With the submissions portal for IJInvestor Awards 2022 now closed and a record number of entries received for M&A and infrastructure fund activity, we are delighted to unveil the members of the independent judging panel.

They are all established industry leaders from the energy and infrastructure community – primarily from funds and involved in the M&A space who kindly agreed to serve on the IJInvestor Awards panel of independent judges.

The (extended) submission deadline was 14 October for energy and infrastructure M&A as well as fundraising and deployment by infra funds, reflecting developments during the judging period that runs from 1 April 2021 to 31 March 2022.

IJGlobal prides itself on the peer-review nature of all awards hosted, ensuring a process that is so transparent that (we believe) makes them the most valued to win – submitted by the industry and reviewed on their merits by people who work in the sector.

As always, judges are recused from voting on awards where they have an interest… and Judgment Day saw a good team of industry experts gather at the IJ head office in London – and over Teams – to debate the relative merits of submission.

The judging team (in alphabetical order):

• Gordon Bajnai – Campbell Lutyens
• Hari Chandra – Cantor Fitzgerald
• Elise Dupuy Vaudour – Eurazeo Infrastructure
• Ingrid Edmund – Columbia Threadneedle
• Craig Forrest – Arup
• Anurag Gupta – Sequoia Investment Management
• Siôn Jones – Equitix
• Ali Kazmi – Rothschild & Co
• Jocelyn Land – Allen & Overy
• Tom Lees – Allianz GI
• Niall Mills – igneo
• Liam O’Keefe – Hana Bank
• Ashley Potter – JP Morgan

 Biographies

Gordon Bajnai

Campbell Lutyens

Partner and global head of infrastructure

As partner and head of global infrastructure at Campbell Lutyens based out of London, Gordon dialled in to the judging session through Teams from Singapore. He is a repeat member of the IJ panel having picked up the baton after James Wardlaw left the company.

Gordon is responsible for Campbell Lutyens’s infrastructure capabilities globally and has advised on both primary and secondary placement mandates. He is also chair of the firm’s global advisory board and a member of the management committee.

Prior to joining Campbell Lutyens, Gordon was chief operating officer at Meridiam. Before this, he held roles as chief executive of the Wallis Group – a Hungarian investment group – and also served as deputy chief exec of CA IB Securities, a Hungarian investment bank.

In addition to his role at Campbell Lutyens, Gordon serves on the investment committee of the European Fund for Strategic Investments.

While not so relevant to infra/energy, Gordon has an interesting history in government having served as prime minister of Hungary in 2009-10, leading the crisis management government without party affiliation.

Prior to serving as PM, in 2006 he was appointed Government Commissioner in charge of the National Development Plan; then Minister of Local Government and later Minister of National Development and Economic Affairs.

Hari Chandra

Cantor Fitzgerald

Senior managing director, global head of power, energy and infrastructure

A well-known figure from across the global infrastructure community, Hari is renowned for having forthright opinions on the market and as rain-maker in the investment banking community.

Hari is the head of global power, energy and infrastructure as well as international head of investment banking at Cantor Fitzgerald, operating out of London.

Over the years, Hari has hit the headlines for a rather spectacular investment banking team exit from Jefferies… followed by establishing a strong business at Cantor Fitzgerald towards the end of 2017.

Since then, Cantor Fitz has been on the rise, doing an impressive job of carving its niche out of advisory for acquisitions in the infrastructure and energy space.

Elise Dupuy Vaudour

Eurazeo Infrastructure

Chief operation officer

Elise Dupuy Vaudour took on the role of chief operating officer of Eurazeo Infrastructure Partners last September (2021) and is an established professional in the European infra/energy space.

With more than €32 billion in assets under management – including €23.4 billion from limited partners and more than 530 portfolio companies invested or funded – Eurazeo is one of Europe’s leading private equity companies. In the infra space, it invests primarily in the digital and energy sectors.

Elise joined Eurazeo from Macquarie, where she looked after infrastructure and energy for more than 16 years. She was also on the independent board of directors at Cory Riverside Energy from 2018 to 2020 while at Macquarie.

Elise cut her teeth in the finance community at Deloitte before moving over to work on the ABN Amro structured finance team.

Ingrid Edmund

Columbia Threadneedle Investments

Head of financing and portfolio management

Ingrid joined CTI in 2018 to launch the European Sustainable Infrastructure Fund, an open-ended fund focused on mid-market equity investments.

She leads on the financing of ESIF’s portfolio companies, with additional responsibility for sourcing, execution and asset management activities.

Ingrid has nearly 20 years of experience in infrastructure across transportation, digital, renewable energy and social infrastructure, with previous roles held at Hastings Funds Management, HSBC Asset Management, SMBC and Standard & Poor’s.

Craig Forrest

Arup

Strategic Partner

Last seen at the IJGlobal ESG Awards in London picking up a couple of awards for Arup, Craig has long had a global remit and earlier this year he took on the function of strategic partner in the consultancy.

For 3 years prior to that he had been living in Canada (most of that under lockdown, to his chagrin) where he was chief executive of Arup Corporate Finance until March 2022, when he returned to London.

Craig has worked at Arup since the spring of 2007, and – from 2008-10 – he operated out of Dubai as commercial director for the region.

From 2010 to 2013, he was advisory lead for the UK, the Middle East and Africa; and then from 2013-19 he was global leader of business and investor advisory.

He is one of the most instantly recognised figures in the global technical advisory space and has driven evolution across Arup to include financial advisory.

Anurag Gupta

Sequoia Investment Management

Chief risk officer

It feels like IJGlobal has followed Anurag from Toronto to London, back to Toronto… and back to London again as we stay in touch whichever side of The Pond he happens to be on.

His last stop Canada-side was as partner and global sector head for power and infrastructure at KPMG, giving him a truly international feel within the Big 4.

However, he returned to the UK in early 2020 to take up his new role as chief risk officer and chief operating officer at Sequoia Investment Management Company.

At Sequoia, he has primary responsibility for the risk management and compliance of its infrastructure debt funds. Further, he oversees all day-to-day operations in the fund.

Anurag has more than 20 years’ experience in project finance, infrastructure investment and appraisal, risk management, M&A, and financial advisory.

Over his career he has accrued extensive transactional experience across infrastructure sectors such as transport, power and utilities, renewables, TMT, and social infrastructure (PPPs) – among others.

Siôn Jones

Equitix

Chief operating officer

Siôn is an Equitix board director and a member of its fund investment committee, heading the asset management team of fund managers and asset board directors overseeing a combined AUM of £10 billion spanning 400 assets.

He is responsible for creating asset management strategies to maximise fund performance, enhance corporate cash flows and mitigate investment risk.

Siôn has experience of directly managing numerous assets across the portfolio and is currently a board member of Electricity North West an electricity distribution network and Firmus Energy a gas distribution network.

He plays an active role in the corporate governance of those assets, often chairing key committees and working closely with the various senior management teams.

He chairs the sustainability committee on Firmus Energy which is focused on the transition of the gas network to net zero.

Ali Kazmi

Rothschild & Co

Global co-head transport and infrastructure

Ali was promoted to global co-head transport and infrastructure at Rothschild & Co in early 2018 having been head of infrastructure and structured finance advisory since 2015.

He jointly leads the division across M&A transactions, as well as debt finance deals and operates out of London, sharing the leadership role with Paris-based Nicolas Bonnault.

In his previous role within Rothschild, Ali worked on debt financing predominantly in the UK market, as well as across deals in Europe.

He joined Rothschild in 2015 from Deutsche Bank, where he was director for 6 years, focused on credit structuring. And prior to that, he worked in the bank's debt capital markets team.

At Rothschild & Co, Ali has played a key role in building out its M&A advisory services to a highly-regarded market player.

Jocelyn Land

Allen & Overy

Partner

Jocelyn is well- known to IJGlobal, having been on the title’s radar since she was an associate working under Anne Baldock.

During her time at A&O, she has steadily risen up the ranks and is a highly-regarded legal adviser based in London and focused on project finance and structured finance transactions.

Jocelyn has a broad range of experience acting on domestic, international and cross-border transactions across all of the energy and infrastructure sectors.　

Niall Mills

Igneo Infrastructure Partners

Managing partner and global head

Niall Mills is the managing partner and global head of Igneo, operating out of London. He is a member of the global and European investment committees and a board member of a number of the portfolio companies.

Niall is one of the most highly-regarded professionals in his space and has had a 35-year long career in the infrastructure sector as an engineer, project manager and investment manager.

He joined FSI in 2008 as a founding member of the European infrastructure business and became managing partner of the global infrastructure business in 2020… which subsequently rebranded to Igneo Infrastructure Partners in 2022.

With Igneo as the independently branded direct infrastructure business of First Sentier Investors, Niall was invited to join the executive leadership team of FSI in October 2022.

Liam O’Keeffe

KEB Hana Bank

Head of project finance EMEA

Another old friend of IJGlobal from back in his Credit Agricole days in a leadership role in syndications – a relationship that continues through to today, now that he is heading the project finance division at KEB Hana Bank in London.

Liam has often cropped up on IJGlobal judging panels over the years and his encyclopaedic knowledge of the global infrastructure market has ensured repeat invitations – not to mention his charming Celtic routes.

Liam has more than 30 years of project finance experience and has been head of PF for the EMEA region at KEB Hana bank since 2019.

Prior to that, he was a managing director and head of special projects at Credit Agricole CIB. While there, he supported the City of London on its Green Finance Initiative and had a paper published on tidal power in Environmental Finance.

He was also a non-executive director of the bank’s pension trustee and spoke at conferences on the importance of pension funds adopting green investment strategies.

He has also worked at CIBC and KPMG and is a qualified chartered accountant.

Tom Lees

Allianz GI

Senior portfolio manager

Tom Lees is the leading portfolio manager for the Allianz Resilient Opportunistic Credit (AROC) strategy.

The AROC strategy targets a portfolio average credit profile of B+ and seeks to invest in real assets across the full range of infrastructure sectors, mostly at a subordinated level in the capital structure.

Tom joined AllianzGI in 2021 from BNP Paribas where he was a managing director, responsible for origination, structuring, underwriting and distribution of infrastructure debt, as well as undertaking infrastructure debt advisory.

Prior to BNP Paribas, Tom worked for OMERS Infrastructure where his role covered infrastructure equity investments and included a number of non-executive directorships at infrastructure portfolio companies.

Tom previously held roles at JP Morgan and Dresdner Kleinwort where he covered underwriting, arranging and high yield bond issuance, as well as advisory roles.

Ashley Potter

JP Morgan Asset Management

Executive director

Ashley is a portfolio manager in the global infrastructure debt strategy, having joined in 2013. 

He has close to 30 years’ experience in financial advisory, debt structuring and arranging in the wider infrastructure / energy sector. 

Ashley joined JP Morgan from OFGEM, the UK energy and gas markets regulator, where he was expert financial adviser on the new offshore renewable energy transmission programme.

He had previously held leadership positions with BNP Paribas, as executive director for energy and infrastructure, with responsibility for project and PPP financing in Europe.

Similarly with BNP Paribas Fortis and Fortis Bank, he was senior director and head of export and project finance for UK & Ireland, covering EMEA region.

Ashley previously had lead roles at the HSBC global project and export finance team, and before that with Charterhouse Bank where he was involved in project finance, a pioneer of PFI/PPP and broader PF sector across Europe.

His first position was in accountancy having trained in the financial markets sector before joining Nikko Securities where he was part of the EMEA corporate finance team for 7 years. 

Natalia Poupard

InfraRed Capital Partners

Director

Natalia has been active across 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 infrastructure funds or advising the senior debt providers.

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

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

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

Prior to joining InfraRed 3 years ago, Natlaia was with NIBC Bank for 6 years, where she was responsible for managing the NIBC European Infrastructure Fund I’s PFI investments up until the fund's end of life and eventual sale to a leading global infra investor in December 2018.