James F. Illich
Chairman of the Board , Director
Jim is a seasoned executive in developing and executing complex, world-class infrastructure projects. He has held a diverse number of positions in the Energy and Engineering & Construction Industries and has worked in and traveled to over 60 countries.
He joined Bechtel Corporation in 1988 and during the first seventeen years of his career with the company, he served in a variety of senior roles including Thailand Country Manager, Business Development Manager for international markets, Corporate Manager of Human Resources, and Project Director for major projects in Africa and Asia. Jim was appointed General Manager for the firm in 2006 and he successfully ran some of Bechtel’s largest global businesses including LNG. He has been involved in developing and executing many LNG export projects around the world.
During his tenure at Bechtel, he was a member of important strategic and operational committees for the enterprise and was a director of several international joint stock companies and corporate entities. He was elected Senior Vice President and a Partner of privately held Bechtel in 2005. Jim retired from Bechtel in 2012 and he formed Freestone International LLC in 2013 which is a vehicle for developing new business ideas.
Prior to joining Bechtel, Jim held exploration and production positions with Texaco. Jim has been a guest lecturer at the Haas School of Business for the last ten years and he is involved in several philanthropic activities including education and health programs in Southeast Asia and STEM/K-12 initiatives in the United States. Jim earned a B.S. degree in Petroleum Engineering from Stanford University and an MBA degree from the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley.
James W. Breyer
Director
Jim Breyer is the Project Sponsor and co-founding investor for the Énergie Saguenay Project.
Jim is the Founder and CEO of Breyer Capital, a premier venture capital firm based in Menlo Park, CA and Austin, TX. Jim has been an early investor in over 40 companies that have completed highly successful public offerings or mergers. Several of these investments returned over 100 times their initial cost and many of these investments have returned over 25 times their cost to investors.
Jim currently serves on the board of directors of Blackstone, and has previously served as an investor/lead Director at 21st Century Fox, Dell, Etsy, Facebook, Marvel Entertainment, Wal-Mart, and many other highly successful companies.
Jim serves on the Advisory Board at the Tsinghua University School of Economics and Management. He is a member of Harvard Business School’s Board of Dean’s Advisors, a member of Harvard University’s Global Advisory Council since inception; a founding member of the Dean’s Advisory Board at Stanford’s School of Engineering and a Chairman of the Stanford Engineering Venture Fund as well as a Founding Member of the Stanford Institute for Human-Assisted Artificial Intelligence Advisory Board which was launched in March, 2019. He was formerly a Fellow of Harvard Corporation, Harvard’s senior governing board.
