Gwenola Chambon – chief executive and founding partner of Vauban Infrastructure Partners – was chosen by the independent panel of judges to win the IJInvestor Awards 2022 trophy for Outstanding Individual.

One of the judges said: “Gwenola has built her career in infrastructure with tenacity and hard-earned experience. She is a role model to younger members of our sector and has earnt this award with style. Her personality is all over Vauban and deservedly so.”

Another added: “She has built Vauban into the top-tier infrastructure asset manager it is today in a very competitive field, including a spin-off which has been very successful. Vauban established itself very early on as a sustainability and ESG leader within the industry and her leadership was instrumental in this. Her continuing contributions to push the broader industry to take a lead on ESG and sustainability topics are inspiring.”

Having launched her professional journey back in 1995, Gwenola has more than 25 years of experience in infrastructure equity investments across Europe and has developed an extensive knowledge and expertise of the European infra market, substantially contributing to its development.

She has worked on numerous landmark transactions including the first PPP project in Belgium in 2000 and a landmark transaction in Dutch PPP – the Hague waste and water project in 2003 – as well as the SKY NET PFI with the UK MoD in 2003.

Gwenola has worked as an adviser on many concessions and privatisation projects in France, Italy and Spain over the years and then transitioned into private equity investments.

Having joined Natixis IM (Mirova) in 2010, Gwenola transformed Natixis IM’s general infrastructure platform from an initial activity dedicated to French greenfield infrastructure, managing captive funds from BPCE group into a unique asset management platform successfully managing several different strategies in parallel on the same geographies with greenfield funds and brownfield funds co-existing and investing in European transactions.

Gwenola became chief exec and founding partner of Vauban Infrastructure Partners in 2019, leading a successful spin-off of her infra team from Mirova and establishing a European leader in core infra equity investment and managing a team of around 70 individuals, some $8 billion of AUM and more than 70 sustainable investments across Europe.

She has successfully turned this activity into a multibillion third party asset manager with a strong international client base.

As chief executive, Gwenola has driven Vauban’s strong commitment to sustainability investments and promoting ESG issues at the portfolio company’s level. She has ensured ESG considerations are embedded in its internal practices through implementation of dedicated measures.

In addition to her responsibilities as director on the boards of various European infrastructure companies, Gwenola is a member of a number of industry groups including the European Commission working group of Experts in Infrastructure, the PRI expert group, the GRESB working group, EFAMA, and the AFG and AFIC working groups for infrastructure.

Gwenola is also an active member of the Institut de la Gestion Déléguée in France, while also serving as an active member of IFA (Institut Français des Administrateurs) and is responsible for project finance courses in ESSEC’s Masters of Complex Financing.

She has embedded the motto of “leading by example” into her leadership practices and is broadly celebrated as a leading figure within this industry.