Catherine Flax

Catherine Flax is the chief executive officer of Zefiro Methane Corp. (Cboe Canada: ZEFI), a listed company that earns its revenue closing down oil and gas wells rather than drilling them. Zefiro plugs orphaned and abandoned wells — wells left behind with no solvent owner — and originates carbon credits (tradable instruments representing avoided emissions) from the methane those plugs keep out of the atmosphere. For investors, she runs one of the few public companies reporting real revenue and profit from that niche, which sits at the crossing point of oilfield services, energy regulation, and carbon markets.

Her path there runs through three decades of commodity banking. She was chief executive of commodities for Europe, the Middle East and Africa at J.P. Morgan, ran commodities, foreign exchange and emerging markets at BNP Paribas, and has worked at Credit Suisse. She later led Pefin, an AI-based financial advisory firm, and was president of private markets at X Machina Capital Strategies, focused on the energy transition. She joined Zefiro's board in 2022, became interim CEO in June 2025, and now serves as CEO.

The results under her watch are specific. Zefiro reported record fiscal 2026 revenue of US$42.5 million, up 31 percent year over year, with three straight profitable quarters during the year and gross profit up 66 percent, although the company still posted a full-year net loss of about US$2.8 million. Its model treats well plugging as an industrial service — selling plugging and abandonment (P&A: permanently sealing a well with cement so it cannot leak) to well owners and government-funded programs — then layers on verified carbon credits for institutional buyers. She points to methane regulation converging across jurisdictions, from the EU Methane Regulation to Nigeria and Argentina, as what turns emission cuts into a priced product.

Flax also chairs the board of carbon markets investor Base Carbon and sits on the board of exchange operator Abaxx, and was named the most influential woman in European financial markets in 2011. Resource investors can follow her through Zefiro's quarterly results and interviews such as her 2025 SmarterMarkets podcast appearance. Her vantage point — a former commodities banker now operating inside the voluntary carbon market — makes her a practical read on whether carbon revenue becomes a real business or stays a side one.