John Cooper is a senior financial executive with more than 29 years of experience in project finance and development, corporate finance, transaction structuring and execution, work-outs, executive management and public Board of Directors representation.

He was a founding management team member of the PG&E National Energy Group (and predecessor companies). As senior vice president - finance, treasurer and principal financial officer, he oversaw all aspects of structuring and arranging financing for PG&E NEG projects, energy trading operations, mergers and acquisitions and equity sell-downs, and was responsible for all corporate finance, treasury and insurance activities. In his fourteen years at the company, he was responsible for arranging more than $10 billion in structured and corporate financing. Innovative transactions won ten Deal of the Year citations by the international financial community and he was named to the Global Finance Magazine project finance Superstar Team in 1995.

He has 15 years international finance and project development experience. He spent 8 years with Bechtel Financing Services, Inc., where as vice president and general manager, he was responsible for leading a team that assisted Bechtel clients worldwide in structuring and arranging financing for large infrastructure and energy projects. He spent three years as chief financial officer of a European oil, shipping, banking and venture capital group in Geneva, Switzerland and was an Advisory Director on the Board of the Inter-Maritime Bank of Switzerland. He was an international banking officer with Continental Illinois Bank for four years where he was responsible for lending activities to customers and governments in Francophone Africa.

He is currently on the Board of Directors and a member of the Audit and Special Committees of Criimi Mae (NYSE CMM), a commercial mortgage-backed securities investment company. He is also an Advisory Director of Republic Financial Corporation, a merchant bank in Denver.

Cooper holds a bachelor of arts degree from Trinity College, Connecticut, a master’s degree in development economics and international studies from the Johns Hopkins Nitze School of Advanced International Studies and a master's degree in finance from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University.