Advisory Board

In addition to a highly experienced and well respected investment team, AQAL Capital has assembled an Advisory Board comprised of renowned sector experts in extra-financial criteria development and assessment, as well as scientific experts in topics ranging from entrepreneurship to renewable energy. Our advisors are worldwide authorities from business, NGOs and academia.

KEN WILBER
Founder Integral Institute - Inventor of the Integral Model

Ken Wilber is one of the most important philosophers in the world today and the inventor of Integral Theory. He is one of the most widely translated academic writers in America, with more than 35 books translated into some 30 foreign languages.

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The term AQAL (All Quadrants All Lines) is a key concept in Integral Theory, which he derived from the Plantonic value spheres: the True, the Good, and the Beautiful and which he expanded to include more than 80 evolutionary models. Ken Wilber is also the founder of Integral Institute, which was the first organization fully dedicated to the advancement and application of Integral Theory to contemporary global issues. It was formed in collaboration with more than 200 scholars and experts, specializing in education, politics, business, medicine, psychology, spirituality, as well as, law and criminal justice.

Wilber lives in Denver, Colorado and is active as a philosopher, author, and teacher, with all of his major publications still in print.


DR. ANDREAS RICKERT
CEO of Phineo

Dr. Andreas Rickert is the CEO of PHINEO, an organization supporting civic engagement for the purpose of common welfare.

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Prior to initiating PHINEO, Dr. Rickert served as Director at Bertelsmann Stiftung for two years and was responsible for its projects relating to the third sector and promoting civil society.

From 2004 to 2008 he has worked as project manager with McKinsey and Company where his focus was on public sector and healthcare industry in Europe and the Middle East.

Dr. Rickert did his PhD work in molecular genetics at the Max-Planck-Institute in Cologne and the Stanford University in Palo Alto. Before that, he studied biology and environmental protection at the universities of Düsseldorf, California – Davis and Bonn.


CANDACE JOHNSON
President Johnson Paradigm Ventures (JPV)

Candace Johnson is the president of Johnson Paradigm Ventures (JPV). Until 2018 she has been the president of EBAN (European Business Angel Network), The European Trade Association for Business Angels, Seed Funds and Early Stage Market Players.

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She is co-initiator of SES/ASTRA and SES Global, the world’s pre-eminent satellite group, founding President of Europe Online Investments S.A., the world’s first internet-based online service and satellite broadband network, and founder of Loral Cyberstar-Teleport Europe, Europe’s first independent private trans-border satellite communications network. Ms. Johnson is also founding President of the VATM, the Association of Private Telecom Operators in Germany and founding President of the Global Telecom Women’s Network (GTWN).

Candace Johnson is also President of Johnson Paradigm Ventures (JPV) which is a principal founding shareholder with AXA, Caisse des Depots, Bayerische Landesbank, and the SPEF of Sophia Euro Lab, Europe’s first trans-border early-stage investment company based in Sophia Antipolis. JPV is also a principal founding shareholder in London-based Ariadne Capital, “Architecting Europe.net”, one of the earliest supporters and promoters of Skype, the global VoIP phenomenon.

She is a member of the Advisory Board of numerous European and US ventures as well as being a Member of the Board of Governors of EDHEC (France), the University of Haifa in Israel, Sabanci University in Istanbul Turkey, and a Senior Enterprise Fellow for the University of Essex. She has been a featured speaker in the OECD International Entrepreneurship Forums in Shanghai, Riga, and Cape Town. She holds Masters Degrees with Honors from the Sorbonne and Stanford Universities, a Bachelors Degree from Vassar College and her high-school degree from Punahou.


TESS MATEO
Managing Director Cx Catalysts

Mrs. Mateo has more than 12 years of Impact Investing experience and is a global authority on private-public partnerships leveraging investors, multinational companies, multilateral agencies, academia, NGOs, and governments.

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As a serial entrepreneur, Mrs. Mateo has 12 years of start-up experience and is the founder of CXCatalysts. CXCatalysts is a collaboration accelerator that develops and manages innovative programs that help companies profitably reach underserved markets, as well as governments and multilateral institutions achieve their environmental, social, and developmental goals.

She also launched Gralni Group, a real estate venture; IncentOne, a technology company; and Colorworx, a clothing company.

Prior to becoming an investor and entrepreneur, Mrs. Mateo was the strategy director of the CEO at PricewaterhouseCoopers managing the firm’s strategic relations across 160 territories.

With more than 28 years of restructuring, turnaround and start-up experience advising leaders of Fortune 500 and emerging companies across several industries in dozens of countries, Mrs. Mateo brings innovative solutions and strong networks to deliver desired outcomes to the participating stakeholders.

Mrs. Mateo sits on the advisory boards of various organizations including the Joint US China Collaboration on Clean Energy (JUCCCE), the World Bank’s Private Sector Leaders Forum, the US General Services Administration (GSA) Greening the Federal Government, and the Global Summit of Women.

Her recent contributions include the World Economic Forum, RIO+20 Earth Summit, Vision 2050, Business New Agenda of WBCSD (World Business Council for Sustainable Development) and The Roadmap to 2020 Fueling the Growth of Women’s Enterprise Development.

Mrs. Mateo holds a Masters of Business Administration (MBA) degree from Columbia Business School, a Bachelors of Science degree in Biology and Psychology, and a Bachelors of Arts degree in International Economics from University of Michigan.


OTHMAR M. LEHNER
Full professor of entrepreneurial finance at the University of A. S. Upper Austria

Othmar M. Lehner is professor of entrepreneurial finance at the University of A. S. Upper Austria, professor of finance at Middlesex University London, and ass. professor in accounting and director of the Centre of Accounting, Finance and Governance at Hanken School of Economics, Helsinki. He is honorary director and professorial fellow at the ACRN Oxford Research Centre.

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Prof. Lehner serves as the director of the ACRN Oxford Centre for Interdisciplinary Research. He is one of the authoritative voices in the fields of Impact Investing and Social Finance with numerous publications and is particularly interested in the role of Crowdfunding as a catalyst for societal changes. As editor of the Routledge Handbook of Social and Sustainable Finance he currently leads a consortium of researchers to further develop the field.