It is with great pleasure that we announce the judging panel for IJGlobal ESG Awards 2022… as submissions continue to flood in before the hard deadline next week.

We launched these awards last year after long-running consultation with the market and stripping out the ESG component from our other awards – IJGlobal (greenfield financing and refi) and IJInvestor (infra fund activity and M&A).

IJGlobal prides itself on the peer-review nature of all our awards which (we believe) makes them the single most impactful in the infrastructure and energy community (conflicted judges are recused from relevant sections).

This year, we are especially proud of the line-up of judges which brings to the table a selection of ESG specialists, many of whom were well ahead of the curve, and have specialised in this space for some considerable time.

The judges (in alphabetical order) are:

• Jemima Atkins – assistant VP infrastructure direct investments, Allianz Capital Partners
• Annette Bannister – managing director and head of European infrastructure and project finance, MetLife Investment Management
• Josephine Bush – chair ESG committee NextEnergy Solar and Foresight Sustainable Forestry Company
• Ed Clarke – co-founder and chief investment officer, Infracapital
• Rachel Fleming – sustainability lead for global infrastructure debt, IFM Investors
• Anne Foster – global head of ESG and senior director of investments, Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners
• Mark Henderson – chief investment officer, Gridserve
• Tallat Hussain – environment counsel, White & Case
• Ali Miraj – managing director infrastructure finance, ING Bank
• Natalia Poupard – investment director, InfraRed Capital Partners
• Patricia Rodrigues – investment committee member, GLIL Infrastructure
• Lisa Shaw – managing director infrastructure debt, Vantage Infrastructure
• Marianne Zangerl – head of ESG fixed income, abrdn

IJGlobal will later this week be publishing a list of international judges to broaden the scope and bring a truly global perspective to Judgment Day.

The final date for receiving submissions – portal accessed here – is Wednesday 17 August and Judgment Day will be hosted in the IJGlobal offices on Wednesday 7 September. The shortlists will be published on 11 September and the London awards night is scheduled for 19 October.

The Judges 

Jemima Atkins – Allianz Capital Partners

Jemima secured her place on this year’s panel by dint of her winning the Rising Star award in the IJInvestor Awards 2020 and then proving to be a power of help on the IJGlobal ESG Awards advisory panel.

She was a popular choice with the judging team based – among other reasons – for the impressive role she has played in Allianz Global Investors on the ESG front, and brings a welcome breath of (comparative) youth to the judging panel.

Jemima is a London-based investment professional within the infrastructure equity team of Allianz Capital Partners, having moved across from the infrastructure debt team at Allianz Global Investors at the beginning of this year.

She has made investments in various European infrastructure assets while – in tandem – creating the inaugural ESG integration frameworks for both the infrastructure equity and debt teams.

Interestingly, she is currently working with other investment teams within Allianz Global Investors to roll out a standardised approach to ESG risk integration across the private markets platform.

In addition, Jemima plays a key role in implementing the EU Taxonomy and SFDR across private markets strategies, as well as holding ESG-related working group roles with LTIIA and GIIA.

Prior to Allianz Global Investors, Jemima worked at Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Annette Bannister – MetLife

An old friend of IJGlobal, Annette is the managing director and head of European infrastructure and project finance at MetLife Investment Management (MIM), operating out of London.

Annette has risen steadily over the years since joining the US-based fund in autumn 2015 to take the top job in Q3 2019 for European infrastructure and project finance, being promoted to managing director at the end of 2021.

She has deep experience of lending across the infrastructure and energy asset class having worked at Societe Generale and Barclays before heading down the alternative route.

In early 2011 she switched camps to join AMP Capital, followed by a stint at LGIM and then settling into this latest role at MIM where she has built an impressive team.

She has previously served as a judge on the 2021 IJGlobal judging panel for Europe and Africa on the greenfield and refinancing awards.

ESG is an important area of focus at MIM, and over recent years Annette and her team have increasingly focused on investing in ESG-positive infrastructure assets in the UK and Europe.

Outside of her day job, Annette is a strong promoter of diversity and inclusion, having been a co-founder and president of the Women’s Investment Network for the London office of MIM, speaking on gender diversity at industry conferences and supporting International Women’s Day events at MIM.

Josephine Bush – NextEnergy Solar / Foresight

IJGlobal most recently wrote about Josephine at the end of last year (2021) when it was announced that she was to take on the role of chair on ESG committee at NextEnergy Solar Fund.

She is also an NED and chair of the ESG committee at the Foresight Sustainable Forestry Company; non-exec director of Net Zero Now; strategic adviser to Guernsey Finance; an investment committee member with a focus on sustainable infrastructure at Gresham House; and chair of the audit, risk and ESG committee at Vulcan Energy Resources. She was recently asked to join the AIC’s ESG working group to share best practice for ESG for investment trust company’s.

Josephine is a renowned advocate for the green and sustainable sector, deploying strategic, commercial and transactional skills in the support of clients’ decarbonising efforts. She has her own Sustainability Strategy consultancy, Sustineri Strategy, advising clients on the development and execution of their sustainability strategies, including ESG initiatives. 

Josephine is particularly focused on developing commercially-effective Sustainability strategies that robustly manage risk as well as opportunity, while also acting as an influential and persuasive strategist, with a visionary leadership style. She founded the not for profit Sustainability & You, running a podcast that interviews specialists in their field of sustainability.

Josephine cut her teeth in the Big 4 – at EY – where she led a global, multi-disciplinary partner team on the delivery of a global renewables business plan. This strategically significant project for the firm entailed a review of the global renewables market, including the growth and marketing strategy, assessing innovative renewable technologies and regions of focus.

She also pioneered the build of EY’s renewables tax practice and has extensive experience in this sector, winning work for all service lines as a client service partner. She sat on EY’s power and utilities board, representing the tax practice for the UK and Ireland and led on the build of EYs Global renewables strategy across all service lines.

Ed Clarke – Infracapital

Someone who needs little introduction to the European infra fund community, Ed Clarke co-founded Infracapital with Martin Lennon, and has more than 30 years' infrastructure, project finance and investment experience.

Ed joined M&G in 2001 to create Infracapital, the infrastructure equity investment arm of the business, with Martin.

Infracapital has now made over 60 investments across Europe with a long-term sustainable investment approach, providing value to investors while having a positive impact on the communities in which we operate.

Recent investments include Zenobe, Gridserve, Recharge and EnergyNest.

Prior to founding Infracapital, Ed worked at Societe Generale where he was responsible for structuring and arranging capital markets issue to fund infrastructure projects.

Before this, he was a leading member of the Hambros Bank infrastructure advisory team where he also set up its infrastructure advisory business in South Africa.

Ed played a leading role in the establishment of the Infrastructure Industry Foundation and the development of its social mobility initiative for the industry.

Rachel Fleming – IFM Investors

Rachel first came to IJGlobal’s attention when she was nominated for the IJGlobal ESG Awards Rising Star category and won in the Investor category.

Since then, she has been back in the news, after being promoted (May 2022) to the role of sustainability lead for global infrastructure debt at IFM Investors.

Granted, one of the more junior members of the judging panel, but Rachel proved to be a great help on the advisory panel that was set up to investigate how we could improve the criteria and methodology of the awards process.

An Australian national, Rachel relocated to the UK from Australia in spring 2019 having cut her teeth in the power and energy sector in Melbourne at NAB, joining the bank in its early 2012 graduate intake.

Straight out of the trap, Rachel focused on renewable energy transactions as well as more challenging elements of the job, winning her the Altitude Award for leading the overhaul of NAB’s credit rating tool for project finance borrowers.

After joining IFM in Melbourne in late 2017, Rachel led the greenfield financing of an energy-from-waste plant in Western Australia. Since relocating to London, Rachel has worked on an Iberian onshore wind portfolio refinancing, several European district heating transactions, a HoldCo PFI portfolio financing, a UK social housing USPP issuance, and a UK meter portfolio refi.

Shortly after joining IFM in Melbourne Rachel got to work on her first ESG project: the development and implementation of the infrastructure debt team’s ESG checklist. More recently in the UK –– Rachel has continued her work on ESG initiatives by building a portfolio-wide emissions data capture tool.

Anne Foster – Quinbrook

Having recently appeared on an IJGlobal podcast – Infra Dig – to talk about the role of technology and how it is used to increase the ESG standing of Quinbrook… for which it won the award last year… Anne is no stranger to these pages.

At the inaugural awards, she was singled out for honours as the Outstanding Contribution Awards and she was a popular choice with the judges saying “Anne embodies ESG leadership in energy and infrastructure sectors” and another recognising her “brilliant achievements” with “no doubt of more in store”.

At the 2021 judging session, yet another judge said: “Anne may only be midway through her career, but her contribution to driving improved ESG outcomes spanning many diverse themes and industries can genuinely be described as outstanding. Her achievements leave me in awe, wondering just how she does it.”

Serving as Quinbrook's global head of ESG, Anne has led its strategy since inception – designing and implementing ESG processes. Over the course of her career, she has advised on billions of dollars of transactions in relation to climate and ESG impact, working with organisations that range from blue chip companies like BHP Billiton, through to start-ups.

She has been appointed on numerous company boards, driving influence through ESG alignment and is a represented member on Quinbrook's investment committee, valuation committee, procurement and digital innovation committees… which stands testament to the lengths she has driven critical ESG-based decision making.

Anne works day-to-day directly with portfolio companies to drive change – from designing strategies that can provide beneficial impact on vulnerable communities, water stress, to actively forcing change in supply chains, driving suppliers to reassess their transparency and activities.

Her commitment to social impact, assessment and strategy was selected by the KPMG Human Rights team to be showcased in a human rights report.

Mark Henderson – Gridserve

Another old friend of IJGlobal, Mark last acted as a judge on the IJGlobal Awards 2020 where his insistence on damning every deal that was non-ESG compliant ensured he would never be invited back to that… but wins him a place in this panel!

He has been an investment banker and asset manager for more than 30 years and has advised on, structured and financed in excess of £5 billion and 8,000MW of infrastructure energy projects.

Mark is a well-known figure in the European infrastructure market and has worked across a number of different, often interesting, platforms.

In more recent times, Mark has been involved in structuring and raising the capital needed for Gridserve’s sustainable energy infrastructure platform – a tech-enabled sustainable energy business to deliver sustainable energy and move the needle on climate change. It has pioneered a Sun-to-Wheel ecosystem that includes the most advanced hybrid solar + battery farms, electric vehicle charging infrastructure, and an EV leasing platform.

Gridserve is transforming the EV charging experience with the Gridserve Electric Highway network that is supplied by net zero carbon energy. It is a national public charging infrastructure covering 85% of the UK’s motorway service areas and some of the UK’s busiest retail destinations.

Previously Mark financed power projects globally at Dresdner Kleinwort Benson and Societe Generale, before establishing the project finance power and renewable energy team at Investec and the solar investment fund at Greencoat Capital.

He will be well known to many for appearing on webinars discussing the merits of electric vehicles.

Tallat Hussain – White & Case

Tallat first came to IJGlobal’s attention in 2020 during some conversations where her forthright views on ESG struck a chord with the team and ensured her place on the inaugural IJGlobal ESG Awards judging panel.

Now that we are hosting the second judging panel, she is a shoo-in for a return as her contribution to the first event was greatly appreciated, as was her input to the advisory committee.

She is senior environmental counsel in White & Case’s project development and finance practice in London, covering UK, Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Tallat advises corporate and financial clients in various sectors on regulatory compliance, the application of international environmental and social requirements such as the Equator Principles, IFC Performance Standards, UNSDGs and multiple reporting and disclosure initiatives.

As part of her ESG practice, Tallat also advises on business and human rights, sustainable finance solutions and climate change issues.

Ali Miraj – ING Bank

A managing director in infrastructure finance at ING Wholesale Banking, Ali is responsible for managing relationships with global infrastructure equity funds and has extensive experience of originating and structuring infrastructure transactions over many years.

He was previously in syndicated finance, capital markets, responsible for the arranging and pricing of syndicated transactions in the infrastructure, TMT, energy and transport and logistics sectors. Prior to that he served as global business manager of the syndicated finance platform.

Ali is a well-known figure in the infra community, but also swings some lead in political circles.

He is a political columnist for TheArticle and regularly appears on outlets including Sky News, BBC News, Times Radio, TalkTV, GB News and LBC to comment on domestic political developments and international affairs. To give an idea of how busy Ali is on this front, he had to exit last year’s IJInvestor Awards to be interviewed by Sky.

In 2012, he founded the Contrarian Prize to recognise the independence, courage and sacrifice of British public figures whose ideas challenge the status quo.

He is a former Conservative Parliamentary Candidate and was first elected as a Councillor at the age of 23. He also served as an adviser to the Conservative Foreign Affairs Team from 2001-2003 and a Board Member of the party’s Policy Commissions on Quality of Life and International and National Security (2005-2007).

He is a trained house music DJ and has had multiple residencies and played at leading venues around the world. He is national vice president of CPRE, the countryside charity, a board member of the London Institute of Banking and Finance and a liveryman of the Worshipful Company of International Bankers.

Natalia Poupard – InfraRed Capital Partners

IJGlobal knows Natalia from back in her technical advisory days. She has been active in the PPP/PFI and renewable energy infrastructure space for more than 15 years, managing operational assets at the board level of the investee companies on behalf of the infrastructure funds or advising senior debt providers.

Natalia has extensive experience in the asset management of infrastructure funds' investments, as well as acquisition and disposal of assets while representing either buy- or sell-side.

For the last 9 years, she has been holding non-executive director roles on the multiple project companies' boards of the PPP/PFI healthcare and education, and renewable energy (wind) assets across the UK and Europe.

Her exposure ranges from a privately-held infra fund invested into by pension funds to a publicly-listed FTSE 250 infra fund with more than £3 billion market cap.

Prior to joining InfraRed in early 2019, Natalia was with Dutch lender NIBC Bank for 6 years where she was responsible for managing the NIBC European Infrastructure Fund I’s investments up until the fund's end of life and eventual sale to a leading global infra investor in December 2018.

Patricia Rodrigues – GLIL Infrastructure

Looking back over the IJGlobal archive and Patricia crops up quite a few times. One of the key appearances in these pages was when we announced her appointment to the UK’s Green Investment Bank back in 2011.

Since then, she was one of the first judges to sign up as a judge on the inaugural IJGlobal ESG Awards that met virtually last year (2021) – nominated by a number of industry experts.

Patricia is a real assets investment professional and non-executive board director with a breadth of experience across infrastructure, real assets and private equity.

Over the past 2 decades, Patricia has been an investment manager at Macquarie, multi-manager at Townsend and LP at the UK Government and PSP, leveraging her cross-sector perspectives to carve a unique path.

Patricia’s dual ambitions of investing well and seeking to protect the planet led her to join in 2011 the UK Government to help create the UK Green Investment Bank, the world’s first green bank. 

Patricia is a non-exec director at AERIF plc and at Legal & General Assurance Society Ltd.

She is an independent investment committee member at GLIL, funded by leading UK pension plans to invest in UK infrastructure, at Old Mutual’s AIIM, investing in Africa infrastructure, and a senior adviser on net zero to London Treasury. Patricia began her career in finance with Morgan Stanley.

Lisa Shaw – Vantage Infrastructure

The first mention of Lisa in the IJGlobal database dates back – impressively – to 2006 when we reported on her joining NIBC Bank from IKB. Those were the early days… the banking days.

More recent (the last decade) career developments have seen Lisa play a prominent role in a couple of infrastructure funds where ESG has played an increasingly central role.

However, even more recent, she served on the judging panel for the inaugural IJGlobal ESG Awards.

Lisa joined Vantage Infrastructure in 2013 and has more than 20 years’ infrastructure debt experience. These days, she leads Vantage’s global asset management for the debt business.

She is responsible for all of the debt team’s analytical processes including ESG, credit assessment, valuation and performance. Lisa is a member of Vantage’s debt investment committee and of the GRESB infrastructure debt working group.

Prior to joining Vantage, Lisa was associate director and head of portfolio management, infrastructure and renewables at NIBC Bank, where she ran a book of more than 120 debt transactions across Europe.

She also worked for the infrastructure teams at IKB Deutsche Industriebank and Abbey National (now Santander).

Marianne Zangerl – abrdn

Marianne is well known to the author of this piece as – when he stepped out of journalism for 3 years to work in head hunting in infra/energy – he in early 2015 placed her into her current company, which then was operating as Standard Life Aberdeen.

Since that time – and a re-brand to abrdn – Marianne has progressed her career impressively and is now head of ESG for fixed income.

In this role, Marianne has responsibility for ensuring abrdn continues to evolve its approach to the integration of ESG within fixed income, ensuring holistic application of ESG factors to research and portfolio construction, as well as developing the ESG Fixed Income product range to meet increasing client demand.

Marianne sits on a number of investment committees for abrdn’s sustainable fund range. She is also a fund manager of the Secure Income & Cashflow fund and Multi-Sector Private Credit Fund, which invests across the private credit asset classes.

Marianne was previously an investment director in the private credit team at abrdn, with responsibility for the origination and ongoing monitoring of infrastructure debt and private placement transactions… with a focus on driving forward abrdn’s approach to ESG within private credit.

An Australian national, Marianne started her career in Sydney at ANZ before relocating to London in early 2014.