Izzet Bensusan - Executive Director
Izzet Bensusan is the founder and the executive director of Karbone. Throughout his career, he has been involved in several entrepreneurial ventures focused on cutting edge markets. As an early adopter and innovator, Mr. Bensusan focuses on making significant and lasting difference on his industries of focus. To realize his vision around sustainability and energy conservation, Karbone is focused on defining the best comprehensive strategies for emission reduction. Mr. Bensusan has brought together the two key disciplines of technology and carbon finance to offer Karbone’s clients many unique options currently unavailable through other providers. He is a regular speaker at emissions market and sustainability conferences and an active advocate of shaping policies for the development of renewable energy and sustainable economies.
Prior to Karbone, Mr. Bensusan was a partner at Net2s, a global consulting firm where he built the privacy and IT security division and established it as the firm’s leading practice, servicing top global financial firms. He managed a team of over 100 consultants and engineers while focusing on the North American region. Before joining Net2s, Mr. Bensusan was one of the founding members of Parlo.com, the first online language-learning experience, taking advantage of the emerging Internet technologies.
Mr. Bensusan holds an M.B.A. from Columbia University and a B.A. and M.A. from Brandeis University in international economics and finance. He is also the co-founder of the Entrepreneurs Network of Brandeis University Alumni in New York. Mr. Bensusan serves on the board of NYC Association of Energy Economics.
Richard R. Weihe - Managing Director
Richard Weihe has over sixteen years experience in the environmental and energy sectors in a variety of roles including investment management and derivative structuring, environmental and emissions credit brokerage, risk management, and engineering consulting project management. As managing director, he spearheads business development activities and is an integral advisor to and oversees of all Karbone divisions.
Prior to Karbone. Mr. Weihe was a senior investment analyst with RNK Capital where he originated, structured and directed investment analysis on a variety of private equity and project-related renewable energy and environmental credit transactions in North America and Latin America. Before RNK, he directed structuring of environmental risk management products for emerging market clients in the energy, chemical and infrastructure sectors, and underwrote insurance products for Clean Development Mechanism carbon reduction projects for AIG. Prior to AIG, Mr. Weihe served as a senior environmental credit advisor for Natsource LLC, where he structured a variety of North American environmental credit transactions for energy, utility and chemical companies. He joined Natsource from Enron Global Markets, where he structured and marketed a variety of energy risk management products for the power sector.
Mr. Weihe has served as project manager and consultant at Arcadis in a variety of environmental engineering and water resource projects for the energy, manufacturing and utility sectors. He holds an M.B.A. in finance and marketing from Northwestern University, a M.S. in Geology from Ohio State University and a B.A. in Geology from Denison University. Mr. Weihe also is an adjunct faculty member at Columbia University where he teaches a course in Environmental Markets through the Center for Environmental Research and Conservation.
Rouba F. Farah - Director
Rouba F. Farah is a director at Karbone, a full service environmental commodity brokerage, project finance and carbon advisory firm with a core focus on renewable energy and emissions. As part of Karbone's executive management team, Ms. Farah plays a key role in all of the firm's business groups while drawing on her extensive experience in environmental finance to offer thought leadership and expert counsel through frequent speaking engagements.
Prior to joining Karbone, Ms. Farah served as vice president and business manager for Global Environmental Markets (GEM) within BNY Mellon where she headed the efforts of the launch of the GEM product globally. Her group focused on providing custody, escrow and trade settlement services for various types of carbon credits and allowances, both voluntary and regulated, launching BNY Mellon's environmental trade settlement platform and implementing controls to meet all audit, risk and compliance requirements and guidelines. Ms. Farah was a key player in major innovative environmental projects as well as business development initiatives related to environmental finance.
Ms. Farah joined BNY Mellon in 2004 as a team leader in the International Finance group, after having held various corporate trust roles at firms such as Bankers Trust/Deutsche Bank and US Bancorp. Ms. Farah holds a Bachelor and Master of Arts degrees in Business Economics from the City College of New York.
