Elodie Colliard – head of Green Giraffe’s London office – was chosen by the independent panel of judges to win a Rising Star trophy in the IJGlobal Awards 2023 having demonstrated a “strong track record, at the forefront of key sectors and dialogue”.

One of the judges said: “Elodie is clearly demonstrating a wide range of expertise for her level of experience which is impactful in her organisation. Her innovation within the sector has potential to have a wide-ranging overall impact in bringing projects to fruition.”

Yet another judge added: “I have seen Elodie develop into a strong competitor over the past few years, becoming increasingly influential in a competitive market.”

The judges who had personal knowledge of Elodie – having worked with her on transactions – positively glowed about her professionalism and passion for the sector.

Elodie is an up-and-coming voice in the energy transition. Her financing experience covers a wide range of the more traditional renewable energy generation sectors and emerging technologies that are vital for the wider energy transition.

At the time of submitting for the award, her most recent transactions included storage and waste-to-energy, both key transition sectors addressing important topics such as grid congestion and intermittency and replacing gas usage in hard to abate sectors with “green gas”.

According to the submission: “Elodie shares her knowledge and experience by regularly speaking at conferences, but it is through her advisory transactions that she is helping our fund and accelerating the energy transition in Europe and more globally.

“Elodie has worked on more than 8GW of renewable energy projects. Her role involves – but is not limited to – origination of new deals, project managing transactions from kick-off to financial close, training junior colleagues, leading processes with capital providers (lenders, investors).”

Over the past 7 years, Elodie has been involved in several greenfield and brownfield debt and equity transactions.

Her transaction experience includes refinancing the 367MW Walney Offshore Wind Farms in the UK, replacing the capital provided by PGGM and Ampere’s 24.8% stake.

She successfully closed the Neptune 2 deal, raising mezzanine finance in 3 currencies (USD, EUR, AUD) at Holdco level for French developer Neoen for its 1.6GW portfolio of onshore wind and solar PV assets in France, Latin America, Southern Africa, and Australia.

After being involved mostly on wind (offshore and onshore) and solar transactions, she led a number of sell-side deals in the past 3 years in the in the waste-to-energy space and anaerobic digestion in the UK and Belgium, and a fundraising for an innovative technology company in the offshore wind space.

At the time of submission she is advising a biomethane developer and operator in Belgium on raising €150 million for the construction of development projects and the sale of 1GW solar and storage assets in the UK.

In just 7 years, Elodie’s successes within the firm includes demonstrating rapid growth (and promotion) on transaction execution and leadership and is now trusted to lead transactions across the global energy transition space.

Elodie has risen quickly into a team management role as co-head of the London office (with a headcount of 17 FTEs).

She is also part of various strategic and management efforts across the organisation, managing staffing and recruitment and has been at the forefront of the funding new more challenging technologies such as waste-to energy, hydrogen, tidal and battery storage.

The submission states: “In a small but significant way, Elodie is a key player in the energy revolution, she has a long, demonstrable track record of turning abstract ideas into tangible projects that contribute to the global transition to a sustainable future.”