Africa GreenCo

Ana
Hajduka

Founder & CEO

Ana is qualified as a lawyer in both England & Wales and the State of New York, and is an infrastructure and energy professional with more than 14 years’ experience in a variety of transactions including project finance, public-private partnerships and project development, working on energy and infrastructure projects in emerging markets.

Ana trained with Allen & Overy LLP and went on to work for Fulbright & Jaworski LLP and Trinity International LLP, advising on a diverse range of projects within the energy sector, predominately in Sub-Saharan Africa. In March 2015, Ana was appointed by the UNECE as the Team Leader responsible for a Project Team (comprising about 30 specialists) in charge of developing international renewable energy PPP standards as part of the Sustainable Energy for All agenda.

Cathy
Oxby

Chief Commercial Director

Cathy has more than 14 years professional experience in the infrastructure and renewable energy sectors, both as an adviser and an equity investor. She trained at Allen & Overy LLP where she worked on a diverse range of project finance transactions spanning energy and infrastructure before moving into a commercial role at HSBC Infrastructure Fund (which became InfraRed Capital Partners). After 6 years of structuring and negotiating equity investments in a wide variety of public-private partnerships and renewable energy projects, she established her own consultancy to help developers, investors and project companies deliver well- structured and efficiently run investments by assisting them through all stages of project development, implementation and operation and also acted as a consultant to the World Bank.

Lovemore
Chilimanzi

Technical Director

Lovemore’s core skills are in power system strategic management, operations and electricity trading having worked in this area for over 30 years. He has operated hydro and thermal power stations and transmission networks and has negotiated, implemented and managed numerous power purchase agreements. He is a founder member of SAPP and was a key member in formulation, implementation, monitoring and revising the SAPP control performance criteria and the SAPP regional trading rules that enabled launching of a competitive electricity market in SADC. Lovemore is a senior member of the South African Institute of Electrical Engineers (SAIEE) and has lectured power utility risk management and operations management in an MBA programme for more than nine years.

Penny
Herbst

Strategy Director

Penny Herbst has over 30 years of experience in an utility environment most of this in Eskom’s Treasury department, where she was exposed to a diverse set of financial, commercial and legal structures that emanate from its operations. Amongst others she has managed Eskom’s foreign and interest rate risk, money and capital market investments, project finance transactions, and the structuring of projects to mitigate risks associated with projects in Africa. She led the formation of Eskom’s Development Finance unit where in the role of Development Financing Manager she was instrumental raising, in excess of $6bn, from DFI and related institutions. This included funding for Eskom‘s first renewable projects where she spent some time in Eskom’s Renewables Unit working on bridging the gap between financing and implementation.

Douglas ‘Pug’
Bennet

Chief Investment Officer

Pug Bennet is the former COO of GuarantCo’s Management Company and was involved with GuarantCo since 2007, taking GuarantCo from a trial initiative to the leading local currency guarantor in such markets. As one of two original employees and always part of the management team, his role included a mixture of client and business focussed work with many ground breaking transactions. This experience required a flexible, practical, persistent and solution focussed approach and provided an understanding of both the private and public sector operators in such markets.

He started his career as a lawyer and has been advising, structuring, financing and arranging transactions, mainly in emerging and frontier markets, for over 20 years.

Johannes
Baake

Chief Finance Director

Johannes Baake is an experienced financial analyst with over 13 years’ experience in banking, project and development finance. During 10 years at KfW IPEX Bank, he worked in various roles. As a part of a highly specialized modelling team, he worked on dozens of large international project finance in various sectors. He also spent time at the KfW Climate Change Fund, where he designed a cash flow model for a portfolio of CDM projects, leading to his Master Thesis on “Innovative Financing Structures for programmatic Clean Development Mechanism”.

In 2016 Johannes started to work as an independent consultant and founded in 2017 financial modelling boutique b.linked GmbH which mainly advises large banks and funds on financial structuring energy projects in Africa.

Tantra
Thakur

Special Advisor

Tantra is the former Head of PTC India with more than 40 years of experience with government, private and global companies in India, South Asia and SE Asia. Under his stewardship as Chairman and Managing Director from 2000-2012, PTC India became the first electricity trading company in India/ South Asia. He led the company to diversify into financial services through PTC India Financial Services Limited and co- sponsored the first Energy Exchange in India.

He now serves as a non-executive Member of Board of several companies including InfraCo. He has provided advisory services to many other companies in the Energy Sector in India including Fortnum India and the Essar Group. He was deputed to UNHCR for performance audit on behalf of the UN Board of Auditors. He served as a member of the Prime Minister’s Task Force on the socio-economic development of Jammu & Kashmir in India.

Haakon
Olafsson

Special Advisor

Haakon has 26 years’ experience
within commodities and energy working for leading banks, utilities and trading houses. He recently led the successful establishment of Statkraft’s power trading business in India.  He has 18 years’ senior management experience instigating, building, restructuring and leading profitable free-standing businesses in Europe and emerging markets and has provided high level advice on several energy related new ventures. He has an MBA from London Business School and a B.Sc. (Hons) in Economics & Finance.

Having managed front, back, middle office, logistics, technology, finance, legal and regulatory teams, he brings a deep understanding of the totality of a trading business, optimisation of physical resources. He has a firm knowledge of most forms of electricity generation as well as emissions and bulk energy storage.

Alex
Simalabwi

Non-Executive Director

Alex is the Executive Secretary, Head of Africa Coordination Unit & Global Lead on Climate Resilience for the Global Water Partnership Southern Africa. Alex is an international development professional with extensive expertise in water resources management, climate change adaptation, economic development, finance, investment strategy design and public policy.

Through his career he has developed partnerships and collaborated with various international agencies: World Bank, UNDP, UNICEF, UNEP, UNFCCC, Green Climate Fund, UN Water, GEF, FAO, WMO, UNESCO, AfDB, ADB, EIB, IADB, SADC, ECOWAS, ECCAS, EAC and others.  He has worked with more than 20 countries in Africa, to develop investment plans on integration of water into economic national development.

Philippe
Niyongabo

Advisory Committe Member

Philippe is a well-known African
energy expert. A former Head of Energy Division within the Department of Infrastructure and Energy, African Union Commission, he developed key energy programs including the Program for Infrastructure Development in Africa (PIDA-energy sector), the Geothermal Risk Mitigation Facility (GRMF) and the Geothermal Regional Program for the Eastern African Countries, the establishment of Africa-EU Energy Partnership which is the most successful of the eight partnerships Joint Africa-EU Strategy launched in 2007, the SE4ALL Africa Hub Action Agenda and Investment Prospectuses for African countries and participation at the elaboration of the Africa Renewable Energy Initiative supported by G7 and adopted at the COP21 in Paris, France in December 2015.

Abyd
Karmali

Advisory Committee Member

Abyd is Managing Director, Climate Finance at Bank of America Merrill Lynch and is point person for the bank’s $10 billion Catalytic Finance Initiative as well as part of the team that oversees the bank’s broader financial commitment to mobilise US$125bn for low-carbon investment opportunities by 2025.

He has worked for twenty-five years on climate policy, carbon markets, and new approaches to climate finance and was selected in 2013 to serve as one of two inaugural private sector representatives to the Board of the Green Climate Fund. He also has advisory roles with the Global Innovation Lab for Climate Finance and the finance committee of the Sustainable Energy for All initiative. His non-profit roles include the Board of Directors for The Climate Group and chairing the Board of Just Energy, an Oxfam-seeded initiative.

Andrew
Mitchel MP

Advisory Committee Member

Former UK Secretary of State for International Development.

The Rt Hon Andrew Mitchell MP has been the Member of Parliament for Sutton Coldfield since 2001.  He was previously the Member of Parliament for Gedling from 1987 to 1997 during which time he held office as a Government Whip and was Minister for Social Security. He also served as a Vice Chairman of the Conservative Party 1992-93. Andrew was educated at Rugby School and studied History at Cambridge University.  He was elected as President of the Cambridge Union in 1978.  He served in the Army (Royal Tank Regiment) and was a United Nations Peacekeeper in Cyprus before joining Lazard, the international investment bank.

In November 2003 he was pointed Shadow Minister for Economic Affairs and from September 2004 he was the Shadow Minister for Police. Following the General Election in May 2005, he was appointed Shadow Secretary of State for International Development.  He then served as the Secretary of State for International Development from May 2010 – September 2012 and Government Chief Whip from September – October 2012.

Andrew has campaigned on a variety of issues. In June 2014 Andrew was able to secure the reinstatement of Sutton Coldfield as a Royal Town- its title granted by Henry VIII in 1528 and apparently lost when the Town became a borough in 1886.

Since the beginning of 2014 he has worked tirelessly to protect the Green Belt of Royal Sutton Coldfield from the building of 6000 new homes.

He has been a staunch champion of Human Rights and local health facilities and campaigned for the equal treatment of mental and physical health. In November last year he joined other MPs from all political parties, for the All Party Campaign for the promotion of equality of Mental Health.

Andrew made clear that the defence of Human Rights and liberties would be fundamental to his activities in Westminster. With regards to the Syrian conflict, Andrew has been vocal about the need to protect refugees and has visited those caught on the Turkish Syrian border recently. He has campaigned to keep refugees as close to the areas from which they have been driven as possible so that one day they can return.

James
Bond

Advisory Committee Member

James is an emerging market infrastructure and climate finance expert with over 30 years experience at the Green Climate Fund, MIGA, the World Bank, the International Finance Corporation and in industry.

He has extensive expertise in project and sovereign finance in emerging economies, particularly in infrastructure, energy and climate-related investments. He also serves a non-executive director on the boards of several companies and foundations.