Meet the team

Tom Fontaine is a professional engineer with degrees in physics and mathematics. He is an experienced company director who has considerable experience in the energy industry. He has been on the board and management of a number of private and ASX listed companies..

Tom was a founder was a director of Pure Energy Resources Limited (ASX:PES) which listed on the ASX in 2006 and was purchased by takeover for $1 billion in 2010.

Gavin Tulloch jointly founded Dyesol Ltd (ASX code: DYE) in 2004 (now GSL). He managed the international expansion of the business, establishing and directing subsidiaries in UK, Switzerland, Italy, Germany, Singapore and Korea. Gavin was appointed Managing Director between 2008 to 2010, and subsequently CTO and executive director until 2012. Subsequent to 2012, Gavin has been an international business and technology consultant based in partly in Europe, working partly in the field of PSC development and more recently Visiting Professor at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Gavin holds a PhD from the University of New South Wales in the field of perovskite semiconducting oxides and is a Fellow of Australian Institute of Company Directors (FAICD).

Sylvia Tulloch was co-founder of Dyesol Ltd in 2004. Her other ASX roles include as director, then Chair of Ecoquest Limited, now Cynata Limited (CYP) 2009 to 2012. As Chair of Griffin Accelerator Holdings and a member of the CBRIN Board, she is an active member of the Canberra innovation ecosystem, and mentor to companies in the Accelerator programme.

Companies in which Sylvia is a shareholder, angel investor and Director include Uniflow Power – commercialising biomass fuelled small scale electricity generators, PSI – commercialising fibre optic sensor systems, Lava Blue – a company with a mine-to market business plan for high purity battery minerals, Wildlife Drones and Sundrive Solar – which is developing next generation PV conductor systems. Sylvia has been active in government liaison, both at company and industry levels. She has been on the Boards of several Cleantech industry associations.

Steven James is a highly experienced director and business consultant who has held multiple board position in both private and listed companies, including for subsidiaries of the Commonwealth Bank. He has particular experience in assisting companies through to listing preparation. Steven was former chairman of Hot Copper Holdings Ltd and took them through to an ASX listing.

Steven currently sits on a number of boards across the financial services, legal and technology sectors. He has a Masters in Financial Services Law, is a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors, holds a Diploma of Financial Markets, and is a Justice of the Peace.

Michael Graetzel created the field of molecular photovoltaics, being the first to conceive and realize mesoscopic photo-systems based on dyes as light harvesters that can rival and even exceed the performance of state of the art solar cells based on planar solid state p-n junctions. He is credited with moving the photovoltaic field beyond the principle of light absorption via diodes to. the molecular level. Prof. Graetzel also played a pivotal role in the recent development of perovskite solar cells (PSCs) that directly emerged from the DSC. He has been associated with Greatcell in its several editions since our founding work in Canberra in 1994, specifically as Chairman of the Advisory Board of Dyesol.

Peter Richards is an Australian business entrepreneur who has founded, owned and managed 6 businesses to success including one business sold to an Australian Bank and one taken to an ASX listing. One wholly owned business grew to become Australia’s largest independently owned securities company which operated in the financial planning, investment and capital markets financial sectors. His business network is wide and very well connected.

Peter was retained as a consultant and expert witness for the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) between 1997 an 2001 on matters relating to compliance, industry standards and market surveillance.

He is an involved investor and has a history of being listed in the top twenty shareholders in a range of small cap ASX listed companies principally in mining and energy. He has hands on experience in a number of industries including financial services, software development, real estate development, mining, and agriculture for local and export markets.

Dr. Polycarpos Falaras (250 papers in international refereed journals, >12.000 citations, h-index 55, 7 patents, Associate Editor of Applied Catalysis B Environmental) is a Research Director at the National Center for Scientific Research ‘Demokritos’ in Athens (Greece), leading a group of 16 people. He has strong expertise in Research Management and has participated and led several EU and National research projects.

He is currently working on nanomaterials and nanotechnology-driven processes for solar energy conversion to electricity and environmental protection (photocatalytic materials and reactors for water cleaning, CO2 capture/conversion).

Since 11-2009 Luca Sorbello has been Executive Sales and Marketing Manager of Greatcell Solar group. Board member and for Managing Director for Greatcell Solar Italia.

He has been since 2004 an adjunct professor at Tor Vergata University.

From 2005-2008 Luca completed his Ph.D. in industrial management at the university of Tor Vergata (Rome). In December 2002 he was awarded a Master of arts in “business organization and management” in the engineering management school at Tor Vergata University in Rome.

Dr. Enrico Leonardi, Technical Project Leader, Italy, Over 7 years post-doctoral experience with Greatcell Solar Italia SRL, involved in scale-up of DSSC, development of perovskite solar cellss, call and device encapsulation, DSSC & Perovskite panel realization. Development of LED based solar simulator. Technical and project management EU projects.

Professor Songyuan Dai is currently full professor of School of Renewable Energy at North China Electric Power University. He received his PhD degrees from Institute of Plasma Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2001, and worked in IPP till 2013, when he moved to North China Electric Power University as full Professor. He obtained the Anhui Province Youth Science and Technology Award in 2007 and China Photovoltaic Prize in 2013 by the China Renewable Energy Society. He was the IOC member of IPS(2010-2018) and the Member of the Council of Chinese Renewable Energy Society, and served as the chief scientist for the National Project of China MOST(2006~2018).

Dr. Hongxia Wang is a Professor at Queensland University of Technology. Hongxia has expertise and extensive research experience (over 17 years) in the area of next generation solar cells, in particular sensitized solar cells, CZTS thin film solar cells and perovskite solar cells. She is recipient of “Solar Energy Journal Best Paper Award for 2016” in the Topic of Photovoltaics by International Solar Energy Society. Her research team is currently focus on development of new approaches for fabrication of stable, high performance perovskite solar cells and supercapacitors through innovative research.

Andrew is a multidisciplinary business breeder, director and co-founder with special expertise in identifying and formulating credible operational strategy, building relationships and road mapping of high-tech business ventures. Board experience across UK, Germany, Switzerland and Italy and responsible for many transactions covering advanced materials, energy and mining, pattern recognition, sensors and wearable technology across USA, Australasian, African and Asia Pacific territories.