Eric Stevenson was born in Montreal in 1958. He has an Honours BA in History from Middlebury College, Vermont and a Masters degree in Business Administration from the Richard Ivey School of Business (University of Western Ontario). From the mid 1980s, Eric worked for nearly a decade as an investment banker in London England, primarily as a vice-president of corporate finance for Barclays Bank. Since 1995, Eric has been based in Toronto and has actively led a private equity syndicate whose main investments have been in shipowning – in refrigerated cargo vessels, bulk carriers and product tankers – and in ship management software. His principal interest outside business is nature conservation, and he serves as a Director of several non-profit organizations dedicated to nature or the environment, including Environmental Defence and the Atlantic Salmon Federation.