Madeleine Lee Joins Verde’s Board of Directors
Set 20, 2022
Singapore. Verde AgriTech Ltd (TSX: “NPK”) (“OTCMKTS: “VNPKF“) (the “Company”) is pleased to announce the appointment of Madeleine Lee (the “Director”) to its Board of Directors (the “Board”). With this addition, the renewal of Verde’s Board, announced on September 13, 2022, [1] is now complete.
“It is a great pleasure to be part of Verde because its purpose ‘to improve the health of people and the planet’ are principles I personally endorse. To be the second woman to join the Board of Verde reflects the Company’s commitment to diversity, an important pillar for long term sustainable development. With my experience in finance and multiple boards of directors, I intend to help Verde with its fast-paced plans for a better future,” commented Madeleine Lee.
Verde is a growing supplier of crop nutrition solutions to farmers in Brazil, which is the world’s second largest exporter of food goods. Brazil is the world’s largest importer of potash, relying on foreign supply for 96% of its domestic consumption. Verde can potentially supply 50% of Brazil’s potash needs for 26 years, according to the Pre-Feasibility Study concluded in 2022. [2] Asia is the destination for over a third of Brazil’s agricultural exports, where Singapore is the second largest importer and globally the seventh largest importer of Brazilian agricultural products. [3]
Verde ensures that its production is sustainable. Its mineral processing does not require tailings dams, nor does it generate any waste by-products because the ore recovery rate is 100%. The mine is predominantly located on what was previously degraded pasturelands that, once mined, Verde transforms into tropical forest. To achieve that goal, to date, the Company has planted over 20,000 trees, with previous years marked by: 4,300 trees in 2019, 5,000 trees in 2020, and 9,888 trees in 2021. [4] All planted tree species are native to the region, many of which are today deemed endangered species.
Ms. Lee is an award-winning investment manager with experience on multiple board of directors. Ms. Lee has more than 30 years of experience in managing public and private equities, and has worked for the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation, Chase Manhattan Bank, and Morgan Grenfell Investment Management Asia. She was chief investment officer of Commerzbank Asset Management Asia Ltd., and the founder of bowtieAsia and Athenaeum Limited.
“We are pleased to welcome Madeleine Lee to Verde’s Board. Thanks to her strategic thinking and many years of experience of corporate leadership, we are certain that Ms. Lee will be an invaluable Singapore-based Director,” declared Verde’s Founder, President & CEO, Cristiano Veloso.
Composition of the Board of DirectorsThe Board is now composed of five independent directors, Alysson Paolinelli, Fernando Prezzotto, Luciana de Oliveira Cezar Coelho, Madeleine Lee and Renato Gomes, and a sole executive director, Mr. Veloso.
About Madeleine LeeMadeleine Lee, CFA, has been an investment manager for 36 years. She worked for Government of Singapore Investment Corp, Morgan Grenfell Investment Management and was Managing Director of Commerzbank Asset Management Asia. In 2000, she cofounded bowtieAsia, an on-line platform matching start-ups to angel investors and for this was awarded the Montblanc Businesswoman Award. In 2002, she was made as a Fellow of the Eisenhower Fellowship and did her research into university and not-for-profit endowment investment philosophy in the US. From 2005 to 2007, Ms. Lee was Deputy Chief Investment Officer of the NUS Endowment Investment Office, applying her on-ground research of the US endowment scene to pioneer the concept and build-out of an endowment investment division for the university. In 2008, she returned to Athenaeum, an investment advisory company, and transformed it into a Multi-Family Office Investment Advisor, licensed by MAS. In 2016, Athenaeum sold the funds business to the Azimut Gp SA of Italy, and pivoted its effort to advise a highly select group of Asian Family Offices as Consultant CIO, in Endowment Investing and Legacy Investing.
Since 2015, Ms. Lee has been Independent Non-Executive Board Director at HKSE- listed First Pacific Co in Hong Kong where she chairs the Audit & Risk Committee. She is also member of the Finance Committee, in which investment proposals are scrutinised. These include infrastructure projects in infocomm, logistics, land transport, renewable energies and fossil energy in ASEAN economies. More recently Ms. Lee has helped the company to focus on the renewables sector and the building of an online super ecosystem. Recently she was appointed Independent Director at GreenPhyto Ltd, a superscale hydroponic vertical farm in Singapore.
Ms. Lee is also Board Director at The Arts House Ltd, where she is Lead Director and Chair of Audit Committee, and Singapore Institute of Management (SIM) Group Limited where she is Chair of Finance and Investment Committee and a member of the Executive Committee.
Earlier appointments include: Board Director of Aetos Security Management Ltd, Mapletree Holdings, Export Credit Intl Corp, all Temasek-linked companies. And in the not-for profit sector, she has been on the Boards of The Community Foundation of Singapore, Singapore Symphony Orchestra and Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music in NUS.
Ms. Lee has served on the Investment Committees of InfoComm & Media Development Authority (IMDA) of Singapore, The Singapore Academy of Law, CFS, SIM, SUSS and SMU, with AUM in excess of USD2bn. In 1998 she helped UniFEM Singapore launch a socially responsible unit trust with UOB. She was a member of the Finance Sector Review Committee chaired by Lee Hsien Loong, then Minister of Finance in 1997.
Ms. Lee graduated from UK with a BA (Hons) in Economics & Accounting and an MBA in Finance in 1984, and qualified as a Chartered Financial Analyst in 1989. Madeleine is also a published writer with 11 volumes of poetry. Her work is widely anthologized and translated, and she has read in festivals in Asia, Australia & UK. She lives in Singapore with her two sons.
investor.verde.ag |
