LEADERSHIP TEAM

Carlos Guinand is an entrepreneur. He is the co-founder and Executive Chairman of Sonnedix, an international renewable energy producer. In his executive role, he has been instrumental in setting the company's strategic direction and growth while overseeing its governance and performance through his expertise in management and operational matters. Carlos also chairs the Performance Committee and the Human Resources and Compensation Committee.

Sonnedix was founded in 2009 as a small player in the nascent solar industry. Under his leadership, the company partnered with J.P. Morgan Asset Management in 2014. Sonnedix has over $8 billion in assets, a total capacity of over 10GW across ten countries, and over 650 operating power plants.

He has been fundamental in establishing environmental, social, and governance (ESG) principles for Sonnedix and has guided the company's entry into new energy markets. His deep knowledge of the renewable energy industry, international business acumen, and keen capacity to anticipate market trends have also helped Sonnedix deliver high-performance, cost-competitive renewable energy technologies to many countries around the world.

His leadership and strategic decision-making were once again demonstrated in 2024 when he was appointed Chairman of Nadara. This appointment followed his role as Chairman of Ventient Energy in 2022. His business expertise contributed to the successful merger between Ventient Energy and Renantis, which led to the formation of Nadara, one of the leading independent generators of renewable energy in Europe.

Over the course of his career, Carlos has gained wide-ranging expertise across industries, including the solar sector, and has significant experience managing a portfolio of private equity investments in South America and Europe.

Axel Thiemann has been with Sonnedix since 2011, becoming CEO in 2018. Under his leadership, Sonnedix has experienced rapid growth and diversification to more than 3.5GW operational capacity. Today, Axel leads a global team of over 500 employees in 10 countries.

Axel is passionate about providing clean, affordable, and reliable energy to drive global decarbonization. As CEO he has initiated Sonnedix's hybridization strategy - expanding into battery storage and wind alongside solar, to better meet the challenges and needs of the energy transition.

Before taking on the role as CEO, Axel held various leadership roles at Sonnedix, including COO based in London and overseeing M&A, integration, and strategy in Miami. Prior to Sonnedix, Axel held senior roles with Barclays Bank in London, was a consultant with McKinsey and Company in Cologne, Germany.

Axel graduated as an Electrical Engineer from Hannover University in Germany and holds an MBA from IESE Business School, Spain.

Mel Rowlands joined Sonnedix in June 2023 as General Counsel.

Mel is responsible for all things legal, compliance, regulatory, and ESG related across the business The Legal and Compliance function business partners with Sonnedix colleagues and our various stakeholders to fuel the growth whilst also protecting Sonnedix long term value and reputation by ensuring appropriate management of legal risk. On SLT Mel leads on our ethical culture and values of always doing the right thing. She is also the Corporate Secretary to the Sonnedix Board of directors and supports our Chairman in that respect.

Mel holds a degree from Oxford University and has over 25 years of experience as a business lawyer. She qualified with a City law firm as a mergers and acquisitions specialist and has worked as an in house lawyer for many years. She has worked in both public and privately owned international businesses and has experience of multiple sectors including oil and gas and energy, industrial gases, semiconductors, aviation and medtec. She also has for many years led large international teams including legal, compliance, regulatory, hr, health & safety and government affairs.

Throughout her career Mel has been a member of executive teams leading change and has worked on a number of transformational projects such as public company mergers, demergers and listings. She is also experienced at working with public and private company Boards.

For the last ten years Mel has worked at Smiths Group - a FTSE100 technology group – where she held the role of Group General Counsel. She most recently led its response to the covid crisis coordinating across 5 business divisions whilst also supporting the UK government’s ventilator challenge. She also delivered the $2.7b sale of Smiths’ medical division whilst concurrently preparing it for demerger and a separate listing on the UK Stock Exchange.

Mel is proud to join Sonnedix and contribute, with her experience and her passion towards sustainability and the energy transition, to the company’s purpose of powering a bright future. She is also passionate about equity, diversity, inclusion, and social mobility and is looking forward to working with the rest of Sonnedix on its plans in this regard.

Juan Fernandez (Juanma) joined Sonnedix's leadership in 2023 as Chief Operating Officer. In his role, Juanma is accountable and responsible for the overall performance of the company's operating portfolio from an operational, asset management and commercial perspective.

Juanma joined Sonnedix back in 2017, when Sonnedix started its fast expansion in Spain, triggered by the acquisition of a large portfolio of regulated assets. A native of Donostia in Spain, he has lived and worked across the United States and the United Kingdom, developing his career in the fields of semiconductor manufacturing at Lucent Technologies, and later photovoltaic product manufacturing at BP Solar. Throughout his professional life, Juanma has held leading positions of responsibility spanning through international jurisdictions in the field of technology development and transfer to manufacturing. While at BP Solar he was PV Technology Director responsible for the development and implementation into manufacturing of high efficiency PV components. Back in 2013 he became Head of Asset Management, EMEA for Sunedison managing the operating fleet of PV assets across the region. Joining Sonnedix, Juanma led the Asset Management team in Spain heading the operations of the assets in the country while actively supporting the growth of the portfolio implementing standards for thorough due diligence and onboarding through into operations. His success in implementing such standards and effectively working across all functions participating in the sustainable growth of Sonnedix, while embodying and role modelling its corporate values, has been instrumental in taking Juanma through to its current leadership position.

Juanma holds a Ph. D. from the University of California, San Diego in Applied Physics and has carried out research into advanced semiconductor materials at the department of Physics at Imperial College, London. Juanma brings into Sonnedix over 20 years of experience in the renewable energy sector with demonstrated breadth and depth spanning from PV component technology, through renewable asset operational optimization to effective technical and commercial asset management. He is passionate about renewable energy sustainable deployment, and he finds Sonnedix cultural values a source of continuous strength to continue building a singular working environment where people can excel beyond their limits while contributing to build a bright future for coming generations.

Maurizio Grassi was appointed Chief Growth Officer in July 2021. His responsibilities include driving the growth strategy, and identifying, evaluating and delivering development and acquisition opportunities across all of Sonnedix’s territories. Since joining Sonnedix in 2013, Maurizio has played a critical role in developing the company’s Puerto Rico and Italian operations, before leading the M&A team during a period of significant growth.

Prior to joining Sonnedix, Maurizio spent a year as CFO of Enerqos, an EPC and O&M Italian company. Other previous roles include two years as the Country Finance Manager, REC Systems Italy, with responsibility for all aspects of investment and finance for the EPC contractor, and the Chief Financial Officer for Enfinity Italia. As Managing Director of Soleasy Srl, Maurizio oversaw the development, financing and construction of small scale renewable projects, with a particular focus on the photovoltaic sector. Earlier in his career, Maurizio held senior commercial and business development roles at Cisco Systems and also worked in the banking sector.

Maurizio has a degree in Economics and Commerce from Universita Cattolica del Sacro Cuore di Milano, Italy and an MBA from University of Glasgow, UK. Maurizio is fluent in English, French and Italian.

Maurizio is proud to part of the Sonnedix leadership because of the energy, reliability and focus, shared with all colleagues, for making a positive difference to the world and achieving the company purpose of building a bright future.

After eleven years within the business, Miguel Ángel García Mascuñan became Chief Financial Officer of Sonnedix in May 2024. In his role as CFO, he is responsible for Finance, Tax, Project Finance, Financial Planning and Project Management functions.

Over the last eleven years with the business, Miguel has played a significant role in shaping Sonnedix's culture and growth, embodying our motto of 'One Company, Many Careers' and its collaborative spirit. Having joined Sonnedix in 2013 as Loan Compliance and Reporting Manager in London, Miguel moved to Spain in 2017 as Representative Director, to open Sonnedix's Madrid office. He successfully built and led Sonnedix's project finance activities in Europe, raising more than EUR2.5 billion of new financing for the company since 2015. In 2021, Miguel was appointed to the newly created role of Chief of Staff, developing Sonnedix's strategy process and leading the execution of the company's Fit for Sustainable Growth programme.

Prior to Sonnedix, Miguel was Deputy Director for Reporting at Vector Cuatro Group (now Vector Renewables) and spent four years with Deloitte as a Senior Auditor in Chile and Spain. He holds a Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) from the Universidad CEU San Pablo.

Stephen Taylor joined Sonnedix in 2018 and was appointed Chief People Officer in July 2021. With extensive HR and interim experience gained working in dynamic, high growth environments, Stephen has previously held HR Director roles at The Notemachine Group, HS2, Worldpay, Camelot, the BBC and Barclays.

With over 30 years’ experience, Stephen’s expertise lies in strategic decision-making, business integration, mergers and acquisitions and facilitating the growth and journey of companies as they scale. In addition to an in-depth expertise in change management, his specialist skills span Employee Relations, Reward, Organisation Design and Resourcing.

Stephen’s key achievements include leading both functional change programmes and business wide change programmes across a significant number of businesses. He is passionate about maximising people’s potential and performance, from developing Board effectiveness programmes to acting as a coach and mentor to top talent. Stephen has introduced a variety of job evaluation schemes to support pay and reward, flex benefit schemes and sponsored Organisational Design and change programmes. Stephen has developed reward strategies for Barclays, Camelot, Worldpay and most recently HS2, in addition to designing retention plans, LTIP’s, bonus schemes and pay structures for numerous organisations.

Stephen has led a large number of business acquisitions and integrations, undertaking pre-acquisition due diligence. He has supported organisations through various stages of growth, including the construction and programme management business of HS2, where the Managing Director and he formed the construction organisation and grew it from 2 to 1,250 employees over 2 years. He integrated two BT businesses which delivered synergy savings of £35 million per annum, managed the HR and Change workstreams of the acquisition and integration of a large plc into Serco Group and the Woolwich Building Society integration into Barclays Bank. Most recently, Stephen led the integration of three mid-sized businesses with a combined workforce of 2,000 into the Notemachine Group.