Ella Jollands from e7 brings an international perspective and oversees the day-to-day coordination that keeps the different components of the Accelerator moving in the same direction.
What key need does the LEVERAGE Accelerator address?
“A central need I see the LEVERAGE Accelerator meeting is supporting public bodies who are often underfunded and understaffed, but who are also filled with people who are ambitious to decarbonise! Besides that, I see the LEVERAGE Accelerator acting as a crucial bridging mechanism, a way of directly providing public bodies with technical and financial know-how to assist them to create projects that are well developed and aligned with the needs of private financiers.”
What’s your role in the LEVERAGE Accelerator?
“I take care of the day to day running of the LEVERAGE Accelerator, ensuring that all of our processes are running smoothly and that all the different components and national teams in the Accelerator are working together to produce the best overall results.”
What do you bring to the table?
“My background is in international projects, and I have worked with different stakeholders from all around the world. This international perspective is a core anchor of the LEVERAGE Accelerator, it allows for us to understand what works in other countries and to learn from these diverse experiences to apply them to the LEVERAGE Accelerator as much as possible!”
What are you most excited about to see in the LEVERAGE Accelerator?
“Concrete realised projects! I am excited to see how public bodies use the support being provided by the LEVERAGE Project to turn their aspirations into reality!”
David Pérez from Creara plays a key role in shaping how the LEVERAGE Accelerator works in practice. His cross-sector experience helps to ensure that the Accelerator works for both public bodies and private financiers.
What key need does the LEVERAGE Accelerator address?
“The LEVERAGE Accelerator addresses a critical gap between public bodies and private financiers by helping them speak a common language. It reduces perceived risk and creates the conditions for public projects to attract private financing, enabling them to move from ambition to implementation.”
What’s your role in the LEVERAGE Accelerator?
“My role focuses on shaping the theoretical framework and the operational model of the Accelerator. We are defining its scope, structure and boundaries to ensure it is clear, practical and fit for purpose.”
What do you bring to the table?
“My professional background allows me to bridge both worlds: I have worked closely with private financiers through technical and commercial due diligences in renewable energy and energy efficiency, while also supporting public bodies in project development. This dual perspective helps align expectations and constraints on both sides.”
What are you most excited about to see in the LEVERAGE Accelerator?
“I am most excited to see real projects reaching financing through the Accelerator. Creating a trusted space where public bodies and private financiers can meet is important, but the real success will be seeing tangible investments that create impact for citizens and contribute to a more sustainable future.”
Nicholas Stancioff from LABEEF brings deep expertise in structuring long-term renovation financing and contributes a clear focus on one critical point: making transactions work in reality, not just on paper.
What key need does the LEVERAGE Accelerator address?
“Most renovation financing fails before it starts. Building owners lack the tools to structure a credible proposition; project enablers lack the pipeline to justify transaction costs; investors lack the standardised instruments to deploy capital at scale. LEVERAGE addresses the middle layer: the point where good intentions stall because no one has assembled the contractual and financial architecture that makes a deal possible. That gap is not technical. It is a missing transaction process — and that is what the Accelerator exists to supply.”
What’s your role in the LEVERAGE Accelerator?
“The team at LABEEF brings the financing logic. Our role is to help project enablers understand how to structure renovation as a bankable proposition — how to align stakeholder, risk, and profit so that the arrangement holds across 20 – 40 years. That means working through contractual architecture, payment mechanics, and the conditions under which a bank or investor will treat the income stream as forfaitable.”
What do you bring to the table?
“I have built financial platforms in environments where the institutional infrastructure did not yet exist — at SUCDEN in the 1990s, pen and paper, with daily exposures in the billions of dollars, and then in building renovation from 2012. The starting point was Renesco, a Latvian company with the right ambition and the wrong structure. The lesson they taught — at their own cost — is the one the whole sector still struggles to learn.”
What are you most excited about to see in the LEVERAGE Accelerator?
“Replication that does not require reinvention. Most project enablers who have attempted deep renovation in Europe have gone through the same exhausting sequence: building a project from first principles, persuading counterparties who have seen too many promises, then constructing the legal structure, the measurement protocol, the investor conversation. LEVERAGE’s value is not just credibility; it is the compression of that learning curve into transferable instruments, delivered in a standardised process.”
Oliver Gajda from Eurocrowd brings extensive experience in alternative finance, crowdfunding, and capital market development, helping the LEVERAGE Accelerator explore new ways of connecting climate projects with investment.
What key need does the LEVERAGE Accelerator address?
“Europe’s climate transition is held back by a stubborn financing gap, especially for energy efficiency and building renovation. Public bodies and project developers often struggle to build viable investment pipelines and connect with private finance, while investors often find it difficult to engage with these projects at scale.”
What’s your role in the LEVERAGE Accelerator?
“In LEVERAGE, I focus on ensuring that the Accelerator is both sustainable and scalable, so it can continue creating value beyond its initial phase. I also support public bodies and project developers in understanding and using alternative finance mechanisms, including crowdfunding, as part of broader financing strategies.”
What do you bring to the table?
“As Founder of EUROCROWD, I have worked closely with the European Commission, crowdfunding platforms, investors, and project developers across Europe. My background spans crowdfunding, venture capital, private equity, social entrepreneurship, and market development.
This combination allows me to bridge policy, investment practice, and market realities, helping to identify financing models that can support scalable climate projects.”
What are you most excited about to see in the LEVERAGE Accelerator?
“I’m excited about the potential for public and private actors to adopt innovative financing models that can deliver climate impact at scale. If LEVERAGE can help make alternative finance a normal part of blended finance structures, it could unlock significant new capital for Europe’s energy transition while creating real impact at the local level.”