Energy Transition Forum

With 26+ years of accomplishments in the global energy/infrastructure sectors, Jeffrey has been proactively involved in regulated, liberalized and energy transition markets across the globe. During this time he worked within five large US/European energy companies (holding and subsidiaries) successfully restructuring, acquiring/divesting companies and provided strategic planning/portfolio management that realized over $1.2B in stakeholder value, while saving higher value in recommendations not to proceed forward with moves into new markets and/or acquiring companies. In addition, he has advised utilities, institutional investors, funds, industry associations, regulators and technology companies in Europe, North America and Asia.

Jeffrey was one of the founders of the EnviroTech Venture Capital Fund, (1994) capitalized at $52 million, and sat on its Advisory Board and Technical Liaison Committee, the first fund of its kind in the world. Since this time, he has worked with innovative technology companies in the energy sector and is now launching an EnergyTech investment platform.

Jeffrey is also editor of two books: Managing Risk in Infrastructure Investments and Best Practice in Infrastructure Asset Management. In addition, he is the co-author of the White Paper on the “Development and Integration of Renewable Energy: Lessons Learned From Germany” and has authored several articles as well. Jeffrey has a Masters of Business Administration from the University of Southern California and a Bachelor of Science from the School of Foreign Service, Georgetown.

Ben Backwell is a leading commentator and strategist in the renewable energy sector. Prior to joining GWEC, he was a Managing Director at FTI Consulting, one of the world’s largest advisory firms, advising companies in the clean energy sector on strategy, communications, and government affairs, including work on a number of major M&A transactions.

Previously, Ben worked as a journalist and analyst for 20 years, covering energy policy and markets around the world. He helped design the SolutionWind campaign for the European Wind Energy Association (now WindEurope) ahead of COP21 in 2015, before joining FTI Consulting. He has taken part in the work of a number of industry organizations, including the board of GWEC, the IRENA Business and Investor Group, the IEA’s Renewable Energy Industry Advisory Board, Solar Power Europe, and others.

Ben is the author of two books on the wind industry as well as a number of reports and white papers on power markets and policy frameworks. His book Wind Power, the struggle for control of a new global industry,” has been described as the “definitive” story of the global wind industry.

He holds an MSc in Political Science from the Institute of Latin American Studies, University of London and speaks Spanish and Portuguese as well as his native English.

Global Wind Energy Council

GWEC is a member-based organisation that represents the entire wind energy sector. The members of GWEC represent over 1,500 companies, organisations and institutions in more than 80 countries, including manufacturers, developers, component suppliers, research institutes, national wind and renewables associations, electricity providers, finance and insurance companies.

GWEC works at the highest international political level to create a better policy environment for wind power. GWEC and its members are active all over the world, educating local and national governments and international agencies about the benefits of wind power.

Learn more at www.gwec.net

Founded NextEnergy Capital Group in 2007. Over 25 years of experience in the European Power & Energy sector, Banking and Finance industries.

Michael has an extensive expertise in principal investing across the energy sector, with a particular focus on solar PV, and managing energy companies listed on stock exchanges.

Former Managing Director at Goldman Sachs in Energy & Power Investment Banking Group; left in 2006 (to found NextEnergy Capital). Previously held senior roles in the investment banking departments of Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse First Boston.

Spearheaded WiseEnergy’s growth activities covering asset management activities for corporate counterparties in the solar sector.

Led NextEnergy Solar Fund’s £85m IPO and subsequent growth to over £700m market capitalisation and 90 operating assets.

Established NextPower II private equity fund with a final close commitment of €232m.

Created NextPower III private equity fund to invest in the international solar sector, with a first close of USD160m and assets secured across multiple international solar markets.

NextEnergy Capital

NextEnergy Capital (“NEC”) Group is one of the leading specialist international investment and asset managers exclusively focused on the solar sector. It has over 160 employees across six offices, including London, Milan, Hyderabad, New York, Luxembourg and Guernsey.

Since inception it has acquired nearly 190 solar assets and NextEnergy Capital Limited currently manages c.$1.6bn in equity dedicated to the solar infrastructure sector across its three institutional funds (NextPower III, NextPower II and NextEnergy Solar Fund). The installed capacity across the Group’s institutional investment vehicles exceeds 1GWp.

The Group’s operating asset management division, WiseEnergy, has managed and monitored in excess of 2GWp of installed solar capacity spread across Europe, the US, Africa and Asia. WiseEnergy’s clients include assets owned by the Group’s funds and unaffiliated owners of operating solar plants.

Harry leads a team of over 35 professionals promoting EBRD’s transition mandate in the electricity generation, renewable energy, transmission and distribution sectors.
He has more than 20 years’ experience in financing and investing in emerging markets and transition economies with a special emphasis on the energy sector. He has been involved in a wide range of power, oil and gas, infrastructure and PPP/PFI projects across Europe, North Africa and the former CIS and has also led high level policy engagements, with a particular focus on establishing the enabling environment for renewable energy.

EBRD

Established to promote transition to market-oriented economies in the countries of central and eastern Europe and Central Asia, the EBRD’s lending often fails to benefit the people in these countries and regularly prioritises carbon-intensive and environmentally damaging development.

Christine Brockwell is a Senior Investment Manager in the Energy & Infrastructure EMEA team. She is responsible for the expansion and development of the team‘s new investment products as well as the sourcing, evaluating and negotiating of European energy infrastructure opportunities. Christine has more than 15 years of relevant experience and joined Aquila Capital in 2018. Previously she held Managing Director positions at Global Capital Finance and UK Green Investment Bank, the world’s first green bank. As Head of Offshore Wind at the UK GIB, she had overall responsibility for the offshore wind sector, including direct investments. Under her management, UK GIB invested for the first time in construction-phase offshore wind assets and made investment commitments of £550 million. Christine holds a master’s degree in economics from New York University and a bachelor’s degree in biology from the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Anish Butani is a Director in the Private Markets team at bfinance, where he leads the coverage of the infrastructure sector and advises institutional investors seeking to deploy capital to the Infrastructure sector, with a focus on fund manager search, evaluation and selection in the infrastructure equity and debt space as well as originating and assessing potential co-investment opportunities. Prior to joining bfinance, Anish gained over 10 years of experience with KPMG Corporate Finance based in London, where he was a senior member of the infrastructure corporate finance team. Anish has significant experience acting as an M&A and valuations advisor to global infrastructure fund managers across all sub-sectors in the asset class, including renewable energy, regulated utilities, transport and social infrastructure. In 2016/17 Anish spent time on client secondment at John Laing Group plc, the international investor in infrastructure, where he was responsible for leading and shaping divestment processes of their infrastructure project portfolio. Anish has a degree in Economics, Politics and International Studies from Warwick University.

Simon is a Managing Director and Head of the Clean Energy Infrastructure’s European team. He has approximately 30 years of energy, power and infrastructure related experience. Prior to joining Capital Dynamics, Simon spent six years in the infrastructure investment team of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority where he was Global Head of Utilities, responsible for sourcing, executing and managing all utility related investments for ADIA. Prior to ADIA, Simon established and managed one of the first private equity funds focused on investing in the energy and infrastructure sectors in the Middle East. He started his career as a power developer both in the UK and internationally, before heading teams focused on power generation project financing and advisory at Sumitomo Bank and Standard Bank in London. Simon holds a bachelor’s degree in Electronic and Electrical Engineering from Swansea University.

Capital Dynamics

Capital Dynamics’ Clean Energy Infrastructure (CEI) is one of the largest renewable energy investment managers in the world with USD 6.4 billion AUM, and has one of the longest track records in the industry.

The CEI strategy was established to capture attractive investment opportunities in the largest and fastest growing sector of global infrastructure – proven renewable energy technologies, with a focus on utility-scale and distributed generation solar, wind, and storage. The CEI platform’s dedicated asset management business provides highly-specialized services to ensure optimal performance and value from projects. The CEI strategy currently manages 6.1 GW of gross power generation across more than 100 projects in the United States and Europe, and is one of the top 3 global solar PV owners.

Since the CEI platform’s inception in 2010, over 12 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions have been avoided as a result of the firm’s renewable investments. This is equivalent to the power needed to supply more than 2 million homes or passenger vehicles for one year. In 2019, the CEI strategy received top rankings from GRESB (the ESG benchmark for real assets) for commitment to sustainability.

Michael Ebner is Managing Director Infrastructure of KGAL Investment GmbH & Co. KG. He is responsible for the Infrastructure department which he started fifteen years ago: Today, KGAL is the German market leader for renewable energies investment schemes.

KGAL focuses on the composition of diversified portfolios of renewable energy projects in the wind power, solar power, and hydropower sectors in Europe. KGAL’s investment style has evolved from a pure brownfield approach to a value-add strategy creating superior returns for investors. As part of an active risk management, its portfolio composition targets a broad set-up across regions, technologies and project partners.

Michael Ebner has been with KGAL for more than twenty years, during which time his work has included development of investment models for structured financing, real estate and infrastructure funds. He holds a degree in banking and business administration.

Ryan is an Associate on BloombergNEF's Electrified Transport team based in London. He author’s research on electric vehicles and charging infrastructure, covering the technology, policy and economic factors shaping the global EV market.

Prior to joining BloombergNEF Ryan worked at Jaguar Land Rover for five years working on their electrification and mobility strategies. Ryan holds a degree in aerospace engineering from Liverpool University and a post graduate diploma in automotive technology from the University of Warwick.

BloombergNEF

BloombergNEF (BNEF), Bloomberg's primary research service, covers clean energy, advanced transport, digital industry, innovative materials and commodities. The Company helps corporate strategy, finance and policy professionals navigate, change, and generate opportunities

Stefano Fissolo is a Director in SUSI Partners' investment team and has been overseeing deals for SUSI’s energy efficiency strategy since 2015. He’s a co-author of SUSI Partners’ whitepaper on EV charging infrastructure and is responsible for screening potential deals in this sector. Before joining SUSI Partners, Stefano worked for Solesa, a solar engineering boutique where he was a managing partner overseeing renewable energy and energy efficiency projects across Italy, India, Oman and Kenya. Prior to that, he was a project manager at Air Liquide Engineering & Construction in Paris as well as a management consultant at Boston Consulting Group in Milan.

SUSI Partners

SUSI Partners is a Swiss infrastructure fund manager specialising in sustainable investments supporting the energy transition. Our team currently manages over EUR 1 billion in investor commitments across five funds focused on opportunities in clean energy generation, energy efficiency enhancements, and energy storage and integrated solutions. With a successful track record of more than 100 transactions in 20 countries to date, we seek to achieve attractive, stable and uncorrelated returns, while contributing to global climate targets by reducing CO2 emissions.

Hans Forssman has spent more than 30 years in the financial industry, within a wide variety of assets and strategies. Before joining the Skandia PEI team (Private Equity & Infrastructure) to head management of the infrastructure portfolio, he was responsible for procuring alternative investment mandates, creating and managing Skandia’s Thule real estate fund as well as managing multi-assets funds within Skandia Investment Management.

Hans has also been responsible for setting up and managing hedge fund portfolios and private credit mandates for Skandia. Prior to joining Skandia, he was a senior Nordic equity research sale at Credit Agricole Cheuvreux Nordic serving Swedish and European institutional investors.

During his career he has been based in Stockholm, but he has always had an international focus and a global network to gain experience and knowledge regarding international financial markets. Forssman has a BSc in Economics from the University of Lund, Sweden.

Lucy is Head of Africa for the Energy Infrastructure team, a role she has held since March 2017. She has overall responsibility for the Actis Energy Infrastructure Team’s activities in Africa and is Board Chair of Lekela and Aela, two of Actis’ renewable energy platforms in its third energy fund. She also has responsibility for Responsible Investment for the Energy Infrastructure Team, working closely with the Actis Responsible Investment Team to coordinate activities and impact across the energy infrastructure portfolio. She chairs Actis’ Remuneration Committee.

Prior to becoming Head of Africa, Lucy was responsible for Actis’ renewable generation activity globally, a role she held between 2011 and 2017. She joined Actis’ predecessor organization, CDC, in 2001 and was a founding member of Globeleq, the sole platform company of Actis’ first energy fund. She has led deals in Brazil, Chile, Egypt, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa and Tanzania.

Prior to joining CDC, she worked at UBS Warburg from 1994 to 1999 as a Director in the fixed income division, latterly trading emerging market local currency bonds and interest rate derivatives in the South African, Czech and Greek markets.

Lucy holds an MA (Hons) degree in Politics, Philosophy and Economics (PPE) from Trinity College, Oxford and an MBA degree (with distinction) from INSEAD.

A former investment banker, internationally experienced in both emerging markets and western Europe, where he has advised on, structured and financed over £5 billion and 8,000MW of infrastructure energy projects. Previously Mark established and ran the project finance and mezzanine lending team for power and renewables at Investec and the cleantech & renewables sector for private equity firm LDC. Currently chair of the board of trustees and the investment committee for Pure Leapfrog, a community energy charity that provides funding and professional support for low carbon, high social impact projects.

GRIDSERVE

GRIDSERVE® is a tech-enabled international sustainable energy business which develops, builds, owns and operates solar energy and battery storage solutions for critical power infrastructure, including electric vehicle charging. GRIDSERVE’s team have been responsible for the development, construction and operation of more than a gigawatt of solar energy and energy storage solutions, including connecting over 100 utility-scale sustainable energy projects to the UK grid.

GRIDSERVE® will radically transform the experience of using electric vehicles, by delivering a UK-wide, sustainable energy powered, affordable network of convenient, customer-focussed Electric Forecourts,® that allow ultra-rapid charging of electric vehicles and deliver a fantastic customer experience.

Verena Kempe is Co-Head of Private Equity at FERI Trust in Germany. She is responsible for investment strategies in infrastructure & energy as well as certain private equity in the small and mid-cap market including certain strategies in the distressed debt, mezzanine and preferred equity space. Since her start at FERI in 2013, she has successfully invested for and advised institutional investors based on tailor-made investment strategies. Her focus is especially on value add and opportunistic strategies. She is a member of several advisory boards. Before joining FERI Trust, she was a Director at Structured Finance – Global Energy in London at WestLB. She was responsible for the origination and structuring of acquisition and project financings for conventional an renewable energy projects in EMEA. She started her career at WestLB in Düsseldorf. Verena studied at Leibniz University of Hanover in Germany, London School of Economics and Political Sciences and the University of Hagen in Germany. She holds Masters in Economic Geography and Business Administration.

Feri Trust

Founded in 1987 and headquartered in Bad Homburg, Germany, the FERI Group has developed into one of the leading investment houses in the German-speaking area. FERI offers tailor-made solutions for institutional investors, family assets and trusts in the following areas:
· Investment research: macroeconomic forecasts and asset allocation analyses
· Investment management: institutional asset management and private wealth management
· Investment consulting: advisory service for institutional investors and family office

FERI has over 15 years’ experience in analysing and managing private equity funds and private equity real estate funds, and has excellent access to top funds and fund managers throughout the world. FERI has been designing tailor-made participation programmes for private and institutional clients
since 2000, which have attracted investments totaling more than EUR 2.5 billion. FERI and MLP currently have assets of around EUR 34 billion under management. The FERI Group is headquartered in Bad Homburg and has offices in Dusseldorf, Luxembourg, Munich, Vienna and Zurich.

Dr. Ayesha Khanna is Co-Founder and CEO of ADDO AI, an artificial intelligence (AI) advisory firm and incubator. She has been a strategic advisor on artificial intelligence, smart cities and fintech to clients such as SMRT, Singapore's largest public transport company, SOMPO, Japan's largest insurance firm, and Smart Dubai, the government agency tasked to transform Dubai into a leading smart city. In 2017, ADDO AI was featured in Forbes magazine as one of four leading artificial intelligence companies in Asia and Ayesha was named one of South East Asia's groundbreaking female entrepreneurs by Forbes magazine in 2018.

Khanna spent more than a decade on Wall Street developing large scale trading, risk management and data analytics systems. She was cofounder of the Hybrid Reality Institute, a research and advisory group established to analyse the social and economic impact of accelerating technologies. She directed the Future Cities Group at the London School of Economics, and has been a Faculty Advisor at Singularity University.

Khanna has been named one of Singapore's leading female entrepreneurs and a leading Asian fintech influencer by Fintech Asia. She also served on the Singapore Ministry of Education’s Steering Committee on future skills and applied learning for emerging industries.

Khanna is author of Straight Through Processing and co-author of Hybrid Reality: Thriving in the Emerging Human-Technology Civilization. She is the Founder of 21C GIRLS, a charity that delivers free coding and artificial intelligence classes to girls in Singapore.

Tobias Kurth studied Business Administration and Engineering with focus on clean-tech at the Cologne University of Applied Science. In the following decade, he worked in the renewable energy sector and gathered manifold experiences. He was responsible for the Europe wide sales of a medium sized German PV company and developed business models for the distribution of renewable energy without subsidies as well as feed-in-grids for renewable energy. As one of the managing directors of Energy Brainpool, he is focusing on the transition of the energy market with renewable energies. His work focuses on long term power price and market revenue scenarios and includes analysis, studies and trainings as well as consulting of companies on future business models.

Energy Brainpool

For more than 15 years Energy Brainpool is an independent energy market expert that focuses on the electricity and energy trading in Europe. The expertise of Energy Brainpool encompasses the analysis, forecasting and simulation of energy markets and prices, researched and scenario-based studies, and providing individual consulting services as well as training and expert seminars for the energy sector.

Matej Lednicky joined KGAL in 2006 and is responsible for sourcing, negotiating and closing investment transactions in the renewable energies space at KGAL. He initially joined as legal counsel and proceeded to join the Infrastructure Department in 2011 as a transaction manager. Matej was promoted to Head of Transaction Management Wind in 2013 and in 2016 to Head of Transaction Management.

Before joining KGAL, Matej worked as a Barrister for Noerr LLP Munich/Bratislava (Slovakia) and prior to that as a Junior Barrister for Free State of Bavaria, Munich.

Matej achieved the First State Law Examination in 2003, a Law Degree, from the Universities of Freiburg, Grenoble and Munich, he then proceeded in 2005 to achieve the Second State Law Examination in Munich.

KGAL

The KGAL Group is a leading independent investment and asset manager with an investment volume of €20.5 billion. The investments focus on long-term capital investments for institutional and private investors in real estate, infrastructure and aviation assets. The Group, founded more than 50 years ago, operates across Europe and has its registered office in Grünwald near Munich. Taking into account aspects of revenue and risk, 355 employees help achieve stable yields on a lasting basis.

Paul co-founded the company in 2010 and is based in the London office. His responsibilities include debt and equity fundraising for all solar asset developments, project investment structuring and M&A. He is a member of Lightsource’s Investment Committee and a Board Director. During his tenure at Lightsource, Paul has raised over £1.6bn of project financing and led the recent Blackrock equity transaction in the UK. Prior to co-founding the company, he spent six years in the power finance team at Investec Bank and was involved in equity and debt transactions in the energy, renewable and industrial sectors. Prior to Investec, Paul was Assistant Director of project finance at Rolls-Royce Power Ventures, an independent power project developer based in London. Paul holds a degree in Engineering from Birmingham University.

Lightsource BP

Lightsource BP is a global market leader in the development, acquisition and long-term management of large-scale solar projects and smart energy solutions. Our projects generate competitively-priced, dependable, clean energy for businesses and communities.At our core we have always excelled as a utility-scale solar project developer, with incredibly strong in-house planning and development capabilities. Unlike our competitors, we are the owner as well as the planner, developer, operator, and manager.We firmly believe that the delivery of solar alongside smart energy solutions will play a major role in the future of global energy.

A Senior Investment Manager within ISIF, Patrick originates and executes transactions under ISIF’s climate investment strategy which seeks to make investments that help position Ireland for a net zero carbon economy by 2050. To date he has structured over €300m under this mandate with a target to deploy an additional €500m over the coming years. With a background in advisory on energy markets, Patrick is currently a member of EirGrid’s DS3 advisory council which seeks to integrate 70% renewables on the Irish grid by 2030 in a secure and sustainable way. Patrick has an MPhil in Sustainable Development from Cambridge University and a BEng in Electronic Engineering from University College Dublin.

Ireland Strategic Investment Fund (ISIF)

ISIF is a sovereign development fund with a unique "double bottom line" mandate. It is one of the few sovereign funds globally with a mandate to support economic activity and employment, in addition to delivering commercial returns.

The Fund's investment strategy is to target its investments in five priority themes of key importance to the Irish economy: regional development, housing, indigenous businesses, climate change and sectors adversely affected by Brexit. The Fund will also maintain some flexibility to selectively take advantage of compelling opportunities of national significance which are consistent with the Fund’s mandate and do not fit under the Priority Themes.

The Fund will seek to invest in transactions where it can make a difference, where its characteristics can enable commercial investment transactions with positive economic impact and can make it an attractive “investor of choice” for company and project sponsors and advisors.

Alex O’Cinneide is the founder and CEO of Gore Street Capital. He previously was a Managing Director and Head of Europe for Paladin Capital, a Senior Advisor to Kleinwort Benson Bank in London, served on the Investment Committee of IndoChina Capital. From 2006 to 2013, he was Head of Investments for Masdar, Abu Dhabi’s USD15 Billion SWF. Alongside those commercial activities he is a trustee of the London Irish Centre, a UNICEF Advisor, chairing their Climate Change Committee; a visiting researcher to the Energy Policy Group in Cambridge University, a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, and the Vice Chair of the board of the Biomimicry Institute. Alex is a published author and a regular speaker on venture capital and private equity, and is recognised as a global leaders in the field of renewable investing.

Rory is a Managing Director in BlackRock, and is responsible for BlackRock's activities, products and investments in the renewable power sector in Europe. Rory was a founding member of BlackRock’s renewable power group in 2011, and BlackRock now has $4.9 billion of equity assets under management in the renewable power sector. Rory has managed the investment by BlackRock in over 100 wind and solar projects in Europe since 2012, and is the CIO of BlackRock’s Renewable Income platform in the UK and Europe. Rory sits on all BlackRock’s renewable power investment committees and has 20 years of investment experience, including 14 years in the renewable power and infrastructure sectors. Rory holds a degree in International Commerce from University College Dublin, a Masters of Business Administration from INSEAD, and is also a graduate of the Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School.

BlackRock

BlackRock is a global leader in investment management, risk management and advisory services for institutional and retail clients. BlackRock helps clients around the world meet their goals and overcome challenges with a range of products that include separate accounts, mutual funds, iShares® (exchange-traded funds), and other pooled investment vehicles. BlackRock also offers risk management, advisory and enterprise investment system services to a broad base of institutional investors through BlackRock Solutions®. BlackRock has a major presence in global markets, including North and South America, Europe, Asia, Australia and the Middle East and Africa.

Jonathan is Investment Director, Infrastructure at LPPI, the investment arm of the Local Pensions Partnership (LPP) and the Manager of the GLIL Infrastructure Fund. He joined LPPI in 2016 from the London Pension Funds Authority. Jonathan has led a number of infrastructure acquisitions for both LPPI and GLIL.

Prior to joining LPFA, Jonathan worked for Cardano, a fiduciary manager, where he was a Private Markets Analyst. Prior to this he was part of the infrastructure team at the Hinduja Group, an Indian multinational conglomerate. He holds a BA from University College London and MSc from Oxford.

Dr. Patricia Rodrigues-Jenner is an investor and advisor in real assets. Patricia is also a Non-Executive Board member at the Aquila European Renewables Income Fund PLC, listed in the LSE.

Patricia has over 17 years of investment management experience having been responsible for infrastructure and energy transactions on behalf of institutional investors totalling in excess of €10Bn.

Patricia is a former senior director in Infrastructure for the Canadian pension plan PSP, and prior to that Managing Director at Macquarie leading new product development and core-plus infrastructure strategies. Previously, Patricia led the US Townsend’s global non-Real estate platform. Patricia held senior roles with the UK Government’s Green Investment Bank, as one of the senior members that founded GIB in 2011. She began her finance career with Morgan Stanley within its M&A team and Macquarie Group in Infrastructure based in London.

Patricia holds a Ph.D. in Engineering from Cambridge University.

James Schaefer is a Senior Managing Director within Guggenheim’s Power, Energy and Renewables team and covers a number of electric and gas utility and renewable energy accounts for Guggenheim Securities. Mr. Schaefer brings to Guggenheim extensive expertise in energy‐related mergers, acquisitions and financing, developed over his more than 20 years in the financial services industry. Prior to joining Guggenheim, Mr. Schaefer lead the Global Energy, Power and Renewables Practice at Blackstone. Prior to Blackstone, Mr. Schaefer was a Managing Director, Global Head of Power & Renewable Energy at UBS Investment Bank. Prior to UBS, Mr. Schaefer worked in the power groups at Lehman Brothers, Salomon Brothers and Chase. Mr. Schaefer has completed approximately $60 billion of strategic advisory assignments and over $30 billion of lead managed financings. Mr. Schaefer graduated with honors in Finance and Accounting from the University of Michigan's MBA program and cum laude in Finance from the University of Vermont.

Guggenheim Securities

Guggenheim Securities Power, Energy and Renewables group provides clients with the expertise and experience of a premier M&A advisor, with nine senior bankers with sector head experience at top Wall Street firms. The 63-member team has advised on over $500 billion of power M&A and financing transactions (includes transactions prior to joining Guggenheim). Guggenheim Securities is the investment banking and capital markets business of Guggenheim Partners. Guggenheim Securities offers services including Advisory, Financing, Sales and Trading, and Research. Guggenheim Securities is headquartered in New York, with additional offices in London, Chicago, Boston, Atlanta, San Francisco, and Houston. Guggenheim Partners is a global investment and advisory firm with a track record of delivering results through innovative solutions. With over 2,400 professionals based in offices around the world, our commitment is to advance the strategic interests of our clients and to deliver long-term results with excellence and integrity.

Laurent Segalen is a franco-british banker specialised in Renewable Energy transactions. He is the founder of Megawatt-X, the London-based world's largest platform for investing in Wind and Solar assets, which he currently heads. His carrier spans over 25 years, from Director at PWC, Fund Manager at Natixis/Mirova to Managing Director Clean Commodities at Lehman Brothers then Nomura. He was awarded Environmental Deal of the Year 2006 by Environmental Finance.

Laurent Segalen co-hosts the REDEFINING ENERGY podcast, ranked by player.fim among the best ENERGY Podcasts.

Karl is a member of the renewable energy team, with a specialisation in offshore wind. He is the Managing Director and member of the Offshore Wind Fund Investment Committee, a dedicated offshore wind fund established by the UK Green Investment Bank. Karl joined the Green Investment Group (GIG) in 2012, having previously spent three years advising on and developing energy and infrastructure transactions with Hideal Partners. Prior to this role, Karl spent four years with Babcock and Brown in principal equity investment, and also held similar positions with ABN Amro, Macquarie Group and KPMG.

Karl has extensive experience in principal equity investment, debt investments and financial advisory across the energy and infrastructure sector. In particular, he was the lead principal for GIG's investments in Rhyl Flats and Gwynt y Mor.

Karl has a Bachelor of Finance (honours) from the University of Melbourne, Australia.

Green Investment Group

Green Investment Group is a specialist in green infrastructure principal investment, project delivery and the management of portfolio assets, and related services. Its track record, expertise and capability make it a global leader in green investment, dedicated to supporting the growth of the global green economy.

The business was launched initially by the UK Government in 2012 as the first institution of its type in the world. The organisation was acquired by the diversified financial group Macquarie Group Limited in 2017, creating one of Europe’s largest teams of dedicated green infrastructure investors.

For more information, visit www.greeninvestmentgroup.com

Marco van Daele is Co-Chief Executive Officer and Chief Investment Officer of SUSI Partners and has overseen the global expansion of the company’s investment activities since January 2018. He has wide-ranging investment and M&A experience in the energy infrastructure sector. Before joining SUSI Partners, Marco worked for asset manager Brookfield, where he was responsible for the European renewable energy investments team and led the strategy formulation, origination and execution activities in this segment. Prior to that, he was a principal in the infrastructure team at Arcapita, a global alternative assets firm.

SUSI Partners

SUSI Partners is a Swiss infrastructure fund manager specialising in sustainable investments supporting the energy transition. Our team currently manages over EUR 1 billion in investor commitments across five funds focused on opportunities in clean energy generation, energy efficiency enhancements, and energy storage and integrated solutions. With a successful track record of more than 100 transactions in 20 countries to date, we seek to achieve attractive, stable and uncorrelated returns, while contributing to global climate targets by reducing CO2 emissions.

Patrick is the founder of Rhynland and has 20 years of power industry experience. At Rhynland he leads the development of dozen storage and solar + storage opportunities in the Northeastern US and supports investors and owners of renewables, energy storage and traditional thermal assets.

He spent nearly 10 years with Starwood Energy where he led investments in natural gas, coal and biomass-fired power plants with a total capacity of more than 2.5 GW, the creation of a $100mm battery storage partnership with Stem, Inc., and oversaw Starwood Energy’s investment Nautilus Solar Energy.

Prior to joining Starwood Energy, Patrick was an investment banker with Citigroup and a corporate strategy analyst in the Bangkok office of Tractebel EGI (now Engie). Patrick started his career as an oil & gas lawyer with Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer in London.
Patrick holds an M.B.A. from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and law degree from the University of Leuven (Belgium).

Rhynland

Rhynland is a project development and advisory firm focused on renewable and traditional power assets as well as other infrastructure opportunities.

Recent assignments include supporting investors (mainly non-US asset managers and insurance companies) on direct investments and co-investments in US power and renewable opportunities with commercial and strategic advice. In additional, Rhynland assists in raising and structuring debt financing for renewable projects, and providing transaction support. Rhynland also works on select other infrastructure opportunities such as toll roads.

Wiebe Wakker is a sustainable adventurer known from his journey in an electric car from the Netherlands to New Zealand. With his project ‘Plug Me In’ Wiebe wanted to educate, inspire and accelerate the transition to a low-carbon future.
His journey crossed 34 countries in 1.222 days and was completely powered by strangers who offered him energy to bring him and his Blue Bandit to the other side of the world.

Wiebe talks about how he dealt with challenges along the way, what he learned from hundreds of people he met in various parts of the world and inspires with motivating lessons learned on the road.