• Verdane, the European specialist growth investor, has announced the appointment of new Partner Dr Erich Becker, a veteran of the sustainable investment and energy industry. 
• Verdane has further bolstered its decarbonisation team with the addition of Christina Levin-Rylander as the Chief Operating Officer for Elevate, Verdane’s team of in-house operational advisors, where she will focus on decarbonisation investments and lead Verdane’s sustainability team. 

These senior hires will help Verdane continue to deploy thematically behind two structural growth trends, digitalisation and decarbonisation. 2024 is set to bring a greater focus on decarbonisation as an investment theme. More than $1.7 trillion was invested in clean energy in 2023, including renewable power, nuclear, grids, storage, efficiency improvements and more according to the International Energy Agency. There is still significant work to be done, however, with $32.7 trillion in investment into the European energy system required by 2050 to reach Net Zero, according to BloombergNEF data. Verdane has so far invested in 15 businesses with a decarbonisation impact. 

Dr. Erich Becker joins Verdane as a Partner on the decarbonisation team in its London office after spending more than 25 years in energy investment across institutions including Goldman Sachs, Och-Ziff Capital Management, Macquarie Group, Zouk Capital, Exergy Capital Management and Generate Capital. Before working in the energy investment industry, he gained professional experience in engineering having gained a Doctorate in Applied Thermodynamics and a Masters degree in Business Administration. 

Elevate, Verdane’s team of in-house operational experts, has been expanded to include Christina Levin-Rylander as its new Chief Operating Officer focusing on decarbonisation investments and leading Verdane’s sustainability team from its Stockholm office. The Elevate team provides strategic and operational support on projects to elevate performance and offers portfolio companies access to more than 1000 leading executives as partners, delivering one of Europe’s most powerful ecosystems to unlock growth potential. 

Before joining Verdane, Levin-Rylander worked as a Vice President at Northvolt, spent 18 years at Linde Gas and held several other executive roles. Levin-Rylander has experience scaling businesses to industrialisation and of managing large international organisations. She holds an MSc in Chemical Engineering from KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm in combination with studies at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland and at MIT in the US. 

 

Two further team members have joined Verdane’s Copenhagen and London offices bolstering the firm’s focus on decarbonisation alongside digitalisation: Senior Decarbonisation Project Director Nikolaj Ager Hamann, who previously worked as Head of Business Development at Seaborg Technology and Principal Ali Ersöz, who previously worked as a Principal at Hg Capital.

Bjarne Kveim Lie, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Verdane, commented: “We are delighted to welcome Erich to the Verdane team. Adding Erich, Christina, Nikolaj and Ali to our bench of senior talent bolsters our already impressive team of investors and operational experts. We continue to be firm believers that decarbonisation and digitalisation are the most compelling structural growth megatrends of our time, and Verdane has the deep expertise, global network and consistent track record of success needed to partner with the leading companies in our thematic focus.”

Erich Becker, Partner at Verdane, commented: “Decarbonisation is one of the most prominent investment themes in the foreseeable future, and Verdane has the credibility and culture needed to help the most exciting companies in this sector grow. I am impressed by Verdane’s way of working with companies, experienced team and consistent 20-year track record of delivering exceptional results. Together with my new colleagues, I look forward to harnessing my experience to help Verdane be the preferred growth partner to Europe’s best companies digitalising and decarbonising the economy.” 

Verdane is committed to remaining an industry leader in sustainability and is the first private equity firm globally to commit to neutralising all future residual carbon emissions with engineered, permanent carbon removals. The firm also ranked in the top 10 purchasers of carbon offsets globally – the only private equity firm to do so.