Speakers

Specialised in structuring financing in the energy sector, Olivia accompanies developers, turbine manufacturers and investors into building long-term relationships, entering emerging markets in regions including Latin America and Asia, and developing a strategy for development. Passionate about our sector, Olivia created networking business WeBridge with the aim to spread ideas and promote diverse voices in our infrastructure investment community. Olivia is a strong supporter of diversity and innovation, and a keen angel investor.

Simon Clement-Davies joined Augusta & Co. in 2009. Simon focuses on new business generation, client development and marketing for the firm as well as leading Augusta’s activities in supply chain M&A.

Simon deploys over 20 years professional experience as an investment banker in private and public M&A, equity capital raising and structured finance. He began his career at Hill Samuel, where he became a Director of Hill Samuel Securities specialising in cross-border Mergers and Acquisitions. He subsequently ran the media desk at Bankers Trust where his clients included a number of Europe’s leading media businesses.

Marie has been working in the renewable energy sector for 12 years now in different roles working for mostly developers and financial parties on the development, structuring and financing of mostly offshore wind projects across the globe. Marie now heads business development activities in continental Western Europe at Ørsted and before that she headed the Ørsted business development team in London responsible for origination, structuring and executing commercial and strategic initiatives across Ørsted’s pre-construction portfolio. She was previously at Green Giraffe where she was one of the founders, mostly involved in the financings of wind projects as a project manager across Europe. She holds a Bachelor and Master of Science of the University of Groningen.

Alastair has worked in low carbon and renewable energy all his career. At BP for 15 years he developed CHP, solar and wind projects and led the world’s first emissions trade. Prior to that, he worked seven years at The Crown Estate as programme manager for all the UK’s offshore wind projects. Most recently Alastair was an expert advisor at the UK’s Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. In 2017, Alastair set up his own company called Advent.re, focused on taking offshore wind global. Clients include governments, public bodies, developers, supply chain and investors. In 2019, Alastair was engaged by World Bank Group as lead consultant for their Offshore Wind for Emerging Markets initiative. The work runs for 5 years and is supported by funding from UK Government of $5m.

Specialised in the development and commercialisation of renewable energy schemes Laura leads the Wind Farm Solutions team for NE&ME region at Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy.  Laura has over 15 years’ experience in the renewables industry and in her current role she is responsible for the delivery of renewable energy projects from inception right through to commercial operation.  Together with her team she delivers advisory and innovative solutions to SGRE customers ranging from developers to investors with the objective to enable projects to be realised.

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Carol Gould joined MUFG Bank, Ltd. in August 2000.  She has over twenty five years’ experience of project and export finance, with much of that time spent financing both renewable and thermal power projects.  Carol, her team in London, and colleagues in Asia, Australia and the US are all very active providing advisory and structuring services and lending to a wide variety of renewables projects globally.  MUFG is particularly active in the wind sector having provided finance to more than 30 offshore wind projects and to over 40GW of onshore wind capacity globally.

David Jones has spent more than 30 years in the power and renewables sector and has actively participated in around 100 investments made by both strategic and financial investors in the sector. Until December 2017 he led Allianz’s renewable energy investment platform which he created in 2004 and through which over €4bn had been invested in wind and solar assets in Europe and North America by the time of his retirement. In 2018 he created Green Impact Investors, a company through which he invests in and provides consultancy services to businesses with a core sustainability component. He is an Operating Partner at Asterion Industrial Partners, a Senior Advisor to Axepoint Capital and a member of the External Advisory Board at Shell New Energies.

Charles is a partner at international law firm, Reed Smith, with over 12 years’ experience in the wind sector. In the past year Charles has advised on over 5GW of wind projects in development, construction and/or operation. His legal expertise covers M&A and joint ventures as well as project documentation. Charles recently advised Fortress Investment Group on the acquisition of a portfolio of nine onshore wind farms in Greece. He has also represented MHI Vestas Offshore Wind in relation to the Norther, Borssele 3&4, Triton Knoll and Moray East offshore projects.

Aris FTI’s global clean energy & e-mobility practice co-lead, where he advises the boards of some of the leading power companies, investors, and OEMs in the sector. He has over 17 years of consulting experience in the clean energy sector with a focus on corporate strategy and M&A where he has advised on over 10+ GW of clean energy projects.  In addition to advisory in commercial and regulatory contexts, Aris is a recognised expert witness in arbitration and litigation, where he addresses technical and commercial issues; complex industry joint ventures, mergers and acquisitions; as well as, breaches and early terminations. He is an Investment Committee member at SUSI Partners, a Zurich based global clean energy infrastructure fund.

Manahil Lakhmiri is Head of Key Program Offshore Wind of Engie, she is responsible for the acceleration and the growth of development for fixed and floating offshore wind within Engie.

Manahil joined Engie in 2006 and has held several management positions. She has the experience in business development, preparation of call for tenders, people management, project development and project management for the realization of gas infrastructure and renewable energy projects. In 2011, Manahil entered the offshore wind market. She has through the years gained experience in the European, Asian and UK markets, and have during the years accumulated a broad and valuable experience of commercial, technical and operational aspects within the offshore wind industry.

John is a group director of AqualisBraemar responsible for marketing, BD and ESG and is also a principal consultant and director at OWC, an AqualisBraemar company, and has been in renewables for the last 12 years. Originally a marine engineer John has developed a leading profile in offshore wind, started and established two business units in renewables and until recently led the business development and marketing of OWC before transitioning to a group role.

Before joining OWC john was Head of Renewables (Europe) for Bureau Veritas and previously was a company director of two other engineering companies.

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Paul specialises in planning, infrastructure and compulsory purchase and leads Eversheds' Planning Team in the renewables sector. He has appeared as an advocate at numerous high profile public inquiries and development consent order examinations, and has a particular specialism promoting energy and infrastructure projects.

Paul is an acknowledged national expert in consenting energy projects both onshore and offshore. Paul's expertise is across all energy technologies including wind, solar, biomass, gas (including shale gas), and energy storage.

Paul has been an active member of Renewable UK for many years as part of their Onshore Strategy Group and more recently on their Consents and Licencing Group.

Sarah is Founder and CEO of Ripple Energy, a new clean energy start up. Ripple wants to bring clean energy ownership into the mainstream.  It will enable household consumers to collectively own new, large scale onshore wind farms and have the low-cost electricity they produce supplied to their homes.

Sarah has 18 years’ experience in the wind industry. Prior to setting up Ripple she was vice-chair of RenewableUK, alongside being Head of Public Affairs for Vestas.  She was also an Economist in RES’ global strategy team and Head of Renewable Energy at the Association of Electricity Producers (now EnergyUK).

Nathalie has been active in renewable energy for more than 13 years and has broad experience in project development, management, construction, financing and transactions in renewable power & infrastructure. She is the CEO of Rentel, a 309 MW Belgian offshore wind project which has been operational since the end of 2018. She also takes part in Belgian offshore wind developer Otary, which holds concessions for three offshore wind projects totalling over 800MW in the Belgian North Sea.

Natalie is a true believer and advocate for the offshore wind sector and renewable energy in general within both the Belgian and European energy sector and takes an active role in the Belgian Offshore Platform.

Carla is a Wind resource assessment expert with more than 14 years of experience in the area. She has acquired this experience through working in various regions and markets across the world. In 2008 she has joined legacy Garrad Hassan (now DNV GL) and has had a number of roles within the company since, both in technical and managerial capacities. She is now Head of Department for Renewable Energy Analytics in NEMEA (North Europe, Middle East and Africa), managing a team of 40+ engineers to deliver services in the project development and operational stage of both wind (onshore and offshore) and solar projects. These include pre and post-construction energy assessments, site meteorological conditions, resource panorama, short term forecasting, performance monitoring of operational assets, among others.

Her background is in Environmental Engineering, Climate Physics and Renewable Energy, and she is also a member of the IEA task 19 for the development of wind projects in cold climate.

Michael is the founder of Amsterdam Capital Partners (Amscap), a financial advisory firm specialised in structuring and financing offshore and large onshore wind. At Amscap, Michael has been responsible, among other project directors, for the structuring and financing of the Merkur offshore wind project. Before Amscap, Michael was managing director at Typhoon Offshore, responsible for bringing Gemini to financial close. Prior to this, Michael spent 15 years in banking with Citi, Barclays Capital and Bank of America. Michael holds a degree in Monetary Economics from the University of Groningen and speaks several European languages.