Natasha Luther-Jones Global Co-Chair of Energy and Natural Resources DLA Piper

The independent legal sector rankings from Legal 500 2016-2019 quote Natasha as “a go-to name in the renewable energy space”, “fantastic”, “forward-thinking” and a “no-nonsense deal maker”. She is ranked as a ‘Leading Individual’ in the following categories - London: Power (including electricity and renewables) and Yorkshire & the Humber: Energy.

She has been named one of most influential lawyers in the global wind energy industry in The Legal Power List 2018, being ranked in the top 15 within global private practice lawyers.

Natasha is also listed in The Lawyers’ Hot 100 2017 for Energy and in the Women's Power List 2017 and worked on two of the top 10 global renewable energy deals listed by Inspiratia for 2017 and one in 2018

Heiko Ludwig Global Head of Structured Finance NordLB

Mr. Ludwig is the Global Head of NORD/LB’s Structured Finance department, representing the bank’s global activities for the financing and advisory of renewable energy and infrastructure projects with teams located in Hannover, London, Oldenburg, Singapore and New York.

Since 2004, Mr. Ludwig has helped to build, structure and establish Nord/LB’s global project finance franchise and has been involved in structuring and advising countless project finance transactions for renewable energy projects.

Furthermore his department is known to serve as a hub for capital market ready financing solutions. It is recognized as an early mover in placing project finance loans with institutional investors and developing hybrid products tailored for renewable energy transactions.

Having been active in the project finance industry for many years he’s able to link project sponsors, manufacturers and investors locally and globally.

According to various project finance publications NORD/LB Structured Finance scores consistently as one of the leading MLAs within the renewable energy sector – consistently ranking on top levels in the industry’s league tables.

Alejandro Ciruelos Managing Director Santander

Alejandro Ciruelos is a Managing Director at Santander Global Corporate Banking, the international wholesale banking division of Banco Santander. Ciruelos joined Santander Global Corporate Banking’s Project & Infrastructure finance department in 2006 as part of its global energy practice. During this first stage of his professional career at Santander Ciruelos focused on the financing of renewable energy projects located in continental Europe and North America across a variety of different technologies including solar photovoltaic, onshore wind and concentrated solar power. In 2008 Ciruelos relocated to London in order to enhance Santander’s presence across Europe expanding his remit to the financing of conventional and renewable energy power projects as well as regulated utilities. Ciruelos is currently the head of Santander’s Project & Infrastructure finance department in London and responsible for the origination, execution and distribution of non-recourse project finance and debt advisory mandates across the energy and infrastructure sectors in the UK, Ireland and Scandinavia. Throughout his tenure at Santander Ciruelos has led the structuring, execution and negotiation of over 30 transactions in the renewable energy sector in multiple geographies including, amongst others, the Race Bank, Galloper, Dudgeon and Beatrice offshore wind farms,, the first project bond financing issued by an offshore wind transmission owner (Greater Gabbard OFTO) and most recently, the acquisition financing and refinancing of several portfolios of assets by some of the most prominent UK-listed and private renewable energy infrastructure vehicles such as Cubico, Infinis (now Ventient) Greencoat, Foresight Solar or NextEnergy Solar Fund.

Kai Rintala Managing Director Taaleri Energia

Kai is the Managing Director of Taaleri Energia.

Taaleri Energia is a Helsinki based renewable fund manager and developer. Taaleri Energia has one of the largest dedicated wind and solar investment teams in Europe. Taaleri Energia currently manages a 1.6 GW (gigawatt) international portfolio of wind and solar assets and is also the largest private equity owner-operator in the Finnish wind market, with 110 turbines producing approximately 1% of all the country’s electricity. Taaleri Energia is part of the Taaleri Group, which is listed on the Nasdaq Helsinki stock exchange.

Kai has over 15 years of experience in the infrastructure industry. Before joining Taaleri Energia, he worked for 10 years at KPMG, both in Helsinki and in London, advising public and private sector clients on infrastructure strategy and transactions across energy, transport and social infrastructure. Kai built and led KPMG’s infrastructure business at KPMG Finland with clients ranging from utilities and infra-structure funds to state ministries and construction companies. He has executed 900 MW of wind transactions as well as transactions in hydro power, electricity distribution and de-centralised heat services. Kai holds a PhD in Construction Economics from UCL and an MSc in Engineering and Industrial Management from Tampere University of Technology.

Jonathan Maxwell CEO SDCL

Jonathan co-founded SDCL and is its CEO. He has 17 years’ experience in international financial markets, involving investment in infrastructure, real estate, private equity and listed securities. He launched SDCL’s energy efficiency business and contributes to government initiatives on energy efficiency in the UK and overseas.

Laurent Segalen Managing Partner Megawatt-X

Laurent Segalen is a Franco-British financier, founder of Megawatt-X, the London-based global platform for Renewable Energy Assets (14GW listed since 2013). For the past twenty years, Laurent has been trading and managing environmental and clean energy assets, in large financial institutions (Nomura, Natixis) as well as international consultancy firms (pwc). He is also co-host of the Redefining Energy podcast (15,000 downloads)

Tim Cable Senior Partner Vantage Infrastructure

Tim joined the business in 2012 and has over two decades of relevant experience. Based in London, Tim is the Head of the Global Infrastructure Debt business and the portfolio manager of a number of the firm’s debt mandates. He is Chair of the Debt Investment Committee and a member of the firm’s global Executive Committee.

Prior to joining the firm, Tim worked in senior banking roles for Westpac in Sydney and London. He holds a Bachelor of Commerce and a Master of Business from the University of Otago and a Master of Business Administration from the London Business School.

Andrea Arcangeli Managing Partner AcAp Advisory

Andrea is the founder of AcAp Advisory and focuses on Utilities and Infrastructure M&A and capital raising. He has over 10 years of experience in investment banking covering oil & gas, utilities and renewables. In 2014-2015, he was a Senior Director at Citigroup with responsibility for Utilities and Infrastructure covering mostly Southern Europe and Central Eastern Europe. From 2010 to 2013, he was a Vice President at Citigroup in the Power and Utilities team. Before then, he was an analyst/associate at Lehman Brothers / Nomura in the Natural Resources and Utilities Investment Banking team in London. Andrea holds an MSc in Accounting and Finance from the London School of Economics and Political Science and a Degree in Business Administration and Management from “L. Bocconi” University, Milan.

Tim Marahrens Vice President Credit Suisse Energy Infrastructure Partners

Tim Marahrens is Assistant Vice President in the Acquisition team of Credit Suisse Energy Infrastructure Partners. Since joining CSEIP shortly after its foundation in 2014, he has been responsible as a project manager for numerous successful transactions such as the acquisition of stakes in FluxSwiss/Transitgas and Romande Energie. Moreover, Mr. Marahrens significantly contributed to the successful acquisition of the Norwegian wind farm project Fosen Vind.

Prior to joining CSEIP, he worked for a Swiss and an American investment bank in Zurich and London, respectively, covering large-cap M&A mandates in EMEA. He has special experience in the areas of due diligence, deal execution, financial modeling and fund structuring.

Tim Marahrens holds a dual Master of Science Degree in Financial Mathematics from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich and the University of Zurich.

Fredrik Lindblom Partner DLA Piper

Fredrik Lindblom focuses on banking and finance law as well as projects and corporate transactions. His experience covers a broad range of finance, projects and corporate work, focusing on complex energy and infrastructure, acquisition, structured and asset transactions.

He has advised a range of leading financial institutions and corporate clients on some of the largest finance and debt capital markets transactions in the Norwegian market and internationally. Fredrik also has significant experience in shipping, offshore and oil services finance, energy and infrastructure/PPPs and real estate finance, security and guarantee matters and banking regulatory and compliance.

Fredrik has performed lead-counsel role, headed up and managed large international teams of lawyers on high value and complex transactions internationally (in up to 15 jurisdictions for a single transaction) through his career. His experience and expertise means that he is able to co-ordinate and manage large documentation as well as jurisdictional coordination projects in an effective and efficient manner.

Fredrik heads up the Finance and Projects group in DLA Piper's Oslo office.

Roger Fuchs Investment Director Astarte Capital Partners

Roger has nine years of financial advisory, investment and industry experience across the infrastructure, energy, natural resources and industrials sectors.

Before joining Astarte Capital Partners as an Investment Director, he worked at Macquarie Capital in London, where he advised on buy side and sell side M&A, bridge financing and principal transactions across upstream oil and gas, mid/downstream resources infrastructure, energy logistics and the wider core plus infrastructure sectors.

Prior to this, Roger spent four years at Schindler Group and Translift Schweiz AG, where he completed his apprenticeship as technical draughtsman in the mechanical engineering team, specialising in the design, construction and planning of logistic systems and industrial machinery.

Roger holds an MSc in Corporate Finance form Cass Business School in London and a BSc in Business Engineering from Lucerne University of Applied Sciences in Switzerland.

Dr Edmund Bennett Senior Consultant GHD

Edmund is a PhD qualified Senior Consultant with GHD, based in Newcastle upon Tyne. He is involved in physical and economic modelling of electricity transmission and generation assets, demand and price forecasting and energy market operational analysis.

In addition, Edmund has extensive experience in numerical simulation and modelling, statistical data analysis and software development in a range of public and private sector domains. Edmund has acted as consultant to clients in various sectors, providing analytical and statistical consultation services for multi-million GBP procurements using Python and R.

Dr. Peter Clive Principal Wind Energy Consultant Black & Veatch

PhD qualified, with 17 years industry experience, Peter has pioneered a variety of tools and techniques, including Adjacent Turbine Modelling, Response Deficit Analysis, Modified Weibull Scaling, Transience Analysis for fatigue load evaluation, and digitisation of wind conditions to render them compatible with sophisticated models using scanning lidar. He is a member of the maintenance team for IEC 61400-12-1 (power performance testing), the project teams for IEC 61400-50-3 (floating lidar) and IEC 61400-15 (wind resource and site suitability assessment), the advisory board of IEA Wind Task 32 (lidar), and a variety of other industry bodies. Peter has undertaken detailed forensic analysis of GWs of wind assets, from individual turbines to utility scale installations, both onshore and offshore, and strongly advocates integrated digital workflows with unified data requirements for the earliest possible access to the best possible insights, to support through-life optimisation and allow the visibility and mitigation of risk.

Robert Harker Partner DLA Piper

Rob Harker is a banking and project finance lawyer with a particular focus on large-scale power (including renewables), infrastructure, petrochemical and refinery projects in the Middle East and North Africa, most notably in the UAE, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Oman.

Having acted on more than 20 independent power and water projects in the Middle East and North Africa, together with high-profile projects in the renewables, refinery, petrochemicals and infrastructure sectors, Rob has invaluable experience and market understanding to guide clients through all aspects of a project finance transaction, including development, bids, acquisitions and disposals.

Rob's extensive experience on utility-scale power projects includes advising on project and corporate financings and refinancings often comprising large-scale, multi-source lending involving international and domestic banks, export credit agencies and Islamic finance institutions.

Rob also represents both sponsors and financial institutions alike on large-scale infrastructure projects in addition to advising on all aspects of project, development, corporate and Islamic financing in the Middle East, Africa and Europe.

Francesco Cacciabue Partner/CFO Glennmont Partners

Francesco joined Glennmont Partners in 2009 and is responsible for the fund’s investment and financial performance. He has more than thirteen years’ experience in energy sector of which eight in renewable. Before joining the team he spent four years at Oxara Energy Group (part of the Fleming Family and Partners group), one of Europe’s first private equity funds to specialise in renewable energy. During his career he successfully led the origination and execution of several investments in wind, solar, biomass and gas-fired plants across Europe. He is also responsible for developing these projects into operating assets, managing the fund accounts and investors.

Francesco holds a BA in Finance and Accounting from Bocconi University (Italy), a Masters in Finance from London Business School and he is a CIMA qualified management accountant (ACMA). In addition, he is a charterholder of Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA®).

Matt Brown Head of Western Europe, Middle East and Americas Pöyry

Matt Brown, Vice President, heads the Energy Western Europe, Middle East and Americas region for Pöyry Management Consulting.

With over twenty years’ experience in the energy industry, his expertise spans the energy value chain. His consultancy experience covers strategy,policy and regulatory development, transactions, commercial due diligence and expert witness work. 

Before joining Pöyry, Matt headed the European Power Practice at CERA based in Paris. Matt was a Director of ILEX Energy Consulting and previously worked at AEAT and Texaco. He holds a BSc in Mathematics and an MSc in Environmental Technology both from Imperial College, London.

Marc Groves-Raines Head of Renewable Energy Allianz Capital Partners

Marc has been Head of Renewables at Allianz since January 2018. He joined Allianz’s newly formed renewable energy investment team in 2005 charged with building a portfolio of operational assets in core Eurozone markets. During this time, Marc has been responsible for leading European transactions and has been instrumental in growing an operating portfolio of over 2GW of renewable energy assets. Prior to that he worked for RES Group to help with the expansion of its development activities abroad, notably in France and Portugal. Marc has worked in the wind industry since 1991 developing some of the first wind farms in the UK.

Matthew Brown Vice President Poyry

Matt Brown, Vice President, heads the Energy Western Europe, Middle East and Americas region for Pöyry Management Consulting.

With over twenty years’ experience in the energy industry, his expertise spans the energy value chain. His consultancy experience covers strategy, policy and regulatory development, transactions, commercial due diligence and expert witness work.

Before joining Pöyry, Matt headed the European Power Practice at CERA based in Paris. Matt was a Director of ILEX Energy Consulting and previously worked at AEAT and Texaco. He holds a BSc in Mathematics and an MSc in Environmental Technology both from Imperial College, London.

Carlos Abuin Investment Executive InfraRed Capital Partners

Carlos joined InfraRed in 2016.

Carlos is focused on the origination, structuring, execution and management of energy and infrastructure investments in Europe.

Since joining InfraRed, Carlos has taken lead roles in transactions including renewables, low carbon energy generation and energy related infrastructure investments (offshore wind, flexible generation, solar, transmission etc.)

His previous experience at InfraRed includes roles in the Portfolio& Asset management team focused on the implementation of value enhancement initiatives and non-executive director representation on boards of multiple portfolio companies. Before joining InfraRed, Carlos led the team responsible for commercial, strategy& business development of the operational offshore transmission infrastructure in Orsted.

Carlos graduated from Universidad Pontificia Comillas ICAI (Master in Engineering) in Madrid, Spain.

Jade Palmer Associate Director Grant Thornton

I am a member of our valuations team, specialising in infrastructure and renewable energy valuations. I primarily work with our large, listed and unlisted infrastructure fund clients invested in the sector globally. I am regularly consulted on renewable energy matters within the firm and have a deep understanding of the sector.

Having worked in the infrastructure industry in both advisory and valuations capacities since the inception of my career, in both Cape Town and London, I have had a multitude of projects cross my desk and have engaged with a wide range of stakeholders. I strive to work with our clients to keep at the forefront of transactions in the renewable energy sector and have a keen interest in the development of infrastructure projects across Africa. I enjoy watching the sector grow and look forward to seeing what’s next in store for us as we move towards Net Zero in the UK by 2050.

Thomas Buss Director InfraRed

Thomas joined the InfraRed team in 2016.Thomas co-leads the team focused on the origination, structuring, execution and management of infrastructure investments in Europe.

Since joining InfraRed, Thomas has taken a lead role in successfully positioning InfraRed’s energy supporting infrastructure offering in the North American market jointly with the US team. This includes the recent platform investment with Hecate Grid.

Emilio Zito Head of M&A EDF Energy and Deputy Global Head of M&A EDF Group EDF Energy

Emilio is the Head of M&A at EDF UK and Deputy Global Head of M&A at EDF Group, based in Paris. Before that, he spent more than 7 years at EDF Energy based in London as Head of M&A and Special Projects, leading,structuring and executing a wide range of greenfield and brownfield transactions across the energy chain and related infrastructure. Emilio started his career as an investment banker in London 15 years ago, covering natural resources, energy and power sectors. In 2008, he joined the EDF Group's M&A& Investment team in Paris.

Originally from Milan, Emilio holds a MSc in General Management and in Business Administration from Milan Bocconi University and HEC Paris, respectively. He also graduated from the University of California San Diego where he gained a Graduate Certificate in Corporate Finance.

Emilio is an Italian native speaker, speaks fluent English and French, and basic Chinese Mandarin.