IJGlobal ESG Awards 2023 – The Judging Panel (so far)
Now in its third year, we are delighted once again to be announcing the first of the confirmed independent panel of judges for the IJGlobal ESG Awards 2023 which will be hosted in London this October.
The submissions portal is now open, and today we are announcing the first wave of judges who will meet (mostly in person) in London to review all submissions… organisations as well as transactions.
IJGlobal takes great pride in our judging process and the peer-review nature of all our awards which (we believe) makes them the most impactful in the infra / energy community. We are unaware of any other title in the sector that goes to such lengths to achieve impartial assessment of awards.
The panel will meet for Judgment Day on the afternoon (UK time) of Wednesday 6 September (2023) in IJGlobal’s headquarters just off Fleet Street, London.
International judges will join virtually and those who are unable to attend will vote separately and their contribution will build towards the final outcome.
So far, we can announce the following judges:
- Jemima Atkins – investment team member, Pioneer Point Partners
- Amy Cleaves – senior associate, Hogan Lovells
- Rachel Fleming – vice president infrastructure debt, BlackRock
- Mark Henderson – chief investment officer, Gridserve
- Dr Patricia Rodrigues Jenner – investment committee member, GLIL Infrastructure
- Arash Mojabi – director and UK sustainable finance lead, ING Bank
- Paula-Ann Novotny – senior associate, Webber Wentzel
- Emi Takehara – chief financial officer, Grenergy Renovables
- Marianne Zangerl – head of ESG for fixed income, abrdn Core Infrastructure
Jemima Atkins
Pioneer Point Partners
Jemima first came to IJ’s attention when she won the rising star trophy at IJInvestor Awards 2020. She has since become something of a mainstay on our awards, bringing a fresh perspective, deep understanding of the market and commitment to ESG.
Back then Jemima was at Allianz, but she has since moved roles to Pioneer Point Partners in London where she makes investments in European infra assets in the energy transition and environment sectors.
Pioneer only invests in sustainable infrastructure and targets investments that contribute to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions and circular economy.
Jemima joined Pioneer in 2022, and previously held investment roles at Allianz Capital Partners in the infrastructure equity team and Allianz Global Investors in the infrastructure debt investment team.
At Allianz, Jemima worked across private markets asset classes to promote sustainability improvements and the transition of infrastructure assets to net-zero.
Prior to Allianz Global Investors, Jemima worked at Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
Amy Cleaves
Hogan Lovells
In the same manner as Jemima, Amy came to IJ’s attention through winning a rising star award – this one the IJGlobal ESG Rising Star 2021 in the advisory category.
This award was created on Judgment Day when the judges were so impressed by Amy and Rachel Fleming that they decided to grant 2 rising star trophies and celebrate the roles both have played.
At the time of winning the award, Amy was an associate. She is now a senior associate at Hogan Lovells, the firm she has stuck with since starting her career in law.
Amy’s work focuses on advising on renewable energy projects, ESG policies, social inclusion funds, corporate governance arrangements, and how the global energy transition will affect companies.
It was this sector focus combined with a passion for environmental, social and governance issues that won over the IJGlobal independent panel of judges who opted.
At the 2021 Judgement Day, one judge who knows Amy said: “Having worked with her personally – to me – she perfectly fits the essence of this award. She is passionate about ESG and a clear emerging thought leader.”
Amy is viewed within Hogan Lovells as a pioneer and she is renowned for her work on gender lens investing and social enterprises such as Lionesses of Africa, which focused on female education and empowerment in Africa to deliver outcomes and changes that align with her core beliefs.
As a founding member of Hogan Lovells' ESG practice, Amy specified and built an app that puts ESG into every aspect of a client's legal infrastructure. Using the app, clients can take simple steps to consider how their business models and legal frameworks can optimise ESG potential and mitigate risk. Using its “nose-to-tail” ESG 360⁰ Assessment tool developed by Amy and other members of the ESG team, Amy advises clients on how to enshrine purpose, mitigate risk and ensure their ESG commitments drive sustainable, profitable growth and competitive advantage.
Rachel Fleming
BlackRock
Having been voted by the independent panel of judges to win the award for ESG Rising Star in the 2021 ceremony, Rachel secures her role on the judging panel this year.
Rachel is famed for her ESG credentials which is underpinned by the intro to her winner story which states “there’s something of the Greta Thunberg about her… in the nicest possible sense”.
As mentioned in Amy’s profile, Rachel was singled out for her role in the investor category (lender, really) as opposed to advisory, the award having been a double-header in 2021 given the quality of submissions.
When she won the award, Rachel was an associate in the London-based IFM Investors’ infrastructure debt team having relocated to the UK from Australia in spring 2019. She 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.
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 continued her work on ESG initiatives by building a portfolio-wide emissions data capture tool.
However – as is often the way – winners of an IJGlobal Rising Star Award tend to be snapped up by a rival organisation… and this happened to Rachel in September 2022 when she started at BlackRock as vice president, infrastructure debt.
Mark Henderson
Gridserve
Sometimes you have to bite the bullet on some judges – and this was very much the case for Mark when at Judgement Day for the 2020 awards, he threw in his tuppence worth for every single submission that did not have an ESG component.
This disruptive contribution (especially in the energy space) ensured he would never be invited back to judge the IJGlobal (greenfield) awards, but won him a place on future ESG panels!
Mark is a long-established investment banker and asset manager with more than 30 years’ experience having advised on, structured and financed in excess of £5 billion and 8,000MW of infrastructure energy projects in that time.
He 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 (since the summer of 2017), 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.
Gridserve 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.
In the UK, 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.
Dr Patricia Rodrigues Jenner
GLIL
Patricia is an experienced director with investment and management experience across infrastructure, real assets and private equity. Over the past 2 decades, she has been an investor at Macquarie, Townsend and PSP.
Her dual ambitions of investing well and seeking to protect the planet led her to join in 2011 the UK Government to help create the Green Investment Bank, the world’s first green bank (that was sold to Macquarie in 2017).
It is this unswerving commitment to the ESG cause that has secured her a role as a judge on the IJGlobal panel since the awards were launched in 2021 – and her contribution has been greatly appreciated over the years.
Patricia is a non-executive director with a keen focus on sustainability at Legal and General Assurance Society and UK-listed Aquila European Renewables.
Further, she is an investment committee member at UK GLIL Infrastructure and the African Infrastructure Investment Fund 4.
Patricia co-founded in 2023 the Real Assets InfraNEDs network, is a 2023 “NED to watch” finalist and a leading Women of Influence in Private Markets (2022).
She started her career in finance at Morgan Stanley and holds a PhD from Cambridge University.
Arash Mojabi
ING Bank
Another judge who rises the ranks from having won an IJ award – Arash won unanimous approval from the judging committee to the ESG rising star trophy in last year’s awards (2022).
Given his accolades on Judgment Day 2022, he was a shoo-in for the panel this year with one saying of him: “Arash was one of the first lenders to have approached us about sustainable finance and there was clear innovation and interest in the teach-ins he delivered on this topic and – from recent catch-ups – understanding the progress made in further enhancing ESG into ING’s risk processes.”
His colleagues at ING all hold him in the highest regard for the commitment he has shown to ESG and warrants the role he plays at the Dutch bank as UK lead of sustainable finance.
In this role at ING, Arash drives the deployment of sustainable financing solutions across all sectors, proactively engaging with clients on their sustainability and transition strategies.
He also has more than 10 years of infrastructure experience working across financing, consulting and advisory.
He is currently (at the time of writing) chair of the International Project Finance Association’s Future Leaders Network.
Paula-Ann Novotny
Webber Wentzel
Yet another judge who came to IJ’s attention through winning an award at a previous event, Johannesburg-based Paula-Ann picked up the trophy for her law firm – Webber Wentzel – for having won ESG legal adviser for emerging markets at last year’s ceremony.
As one of the judges said of the firm: “Webber Wentzel deserves recognition as a law firm that is attempting to do more than just act for clients in the ESG space. It demonstrates excellent diversification."
Talking to Paula-Ann on the night of the IJGlobal ESG Awards 2022 confirmed our belief that Paula-Ann was “our kind of people” and would be an excellent addition to the judging panel.
She is an environmental regulatory and ESG advisory lawyer at Webber Wentzel which bills itself “Africa's leading full-service law firm”.
Beyond the full scope of environmental regulatory and compliance advice, Paula-Ann’s experience extends to advising clients on ESG-related impacts, risks and opportunities, such as opining on dedicated environmental and climate change related laws, advising in support of project development and strategic M&A activity, establishing governance systems and controls, and regulatory mapping.
She recently also spent 6 months at alliance firm Linklaters in London on a developmental secondment to their ESG team, to learn about ESG developments in the global north… which made it a lot easier for her to attend last year’s awards night.
Emi Takehara
Grenergy Renovables
A familiar face to the project finance community having been a regular for some time on the conference circuit speaking on sustainable finance and renewables, Emi was last seen on an IJGlobal stage at this year’s IJ LatAm conference in Miami (March 2023).
Her passion for alternative energy solutions and her commitment to ESG – not to mention knowledge of markets across Europe and Latin America – marked her out as an ideal choice to join the panel.
Emi has been at Grenergy since November 2015, having started as head of structured finance, rising to the CFO role in January 2022.
She started her professional career at Dresdner Kleinwort as a credit analyst in the challenging years of 2007 and 2008, later moving to work at Societe Generale (until April 2011) in high yield debt capital markets.
This was followed by a stint at Lloyds Banking Group where Emi served as a high yield director, a position she held between May 2011 and September 2014.
Her career evolved from Lloyds when she took on the role of social finance consultant at Prime Advocates between July 2014 and November 2015, which was followed by a spell in multilateral development finance at Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).
Marianne Zangerl
abrdn Core Infrastructure
Marianne is well known to IJ given that she was a judge on last year’s awards panelv and the author – having stepped out of journalism for 3 years to head hunt – placed her in early 2015 into her current company, then operating as Standard Life Aberdeen.
Since that time – and a re-brand to abrdn, which they now insist we call abrdn Core Infrastructure (because it’s less awful) – 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
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