Hurdle H Leah - Hurdle H. Lea, a co-founder of NuCapital, Inc.
When Hurdle H. Lea founded NuCapital Renewable Energy, L.P., in 2007, he built the company on a foundation of over two decades of experience in commodities trading, finance, investing, and asset management. He capitalized on that experience by building a team of the world’s preeminent experts in wind power to develop, finance, and commission wind energy projects in South and Central America and the Caribbean.
Lea’s analysis of extremely high energy costs in those areas led him to the conclusion that investments in renewable energy sources would be beneficial to the region and profitable to developers and investors.
Hurdle Lea followed an unconventional career path. When he was just 19, he took a job as a floor trader on the New York Cotton Exchange (NYCE) for Agcom Traders, Inc., rising in the company to become Managing Director. In 1985, he departed Agcom and returned to his native North Carolina, where he enrolled at the University of North Carolina Asheville to pursue a B.S. in Management with a minor in Meteorology. Lea graduated magna cum laude in 1989 and returned to the financial industry as a trader for W. Thorpe McKenzie.
In the years following, he formed two investment firms: Pointer Management Company, a hedge fund and fund of funds; and Margate Management, which pursued investment strategies in Australia, New Zealand, Latin America, and the Caribbean.
It was by virtue of his position as a principal of Margate that Lea became involved with Innoventor, Inc., a company that backed wind power projects in the Virgin Islands. This project sparked his ongoing interest in renewable energy sources.
Currently residing in Willemstad, on the Dutch Caribbean island of Curaçao, Hurdle H. Lea is an enthusiastic participant in community activities and charitable causes. He sits on the Board of Directors of the International School of Curaçao and serves as its Treasurer. In 2003, Lea helped found the Virgin Islands chapter of the Alexis de Tocqueville Society, a group within the United Way comprising its most generous donors.