John P Jurrius has spent over 35-years developing projects and providing financial solutions exclusively in partnership with First Nations, Inuit and Métis in Canada and Tribal Nations in the United States (“Nations”). His vision and determination to assist Indigenous Nations in using their rights and resources to create economies capable of sustaining their socio-economic needs has led to the creation of hundreds of millions of dollars of new long-term commercial revenue for Nations. These assets have provided above sector returns for investors while at the same time creating material wealth for the Nations.
While serving internally to Indigenous communities in the first 20 years of his career, as a business advisor and investment banker, Mr. Jurrius recognized that accessing equity capital is the most difficult barrier for Nations as they strive for independence and financial sovereignty. With this realization Mr. Jurrius set out to create an exclusive platform that would bridge private investment with Indigenous Communities. In 2008, Mr. Jurrius launched Native American Resource Partners (“NARP”), the first investment firm dedicated to serving the Indigenous space. As a portfolio company of Houston-based Quantum Energy Partners LLC, NARP’s investments, were strictly limited by its sources of capital to non-renewable energy projects. In 2016, with the recognition that Indigenous Nations needed a dedicated capital source that could partner to deploy across all commercial sectors, Mr. Jurrius founded Indigena Capital as the first sector agnostic capital provider in the Indigenous space.
Mr. Jurrius has been the architect in providing and sourcing more than $2.5 billion of capital to Indigenous projects that have spanned the infrastructure, energy, renewable energy, agriculture and real estate sectors. This includes over $200 million since 2012 into Canadian Indigenous partnerships. These activities led to the creation of two, billion-dollar Nation led commercial platforms, and the results included a AAA credit rating by a U.S. Indigenous Nation in 2001 from Moody’s and Fitch which the Nation continues to carry today.
Mr. Jurrius has received recognition of his unique and innovative ideas on the development rights and capabilities of Indigenous Nations and has been a champion of economic development that benefits both Indigenous and non-Indigenous interests. His advocation in educating both the investment and Indigenous communities in the generating power of working in partnership and the aligning of vision and interests have been instrumental in bridging the gap to equity funding for Nations.
In recognition of Mr. Jurrius’ work, Mr. Jurrius was conferred the honour of being inducted into the Kainai Chieftancy in 2012. This honour is given by the Blood Tribe of Alberta and is seen as an official bridge between cultures.
Prior to his work with Nations, Mr. Jurrius attended Angelo State University after serving in the U.S. Military as a military intelligence analyst.
