleanTech, Health Food, Fashion, Non-Profit and Publishing; are a testament to her big-picture thinking and strong business acumen. She has a broad understanding of not only Corporate Structure and Operations but also that of Private & Public Corporation, Franchise and Union Organizations, as well as Non-Profits, Family Enterprise, Social Enterprise and B-Corps.

Scott Farnham
CTO & Cofounder
Scott is the technical driver of the company and develops the new ideas, putting the deals together and building teams to bring the projects from concept stage into real, tangible assets.
He has a passion for innovation and works tirelessly on continuous improvement and simplification of products and processes.
Scott has a wide and varied background of industrial design, construction and processing experience. He has successfully developed over ‘11 full scale plants’ from concept to full operation, either as an ‘Owner’, or as a ‘Technical Consultant & Project Manager. ’Having global experience has allowed Scott to develop a well-rounded skill set in multicultural settings. His keen interest in cleantech, renewable fuels and energy is driven by the need to develop and implement technologies that contribute to the betterment of environmental conditions.

Jay-Anne Mandingin CPA, CA, MBA – Chief Financial Officer
Jay-Anne has broad operational and financial leadership across several industries. In addition to her Financial expertise, her experience includes investor readiness (data room preparation, financial modeling and valuation, investor relations management), developing and mentoring teams, building tech and systems infrastructure, financial planning and analysis, financial reporting, improving operational efficiencies, etc.
Jay-Anne’s experience and ability to scale with us is crucial asset to NanoTerraTech, as she understand where we are today, and where we want to go. Coincidently; she is also an Impact Angel Investor.

Roger Perry CPA – Chief Operation Officer
Roger is a well-rounded leader with over 25 years of industry experience. He has held senior management and executive positions in both operations and finance in a variety of industries, including 12 years as a forest industry operations manager. For the past seven years he has worked extensively with high growth and start-up companies. Completing an MBA focused on sustainable business (U of Victoria), he combines a depth of practical experience with a forward-looking perspective on the technologies and practices emerging in our new economy.

Jason Grewal – Legal Counsel
Jason Grewal, Esq. is a triple qualified (New York, England & Wales, and British Columbia) attorney trained in international financial hubs at some of the world’s top business and law schools. Jason is a trained and practicing securities, corporate M&A, and VC/PE lawyer. He focuses his practice on representing international businesses and entrepreneurs in emerging industries with a specific focus on blockchain, cannabis, and early stage technology – assisting these companies access the capital markets in various jurisdictions around the world. Jason has experience in the UK, US, Malta, Spain, and Canada. He has been involved in various M&A transactions, and helped raise capital in both the private and public markets. He has assisted with the listing/flotation of companies in both North America and Europe.

Cameron McBeth – Advisor (Indigenous Relations)
Cameron’s area of expertise is in Indigenous Relations. He is entering the 21st year as consultant and advisor to community-based organizations. He works collaboratively with Indigenous communities and organizations to achieve their goals by providing support and guidance that aligns with their values. He also ensures a deep knowledge of the issues for all stakeholders within the Indigenous socio-economic ecosystem implementing sustainable change.

Ishaan Gill – Market Research
Ishaan is a Master of Management Candidate at the Haskayne School of Business and was Awarded the Haskayne Entrance Scholarship. He has a background in Biological Sciences and Nanoscience and has a great passion for sustainability.

Foresight Canada Cleantech Accelerator
Foresight is enabling Canada to become the first G7 country to reach net zero. Focused on accelerating the global transition to a clean economy through problem-driven innovation. Bringing together innovators, industry, investors, government, and academia to address today’s most urgent climate issues and support a global transition to a green economy.

Claire Dixon – Advisor (Foresight)
Claire’s superpower is navigating technical and commercial complexity – defining strategy from disparate and incomplete information and translating strategy into coherent and actionable plans. Prior to becoming a deep-tech founder, Claire held a number of senior operational roles at the University of Calgary and had a strategic consulting career spanning more than a decade. She brings a strong investor lens having worked with Private Equity clients, within a VC firm in her early career and with angel investors through CDL. Claire holds a Masters of Engineering (and MA) from Cambridge University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

James Rowe - Advisor (Foresight)
James has been on the founding team of three companies, most recently as President and Chief Product Advisor of Insightful Product Innovation. Previously, James was Head of Product at FoodMesh, the company he co-founded to help eliminate food waste in the food supply chain. James helped grow the business to over $1M of annual recurring revenue in under three years while redirecting over 20 million meals of surplus food to needy families. Before FoodMesh, James co-founded Made For Me, an additive manufacturing marketplace for designers to create product prototypes, where he was responsible for leading the product roadmap and developing North American strategic partnerships.
Before diving into entrepreneurship, James had a nearly 15 year career at MDA, Canada’s leading aerospace company and the grandfather of BC’s tech industry. His curiosity about customer problems, product development, and international business quickly led him into technical sales and business development. James completed his career at MDA as an international business development manager, working on multi-million dollar geointelligence system sales. He led multi-disciplinary teams through complex enterprise sales, booking over $125M in contracts with Canadian, US and other foreign defense departments.
University of British Columbia – Okanagan
NanoTerraTech has worked with our Academic Research Partner UBCO since 2019, and we have been invited to co-locate at the Cleantech Hub at UBCO. Collectively we have accessed NSERC funding to pay for research team. We are very grateful for this collaboration and their ongoing support in our work.

Dr. Lukas Bichler – Professor of Materials Science and Engineering
Supervising Professor: NanoTerraTech
Dr. Bichler received his Ph.D. degree in Mechanical Engineering (specializing in Manufacturing, Materials and Solid Mechanics) from Ryerson University, Toronto. Upon graduation, he received NSERC-Postdoctoral fellowship, tenured at the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Toronto

Somi Doja – PhD Candidate, Graduate Researcher (2018 – Current)
Somi is a graduate research assistant pursuing her PhD degree in mechanical engineering at UBCO. Her expertise lies in the field of producing carbon by recycling waste materials, thereby promoting green environment. She has worked with international collaborators on developing novel carbon materials for a variety of applications like batteries, filters etc. She is looking forward to working with NanoTerraTech to create a sustainable battery material that is an alternative to fossil fuels.

Mitchell Barrett – Graduate Research Assistant (2021 – Current)
Mitchell Barrett is a graduate research assistant currently pursuing his Master’s of Applied Science in mechanical engineering at UBC Okanagan. His interests are in material sciences, manufacturing processes, as well as CAD/CAM design. Mitchell has spent work terms with graduate students analyzing and characterizing high chromium steel alloys, as well as casting, analyzing, and characterizing graphene reinforced aluminum alloys. During his undergraduate degree, Mitchell worked with NanoTerraTech on developing sustainable carbon nanostructures for his capstone project. Through his experience of working with carbon, Mitchell has realized the almost limitless amount of applications for carbon nanostructures and recognizes the significance of being able to create/extract carbon sustainably. He is looking forward to continuing his work with NanoTerraTech in developing sustainable materials to reduce fossil fuel usage.

Daryus Ahmed – Research Assistant (2021 – Current)
Daryus Ahmed is a fourth-year mechanical engineering / mechatronics student currently attending UBCO. His interests lie in the fields of material science, manufacturing, and sustainability . So far in his studies, he has worked as a supply chain engineer at PepsiCo, an undergraduate research awardee for Autonomous Vehicles and as a Teaching Assistant for Sustainability. Daryus chose engineering as it allows him to push the boundaries of research and technology further. He is super excited to work closely with NanoTerraTech as the prospects of Carbon Black and Carbon Nanotubes pave the way for an exciting future for everyone. He hopes to leverage his past experiences in order to produce some great results.
