Tara Energy's executives began their careers a decade earlier and gained significant experience in marketing of physical and financial energy products and services in various global markets. The team's experience includes making markets and structuring products in the natural gas, wholesale and retail electricity, liquefied natural gas (LNG), paper and telecom products. The team has been directly involved in developing projects and businesses with the combined value in excess of $10 billion at companies such as UBS Warburg, Bear Stearns, Compaq, Cargill, Entergy, Enron, BMC Software, Sprint and Accenture.
Management Team Background
Neville Ravji, CEO
(Neville.Ravji@TaraEnergy.com)
Mohsin Khoja, President & COO
(Mohsin.Khoja@TaraEnergy.com)
Rahil Jafry, VP Business Development
(Rahil.Jafry@TaraEnergy.com)
Mohsin M. Hassan, VP Operations and Technology
(Mohsin.Hassan@TaraEnergy.com)
Dan Schmidt - VP Special Projects
(dan.schmidt@TaraEnergy.com)
Adil Jafry - Co-founder and Advisor
Neville Ravji – CEO
Prior to Tara Energy, Mr. Ravji worked on strategy, commodity structuring and deal negotiation in the retail energy industry at Enron Energy Services. Here, he was involved in some of the first commercial retail energy transactions completed by the company. At Enron, Mr. Ravji also worked on developing the broadband business as also the pulp and paper business. He spent time at a software startup company, working on business development. In India, Mr. Ravji was the founding partner of one of India's most successful grocery businesses, which he managed for 7 years. Mr. Ravji has an MBA in Finance and Strategic Management from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He is very actively involved in various South Asian community activities.
Mohsin Ali Khoja – President & COO
Prior to Tara Energy, Mr. Khoja worked for Enron Global Markets where he developed Enron's Natural Gas Liquids business. Mr. Khoja also worked for Enron Broadband Services and Enron International where he negotiated partnership and project development agreements with various foreign government agencies and upstream oil and gas development companies. Prior to Enron, Mr. Khoja provided project finance and advisory services at SNC-Lavalin Capital -- funding arm of the largest Canadian engineering and construction company. In 1993, Mr. Khoja founded a wholesale trading enterprise that traded multiple commodities in the US, Europe, and South Asia. Mr. Khoja has a BBA from University of Texas at Austin and an MBA in Finance and Strategic Management from McGill University.
Rahil Jafry – VP, Business Development
Prior to co-founding Tara Energy, Mr. Jafry held senior positions at UBS Warburg and Enron in Houston, London, and New York. While at UBS, Mr. Jafry was responsible for establishing the bank’s energy derivative trading relationships with hedge funds and other investment banks across the US and Europe. During his tenure at Enron, Mr. Jafry was involved with several new strategic initiatives at the company, including his work at the company’s highly successful retail energy division in England, helping establish the company’s Natural Gas derivatives business for Continental Europe, and co-founding EnronOnline, the company’s proprietary online trading platform that later became the largest web-based trading platform in the world. Mr. Jafry’s contributions within the energy industry have been recognized publicly; he has been interviewed extensively by various business and academic journals, and presented at the Columbia University’s Graduate School of Business.
Mohsin M. Hassan - VP, Operations and Technology
Mr. Hassan has over 12 years experience in the telecommunications, manufacturing and energy industries. He has previously worked at Enron, MCI, IMI Systems and ICI Plc. He specializes in strategic planning, business development & process engineering, as well as energy risk management and procurement. Mr. Hassan holds a BS degree in Industrial Engineering from Iowa State University and an MBA in International Business from the University of Missouri.
Dan Schmidt - VP, Special Projects
Mr. Schmidt has headed operations management and customer support infrastructure teams for over 10 years. During this period, he managed various projects in manufacturing engineering, and managed product development for software and hardware groups at Compaq Computers and BMC Software. Mr. Schmidt is a licensed attorney with extensive experience in technology law and licensing. He has worked very closely with the staff at the Public Utility Commission and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, and his depth of insight into regulatory issues and rules relating to electricity deregulation in Texas was instrumental in ensuring that Tara Energy establish and maintain its credentials with various regulatory entities in record time.
Adil Jafry - Co-founder and Advisor
Adil Jafry is a co-founder and advisor of Tara Energy. Prior to founding Tara Energy, Mr. Jafry was a co-founder and principal of FoodTrader, a business-to-business electronic exchange focused on streamlining the fragmented global food industry. FoodTrader was named a top-50 internet company by the Forbes magazine in 2000, and was profiled on "Best of the Web" in 2001. Prior to this, Mr. Jafry served as the founding member of the Global Investments group at Enron Corp., where he helped execute energy and infrastructure M&A transactions with over $4.5 billion in value. In 2001, he also helped establish Enron's voice minutes trading group. Mr. Jafry has also worked at iVita Corp. in Business Development and for Bear Stearns Jahangir Siddiqui, where he provided corporate finance and advisory services to energy companies in Asia. Mr. Jafry serves on the board of Pratham, a child literacy organization devoted to the cause of putting "every child in school and learning well." Additionally, he is an active participant in the fast-growing field of space commercialization, specifically the Google Lunar X-Prize competition, and serves as a charter member of TIE and OPEN in Houston.