Dr. Shawn Xiaohua Qu (MSE PhD 9T5) 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 29GW of solar modules to thousands of customers in more than 100 countries. The Company and its subsidiaries have also connected accumulatively more than 3.8GW of solar power plants to the grid. These solar power plants are located in Canada, the United States of America, Japan, China and the United Kingdom. The company has also developed and constructed solar power plants in Mexico, Brazil, India and Namibia.