Mike Appelton
President & CEO
Mike is the founder, President and CEO of Peninsula Capital Corp. He is responsible for asset management of the existing portfolio, directing the acquisition strategy and coordinating all financing activities.
Prior to entering the entrepreneurial world, Mike worked for 15 years in commercial and corporate banking, the majority of which was with GE Capital where he held positions of increasing responsibility in risk management, portfolio management and sales. In his last role with GE Capital he was responsible for structuring and underwriting transactions totaling over $500 million in annual volume.
Mark Thiessen
Chief Operating Officer
Mark is responsible for all aspects of Peninsula’s day to day operations. Mark brings 28 years of experience owning and operating businesses in agriculture, e-commerce and energy, specifically companies that are operations and logistics intensive and operated in multiple locations.
Mark founded an e-commerce company in 1992 to sell his family’s farm fresh cut flowers directly to consumers throughout North America. At that time, many considered e-commerce and the Internet to be a fad but Mark persisted and grew the company to over $10 million in annual sales and successfully exited
via a sale to a third party in 2012.
Mark co-founded Pro Farm Energy, a developer of energy projects using a purpose grown energy crop
as its dedicated fuel source. Pro Farm Energy was successful in sourcing commitments of $85 million
in project financing.
Jared Friedberg
Jared is responsible for all aspects of financial reporting and data analytics for Peninsula Capital Corp. He planned and led the International Financial Reporting Standards (“IFRS”) implementation in 2021/22. He is a CPA with 20 years of experience in financial planning and analysis and financial reporting.
Jared was previously Divisional Business Controller at TSX listed, Chemtrade Logistics. He had P&L accountability, shared with the commercial and operational lead, for a business generating $500 million in annual revenue. Jared was the finance lead on projects which added more than $25 million annually to the company’s bottom line.
Prior to Chemtrade Logistics, Jared was a Manager of External Reporting at Marsulex Inc., a formerly-TSX listed company with $300 million in revenue, where he prepared timely financial statements along with other public documents and planned and led the IFRS implementation.