Investor relations

Dr. Shawn Qu founded Canadian Solar Inc. in October 2001 and has been its Chief Executive Officer and President since October 2001. Prior to founding Canadian Solar, Inc., Dr. Qu worked at Automation Tooling Systems Inc (ATS), Cambridge, Ontario Canada from 1998 to 2001, where he performed various responsibilities at ATS and at its subsidiaries in the solar power business, Matrix and Photowatt International S.A. including Director for Silicon; Procurement, Director for Strategic Planning and Business Development and Technical Vice President (Asia Pacific) of Photowatt International S.A. From 1996 to 1998, Dr. Qu served as a Research Scientist at Ontario Hydro (currently Ontario Power Generation), where he worked as a process leader in the development of Spheral Solar technology, a proprietary solar technology which Ontario Hydro acquired from Texas Instruments. Under Dr. Qu’s leadership, Canadian Solar Inc. became a publicly listed company on NASDAQ in 2006 and has grown into one of the largest photovoltaic solar product manufacturers and solar power project developers in the world. Canadian Solar Inc. now has delivered accumulatively more than 59GW of solar modules to thousands of customers in more than 150 countries. The Company and its subsidiaries have also connected accumulatively more than 6.1GW of solar power plants to the grid. These solar power plants are mainly located in Canada, the United States of America, Japan, China, Brazil, Mexico, India and the United Kingdom.

Dr. Harry E. Ruda has been serving as an independent director of the Company since July 2011. He is the Director of the Centre for Advanced Nanotechnology, the Stanley Meek Chair in Nanotechnology and Professor of Applied Science and Engineering at the University of Toronto, Canada. His research interests focus on the fabrication and modeling of semiconductor nanostructures with applications in the fields of optoelectronics, energy and sensing. Dr. Ruda is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and holds a PhD in Semiconductor Physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is Chair of the Research and Development Committee.

Mr. Andrew (Luen Cheung) Wong has been serving as an independent director of the Company since August 2014. He has also served as a director of Chubb Life Insurance Company Ltd. since 2008, and is an independent director and the vice-chairman of Huazhong In-vehicle Holdings Company Limited, which is listed in Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Previously, Mr. Wong served as a director of China CITIC Bank Corporation Limited, a director of Intime Retail (Group) Co. Ltd., and a director of China Minseng Bank, all three are companies listed on The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong. He also has held senior positions at the Royal Bank of Canada, the Union Bank of Switzerland, Citicorp International Limited (a merchant banking arm of Citibank), Hang Seng Bank Limited and DBS Bank Limited, Hong Kong. Mr. Wong holds a Bachelor of Social Sciences (Honours) degree from the University of Hong Kong and a Master of Philosophy degree from Hong Kong Buddhist College. He is Chair of the Compensation Committee.

Mr. Karl E. Olsoni has been serving as an independent director of the Company since June 2020 and was a strategic advisor to the Board of Directors between January 2020 and June 2020. Mr. Olsoni has more than 30 years of international energy sector experience. He is currently an Operating Partner with Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners, an infrastructure fund manager investing in clean energy infrastructure in the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia. He is also a Partner with the kRoad group of companies which invests in battery storage, waste transformation and e-mobility. He previously served as Managing Director of the Clean Energy and Infrastructure team at Capital Dynamics where he and his partners raised and invested approximately $1 billion in clean energy infrastructure projects. Mr. Olsoni was formerly Chief Financial Officer and Senior Vice President of PPM Energy Inc. (now Iberdrola Renewables/Avangrid), a US-based energy company, and Chief Financial Officer of Koch Materials, Inc., a unit of the Koch Industries, Inc. Before that, he spent 16 years with the Southern Company where he was part of the original management team that built the Southern Company's independent power and merchant energy business (Southern Energy, Inc., later Mirant, Inc. and NRG Energy, Inc.) into one of the largest independent power producers in the world. Mr. Olsoni holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics from George Washington University and an MBA from the College of William and Mary.

Mr. Leslie Li Hsien Chang has been serving as an independent director of the Company since September 2020. Mr. Chang has been serving as Senior Advisor to CITIC Capital (Holdings) Limited since 2014. Prior to that, Mr. Chang served as a senior corporate executive and board director at several listed companies in Hong Kong. He joined CITIC Pacific limited as General Manager, Finance in 1994 and later became the Executive Director and Deputy Managing Director of the company responsible for the Group's financial management, accounting and treasury functions. Mr. Chang also served as the Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer of HKC (Holdings) Limited; Executive Director and Vice Chairman of China Renewable Energy Investment Limited; Alternate Director on the board of Cathay Pacific Airways Limited and Independent Non-Executive Director of Pou Sheng International (Holdings) Limited, among other roles. Mr. Chang started his career after graduating from George Mason University business school in 1984 and joined the New York Office of KPMG. He became a partner of the firm specializing in the financial services industry and served as the Director of the Chinese Practice. Mr. Chang served as a certified public accountant in the State of New York and member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, Chartered Global Management Accountants and the Hong Kong Institute of Certified Public Accountants.

Mr. Yan Zhuang has been serving as a director of the Company since September 2020 and is also President of CSI Solar, the Company’s Module and System Solutions subsidiary. Mr. Zhuang joined the Canadian Solar management team in 2009 after initially joining the Company as an independent director in 2007. Over the past 11 years, he has served various leadership roles, most recently as President and Chief Operating Officer, and previously as Acting Chief Executive Officer, Senior VP and Chief Commercial Officer, and VP of Global Sales and Marketing. Mr. Zhuang has been instrumental in Canadian Solar's international expansion, building up the Company's global brand, sales teams, business development channels and support operations. Prior to joining Canadian Solar, Mr. Zhuang brought over 20 years' experience, running his own business startups as well as serving in a number of leadership roles in business development and strategy, corporate branding, and sales and marketing in multinational companies, including as Asia Pacific regional director of marketing planning at Motorola Inc. and regional head of Asia at Hands-on Mobile Inc., a global media and entertainment company. Mr. Zhuang holds two Master of Science degrees in Applied Statistics from the University of Alberta and in Marketing Management from the University of Guelph.

Dr. Chang has been serving as Senior VP and Chief Financial Officer of Canadian Solar since May 2016, and as a director of the Board since September 2020. Before joining Canadian Solar, Dr. Chang brought over 17 years' experience in capital markets, corporate finance, investment and risk management, including as Co-Head of Sales and Trading of the U.S. subsidiary of China International Capital Corporation (CICC), CEO of CSOP Asset Management Limited based in Hong Kong, VP of Citigroup Equity Proprietary Investments in New York, and quantitative developer for derivatives pricing and risk modeling software at Kamakura Corporation based in Hawaii. Dr. Chang holds a PhD in Soil Physics, an MBA from the University of Hawaii and a Master of Science degree from Academia Sinica.