Management
Jess Larsen, President and Senior Managing Director
John Verhesen, Senior Managing Director
Nicholas Larsen, Senior Managing Director
Jeremy Lee, Senior Vice President Finance
Rudolf "Rudy" Cech, Senior Advisor
Maria Nathanail, Senior Advisor, Legal Counsel
Jess Larsen, President and Senior Managing Director Mr. Larsen's career in the petroleum industry began building oil and gas pipelines. He also has an investment banking background, having worked on a Mergers and Acquisitions team for Citigroup. His experience as an entrepreneur includes starting a number of new businesses that were actively involved in both technical analysis and the pursuit of private financing solutions with several Exploration and Production (E and P) and Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) companies. Mr. Larsen has experience with management teams, engineers, land owners, consultants, drillers, and technology owners. He has worked with numerous capital sources, including large oil and gas specific, private capital providers who manage from $350MM up to several billion dollars. In addition, Mr. Larsen continues his active involvement with various private equity groups, merchant banks, investment banks, private lenders, and high net worth individuals.
John Verhesen, Senior Managing Director Mr. Verhesen has over 25 years experience as an independent businessman. He has been actively involved in the management of his companies as well as the companies of others. Mr. Verhesen’s broad oil and gas background includes exploration, as well as ownership traditional oil and gas production. In addition to his work on the Katana team for the last three years, Mr. Verhesen has been actively involved in the growth of several drilling programs.
Nicholas Larsen, Senior Managing Director Mr. Larsen brings his petroleum experience at a Canadian junior oil and gas company to Katana as a full time member of the Fund. In addition to his responsibilities as Manger of Land, he worked alongside the engineers evaluating properties in the candidate selection process for enhanced oil recovery technology applications. Mr. Larsen also participated in the financial forecasting and design of strategic acquisitions to support the economics of these programs. When programs were chosen, he led the negotiations with many of Canada’s largest public oil and gas producers as well as other juniors, including farm-ins, purchases and joint ventures, to gain access to the various wells and properties. Once wells were acquired, Mr. Larsen performed the lab work to design the EOR chemical mix, and later traveled to the wells sites to participate in the application of the technology.
Jeremy Lee, Senior Vice President Finance. Prior to joining Apollo Energy, Mr. Lee held the position of Vice-President Taxation at Walton International Group where, in addition to overseeing the tax compliance, planning, transfer pricing and investor reporting, he gained experience structuring investment offerings throughout Canada, the United States, Asia and Europe. Jeremy was instrumental in facilitating rapid revenue growth and geographic expansion. Amongst his many duties, he was responsible for training of sales, operations and client service personnel on the structures and tax implications of the ownership of domestic and international investment products. Jeremy spent eight years in public accounting including the position of Tax Manager at Deloitte & Touche gaining experience with corporate structuring for clients in the energy services and real estate sectors. He holds a Bachelor of Commerce (Honors) from the University of Manitoba and completed his Chartered Accountant designation in 2001. In 2007, Jeremy completed level 3 of the CICA's In-Depth Tax course.
Rudolf "Rudy" Cech, Senior Advisor Mr. Cech's business background includes 37 years with Sproule, where he conducted reserves estimation and evaluation. He also supervised and managed exploration and development projects, including geological studies in Canada, the U.S. and worldwide. His work as Senior Vice-President of Sproule’s international division gave him extensive experience in more than 30 countries, not only with the geology and engineering of oil and gas reservoirs but with the business and political issues that arise as well. Mr. Cech retired from Sproule Associates in June 2006 and currently is president of Adur Energy Ltd, a private consulting company. Mr. Cech is a Member of the Petroleum Society of the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum (CIM). He is also a Professional Engineer with the Association of Professional Engineers, Geologists and Geophysicists of Alberta (APEGGA).
Maria Nathanail, is an associate in Torys' Calgary office, practicing in the areas of corporate finance and securities law. Ms. Nathanail's previous legal experience was with one of the largest national law firms in Canada, Gowling Lafleur Henderson LLP. She has practiced in the areas of corporate finance, securities, mergers and acquisitions as well as general corporate commercial. Specifically, Ms. Nathanail's experience is primarily in public and private mergers and acquisitions, securities offerings, joint ventures and strategic alliances, real estate financings, capital markets, private equity, corporate governance and continuous disclosure matters. Ms. Nathanail obtained a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Political Science from the University of Calgary and a Juris Doctor from the University of Saskatchewan.