We are delighted to announce the Asia Pacific judging panel for IJGlobal Awards 2022, pulling together a group of industry professionals – all of them with deep experience of infrastructure and energy financing across the region – to decide the fate of the company awards.

These awards recognise landmark developments to have closed in the 2022 calendar year across APAC, singling out the organisations that contributed to the delivery of greenfield projects in the infra/energy space, as well as refinance activity.

IJGlobal Awards should not be confused with IJInvestor Awards which celebrate infrastructure fund activity alongside infra/energy M&A. These awards are hosted in the autumn.

We believe IJGlobal Awards are the single most transparent and peer review in this sector, fielding regional teams of experts to assess submissions and vote (in secret) on the organisations that have been most impressive over the course of the judging period.

The independent panel of judges will meet for APAC Judgment Day on Thursday 19 January to debate the companies that closed deals – greenfield project finance and refi – over the course of the 2022 calendar year.

Judges are recused from casting votes where they are conflicted, as in lawyers cannot vote on the legal advisers and bankers have no say on the MLA category.

The judges (in alphabetical order) for APAC Judgment Day are:

• Simon Currie – founder, Energy Estate
• Divay Goel – CIO at Prudent Shipping Investments
• Petteri Härkki – MD and Asia regional director at AFRY
• Sajal Kishore – head of APAC infra and PF ratings, Fitch Ratings
• Andy Hodgson – Southeast Asia and Australasia leader, Arup 
• Kwong-Wing Law – managing director and APAC head of infra and energy finance, Natixis
• Angela Lim – co-head of banking and finance at Rajah & Tann
• Scott Lovell – partner at Allen & Overy
• Euan Low – formerly at PwC and Mott MacDonald
• Thomas Lubeck – regional manager, IFC
• Subash Narayanan – head of project finance, DBS Bank
• Sophea Seng – regional head of energy, Societe Generale
• Ray Tay – senior vice president, Moody’s Investors Service

Simon Currie

And old friend of IJGlobal, Simon has been on the title’s radar since the early 2000s when he stood out as a renewable energy pioneer at (then) Norton Rose… as well as being the best-dressed lawyer this title has met.

Fast forward a few years and he has skipped continents to his original hemisphere (he is a New Zealander by birth) working as the (now) Norton Rose Fulbright global head of energy from its Sydney office.

In the summer of 2018, Simon forged ahead with his ambition to establish Energy Estate – an advisory firm and business accelerator, focused on driving the transformation of the global energy sector. IJ wrote all about this in the autumn of 2019.

He is ideally placed to drive this business as a renowned leader and pioneer in the transformation of the global energy sector with a focus on integrating the energy sector alongside other industries.

Simon is passionate about the digitisation of the industry, new and emerging technologies and the potential for creating jobs and economic growth through this approach.

He is recognised for his innovative approach to realising the broader environmental, social and economic outcomes of all the projects he works on, while also encouraging partners and other industry leaders to do the same.

Energy Estate’s track record includes many pioneering projects in Australia that have delivered broader benefits through community ownership schemes, mandated local content and local employment, indigenous engagement and biodiversity outcomes.

Divay Goel

Divay has been in the shipping and ports industry for the last 32 years and has hands-on operational, commercial and investment experience in the shipping and ports sector.

This diverse experience includes leading teams through ice navigation on board ships, advising on billion dollar M&A in shipping and ports to sourcing, structuring, closing, and managing sophisticated shipping investments.

Divay has arranged capital and advised on more than 250 shipping and ports investments in his career.

He was recently chosen by BIMCO as a member of the SHIPLEASE sounding board, advising on BIMCO's new standard sale and leaseback term sheet.

He was also a core member of the team at the Baltic Exchange in London, which developed the concept of electronic trading of forward freight agreements (FFAs).

Divay is currently chief investment officer of Singapore-based Prudent Shipping Investments. Since starting operations in early 2017, Prudent has arranged $630 million of financing via senior debt and lease structure for owners based in Singapore, India, the Middle East, the UK, Denmark and the US.

In addition, Prudent has also arranged 6 equity and mezzanine tranche transactions and acted as an adviser on one M&A deal.

Petteri Härkki

Petteri is managing director of AFRY for the South-East Asia region, and prior to that held the same role in the most frequently mis-pronounced company in the infra community – Poyry – which rebranded to the new identity.

He also serves as regional director for thermal power and renewable energy sector for Asia and has been working the organisation since 1995, the last 21 years of them in Bangkok, Thailand.

Petteri has acted as technical adviser, owner’s engineer, and lender technical adviser on more power plant projects across the region than you could shake a lump of coal at and has a deep understanding of the sector across the region.

He has a particular interest in thermal power plants and renewable energy developments and is involved in their procurement from the very earliest stages – site selection – thought to design, feasibility studies, EPC and PPA contract negotiation, building towards financial close.

Sajal Kishore

Sajal is the head of Asia-Pacific infrastructure and PF ratings and a managing director at Fitch Ratings in Singapore.

His team is responsible for credit ratings for infrastructure issuers and transactions in the Asia-Pacific region, including owners of airports, toll roads, ports, rail infrastructure, power plants, renewable energy projects, oil and gas infrastructure facilities, and PPPs.

Sajal joined Fitch in Sydney in 2007 and was previously the head of energy and utility ratings for South and South-East Asia. Prior to that, he has worked in senior relationship management and credit roles with various institutional banks including the ANZ Banking Group in Sydney, HSBC in India and others.

He has more than 20 years’ experience spanning rating agencies, banks and corporate finance advisory in key financial hubs, including Singapore, Sydney and Mumbai.

Sajal has spent this time covering credit ratings, research, advising and managing corporates across a diverse range of industries and sectors across the Asia-Pacific region.

Andy Hodgson

Leading advisory services in Southeast Asia and Australasia, Andy ensures seamless delivery of Arup’s deep advisory capabilities across the region.

He brings together Arup’s expertise in the built and natural environment, geographic reach and technical skills to understand client challenges in different industries and markets and creates innovative solutions.

Andy’s portfolio encompasses a range of specialisations: from strategy consulting, finance and economics, through to project management, asset management and operations consulting.

Over his career, Andy has worked across more than 20 countries with policymakers, federal and local government agencies, financial institutions and the private sector.

Andy specialises in technical and strategy advisory, identifying issues and opportunities, and definition and appraisal of potential value-add interventions.

Kwong-Wing Law

IJGlobal wrote about Kwong-Wing’s relocation from London to Hong Kong with Natixis back in 2019, charting the evolution of his career that was built in Europe.

Kwong-Wing is currently a managing director at Natixis and serves as head of infrastructure and energy for Asia Pacific for the French bank, having replaced Bertrand Guiot who relocated to Canada.

He has deep experience across the varied infrastructure and energy sectors having worked at SMBC in London for 4 years before making the switch to Natixis in 2008 – where he has worked ever since.

Angela Lim

A Singapore and English qualified lawyer, Angela is a partner and co-head of banking and finance at Rajah & Tann having joined the firm in 2010 after many years as a partner at Baker & McKenzie.

She has deep experience acting for financial institutions and borrowers in a wide range of cross-border banking and finance transactions with a particular expertise in acquisition leveraged financing, project and structured finance.

Scott Lovell

Scott is a partner at Allen & Overy and has significant experience across a wide range of projects and financings, in particular in the oil and gas sector, advising on LNG transactions, mining, power and the general infrastructure industries.

Prior to joining the Singapore office of A&O, Scott worked in the London, Amsterdam, Tokyo and Sydney offices.

Euan Low

Dr Euan Low is an established Asia hand having worked over the years at Mott MacDonald and PwC in Tokyo and Singapore… but now (in his own words), he has “gone free range”.

He is recognised as one of the region’s most widely experienced engineers, having advised on a slew of urban infrastructure – ranging from renewable energy, waste management, water, wastewater, district cooling, smart transport, railways, roads, ports, airports and real-estate.

However, his exposure to the regional also takes in industry having worked on battery ore refining facilities, commodity ores, cement manufacture, synthetic rubber, paper making, to name a few. 

He has more than 20 years of experience bringing certainty to decision-makers in project development, implementation, asset management and karaoke.

Thomas Lubeck

Thomas is the Singapore-based regional manager for IFC’s PPP transaction advisory services covering the South Asia and East Asia Pacific Regions.

He oversees a team of 25 professionals working on helping governments design, tender, negotiate, and implement PPPs and concessions across a wide spectrum of infrastructure including transport, renewable energy, affordable housing, and healthcare.

Prior to starting his current role in June 2020, he was regional manager for central and south eastern Europe.

Subash Narayanan

Subash has more than 25 years of experience in the banking industry with 20 of those in infrastructure and structured financing. He started off his career in trade finance and corporate banking before moving into structured finance.

He has worked as adviser, arranger and structurer on deals in the power, infrastructure, and oil and gas sectors in Asia Pacific, with cross-jurisdictional experience in India, Europe, Australia, and Singapore.

His execution expertise includes ECA financing and multilateral schemes to complement senior commercial bank debt.

Subash was part of the team that helped set up Clifford Capital and part of the steering committee for the establishment of the DBS Australian branch.

He has been an integral part of the APLMA Project Finance sub-committee for Singapore and Asia and has participated as a guest speaker and panellist across various conferences in Asia.

Prior to DBS, he worked with ANZ and Standard Chartered Bank.

Sophea Seng

Sophea is head of energy finance and advisory for South East Asia at Societe Generale and she has been working at the French bank since 2015.

Having started her career in the Big 4 – at Deloitte – in Australia, Sophea relocated to Singapore in the middle of the last decade to work at the French bank where she has risen from director to leading the regional energy team.

Ray Tay

Ray is a senior vice president at the Moody’s Investors Service project and infrastructure finance team based out of Singapore.

He covers project finance, transport, utilities and other infrastructure credits in Southeast Asia and India.

Ray also authors research and conducts outreach focused on topics such as project bonds and the role of funding diversity and credit enhancement in bridging the infrastructure gap, particularly in emerging markets.

Prior to joining Moody’s in 2012, Ray was a director with the infrastructure and projects group at KPMG – also in Singapore.

He has also worked as a senior business analyst with the Singapore Power Group, a role where he focused on regulatory economics in each of its principal local operating subsidiaries.