News Article
Sunovia Hires Art Buckland as Chief Executive Officer
With 24 years of experience and a winner of “Entrepreneur of the Year” award, Buckland has served on many public company boards. He has raised $175 million in private and public capital while starting nine companies and turned around seven companies.
Sunovia Energy Technologies, a clean-tech company specializing in LED lighting and solar technologies, has employed Art Buckland as the company’s Chief Executive Officer effective September 7, 2010.
Buckland’s leadership has resulted in corporate turnarounds, hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue growth, billion-dollar increases in book value, IPOs and LBOs. He has raised $175 million in private and public capital while starting nine companies, completed 36 M&A transactions worth over $1.45 billion, and turned around seven companies.
He has 24 years of experience serving on public company boards and has led profitable growth and innovation in energy and clean tech for many years. He guided some of the first developments of Smart Meters in the 1980s, using his semiconductor background working with a diverse array of utility companies and municipalities.
Buckland received the “Entrepreneur of the Year” award (from NASDAQ, Ernst & Young, Sprint, USA Today, and others) for his work with CP Clare, where he grew a small $5 million failing semiconductor company to $147 million of annual revenue in three years. The IPO at CP Clare resulted in a 122% IRR for investors.
Recently, in his two years at Soliant Energy, Buckland pioneered the development of a strategic vision for the next generation of solar panels that could generate distributed electricity at utility costs without government subsidies.
Buckland brings broad experience in operations and governance to Sunovia. His industry experience spans renewable/solar and traditional energy companies (Schlumberger, Enertec, Solartron and Soliant), advanced semiconductors (CP Clare, Texas Instruments, Engim, and Fairchild), supply chain and value-added distribution (Lex, Indivers, and Richardson Electronics), and capital equipment (Teradyne, Fairchild Test, Applicon, and FourPi). Buckland has held CEO, CFO and Board Chairman roles in startups as well as NASDAQ, NYSE and LSE companies. He speaks five languages; is an avid sportsman, and has been married for 32 years.
Buckland stated, “I am excited to be joining the Sunovia team as Chief Executive Officer. I have spent my career developing and growing companies within the semiconductor and related systems markets, and the incredible potential of Sunovia’s proprietary technologies and products is very clear. The opportunity to lead a company with this much potential while uniquely operating in this large and dynamic clean-tech energy space and poised for rapid growth, is an ideal fit for my talents and experience. I expect to grow Sunovia efficiently and effectively to realize the tremendous value that has already been created in EvoLucia, and look forward to the challenge of realizing the value in our solar initiative soon after that. I am truly excited to be joining such a talented team, and look forward to collaborating with our great group of investors as we work to grow and achieve our mutual goals.”
Carl Smith, continuing Chairman of the Board and outgoing CEO of Sunovia, stated, “We retained the services of C-T Partners, a world renowned executive search firm, and interviewed a number of qualified and highly talented candidates. I am pleased to announce that Art was our top candidate, and that he was equally enthusiastic to accept the opportunity to lead Sunovia.”
Smith continued, “Art brings the executive pedigree and Wall Street credibility that I feel have been missing from the company. His experience and reputation with both institutional investors and large banks will be critical to the company as we enter a phase of rapid growth. I look forward to the opportunity to learn from Art as we work together to push Sunovia toward profitability. I will continue to work as Chairman of the Board of Sunovia, and remain as committed as ever to the success of our exciting company.”
Sunovia is currently developing a highly scalable solar CPV tracking system that will be compatible with either a III-V or II-VI solar wafer. As with other CPV systems in the market today, Sunovia’s system will operate optimally at high solar insolation levels (>5). The use of high volume, low-cost optics and automatic assembly methods, with low capital and labor costs, will enable rapid scaling.
