We are delighted today to be revealing the Europe and Africa independent panel of judges for the IJGlobal Awards 2024, identifying a team of experienced industry professionals who will deliberate the company categories.

These awards recognise landmark developments from over the course of the 2024 calendar year across Europe and Africa, celebrating the organisations that contribute to the delivery of greenfield projects in the infrastructure and energy space, as well as refinance activity.

IJGlobal Awards are not to be confused with IJInvestor Awards (Americas and Rest of World) which recognise outstanding infrastructure fund activity and infra/energy M&A. They are also independent to the IJGlobal ESG Awards.

To access the IJGlobal Awards 2024 submissions portal – which remains open until 6 December – click here...

We believe that the IJGlobal Awards are the single most transparent and peer review in this sector, and we pride ourselves on fielding regional teams of experts who assess submissions and vote (in secret) on the organisations that are shortlisted – and ultimately, the winners.

The judges for Europe and Africa have been refreshed this year and will meet in London for Judgment Day mid-January (2025) to debate the merits of companies that closed deals – project finance greenfield and refi – in that region over the course of 2024.

Judges are recused from casting a vote where they are conflicted. In effect, this means that lawyers cannot vote in the legal segment and bankers are not allowed to sway the decision in the MLA category.

Judgment Day will be hosted in London and over Teams (for those who cannot attend in person) on 15 January (2025), and this year the awards ceremony will be staged on Thursday 6 March at the Peninsula London.

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

• Lucy Dale – Macquarie
• Gayatri Desai – CIBC
• Manish Gupta – formerly EY
• Layth Irani – SMBC
• David Lee – A&O Shearman
• Lisa McDermott – ABN Amro
• Cathy Oxby – Africa GreenCo
• Lisa Shaw – Vantage Infrastructure
• Jonathan Stevens – AEW
• Anaïs Triboulet – DC Advisory
• Daniel Tyrer – Linklaters
• Bart White – Santander

Lucy Dale

Macquarie

Lucy is a long-established figure in the European infrastructure community having started her career at PwC in the troubled year of 2007, then joining the famed WestLB lending team that – in its day – dominated the market… until the market went to hell in a handcart.

She fled the ruins of WestLB – and the zombie existence of Portigon – to join SMBC for a short stint, before moving on to IFM Investors under David Cooper and then joining BlackRock to work under Jonathan Stevens (another of our judges this year).

Lucy started as a vice president at BlackRock in the summer of 2018 and was promoted to director in 2020. She exited the fund manager shortly before its “merger” with Global Infrastructure Partners.

Having left BlackRock in July 2023, Lucy started in her current position – a director role on the infrastructure debt team at Macquarie in London.

Lucy is a highly-regarded and well-liked professional in the European infrastructure lending world, having cut her teeth in the toughest debt environments in recent history.

Gayatri Desai

CIBC

Gayatri is the London-based managing director and head of energy transition and sustainable finance at Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC) – and she joins the IJGlobal Awards judging panel this year for the first time.

She has been at the Canadian bank since the summer of 2014 having joined as an executive director, responsible for the origination, structuring, negotiation and execution of financing solutions for greenfield and brownfield project finance transactions with a primarily focus on transport, renewables, digital, core plus and sustainable finance.

At the start of 2021, Gayatri was promoted to the role she currently holds and in which she is responsible for project finance and infrastructure origination, structuring and coverage.

Gayatri is a lawyer by training, having cut her teeth in the magic circle at Clifford Chance, before moving on to a role at Latham & Watkins.

However, after 8 years as a lawyer, the heady world of lending lured her across to the other side of the table, and she joined Royal Bank of Scotland in May 2007 – a time when legal experience was likely welcome at the monster infra lender suffered a reversal of fortune thanks to the Global Financial Crisis.

Manish Gupta

formerly EY

Manish regularly secures himself a role on IJGlobal judging panels by dint of being the single most engaged party on Judgment Day, having analysed submissions to an extent that puts some judges to shame!

He is best known to the international infrastructure community for his 20-year career at Ernst & Young (EY if you must) where he had been an infrastructure partner for the last 15 years of his tenure.

IJGlobal reported on his “retirement” last September as he hung up his advisory spurs to take a break, with plans to return in a different guise. More on that in the coming months.

Manish has a strong track record of primarily advising on transport projects, but in the last 18 months of his tenure at EY, he was exclusively focused on infra fund coverage and post-deal value creation.

With a good bit more than 20 years’ experience in infrastructure financing and M&A, Manish has worked on transactions that range from project finance, refinancing and complex restructurings… in truth, there’s not a lot he hasn’t done in this space.

Prior to joining EY, Manish spent more than 6 years at Bechtel where he represented the US construction giant in Mumbai and then London. Prior to that, he was with the famed APAC infra group IL&FS.

Layth Irani

SMBC

Layth last served as a judge on the panel for IJGlobal Awards 2022 and makes a welcome return this year when he will doubtless bring an acerbic viewpoint to the table at Judgment Day.

He is an infrastructure banker of more years standing than it’s polite to count and has a reputation that spans the globe, having worked on the primary financing of more infra and energy than you could possibly shake a stick at.

He is renowned as a thought leader in this sector and has climbed the ladder to serve as one of the most senior bankers in the renowned SMBC team that operates out of London.

IJGlobal reported on Layth’s promotion to EMEA co-general manager from his previous role – heading the EMEA infrastructure, transport and Islamic finance team – a position that had most recently been held by Nick Pitts-Tucker.

Layth has been a regular feature on IJGlobal Awards judging panels for as long as this infra hack can recall, bringing a wealth of understanding and market knowledge from a long career at one of the most active lenders in the sector.

There are few people in the market with his depth of experience and exposure to a vast range of transactions across the globe.

David Lee

A&O Shearman

IJGlobal has known David for a very long time and this year he makes it on to the panel once again, bringing his depth of market knowledge to bear on what will doubtless be a lively Judgment Day – debating the merits of organisations that have submitted for highly regarded awards.

David is a dyed-in-the-wool Allen & Overy (now A&O Shearman) lawyer who broadened his exposure to the infrastructure world by spending a couple of years on secondment to HM Treasury.

As with so many of his colleagues, David has worked on the biggest and brightest infra transactions over the years and likely has the scars to prove it.

In the infrastructure and energy community, the A&O Shearman team is highly regarded for its first-class skills and it regularly leads international league tables for working on standout transactions.

David continues the pedigree from Graham Vinter who dominated the market alongside his wife Anne Baldock who took over the reins from him – between them establishing foundations for a market-leading practice. They were followed by Gareth Price who went on to become managing partner of A&O and has since retired.

Lisa McDermott

ABN Amro

Lisa makes a return to the IJGlobal judging panel having served on it last year, bringing more than 25 years’ experience in structured finance and a decade of experience within renewable energy.

Since 2013, she has been part of the project finance team of ABN Amro, where she leads the bank’s renewable and energy transition project financing activities out of the Netherlands.

During that time, Lisa has spearheaded ABN Amro’s growth in the wind, solar, geothermal and merchant renewables sectors across Europe and is actively engaged in the development and financing of emerging technologies to support the energy transition such as floating wind, green hydrogen, PtX, energy storage pathways and advanced biofuels.

Lisa started her career as a lawyer with Clifford Chance before moving into banking at WestLB – another one – before switching to Nomura in October 2007 (a time when a lot of career decisions were being made) and then taking on a number of structuring and management roles within the financial industry, before settling in at ABN Amro.

Cathy Oxby

Africa GreenCo

Cathy has more than 20 years of professional experience in the infrastructure and renewable energy sectors and is co-founder and chief commercial officer at Africa GreenCo.

She brings particularly strong Africa credentials to the judging panel, and experience that goes far beyond… including Singapore SportsHub PPP… but maybe the less said on that one, the better.

Cathy is closely involved in all aspects of GreenCo’s operations and leads commercial negotiations on many market-leading arrangements necessary to implement GreenCo’s innovative business model, including financing, transaction structuring and regulatory issues.

In the early years of Cathy’s career, she trained as a project finance lawyer at Allen & Overy (now A&O Shearman) before transitioning to a commercial role as an investment director at InfraRed Capital Partners. This was followed by a 1-year stint at World Bank.

Prior to co-founding Africa GreenCo, Cathy established her own consultancy – Infraspective – to help diverse clients successfully navigate the infrastructure project lifecycle, from project inception to asset management.

Lisa Shaw

Vantage Infrastructure

When you trawl through the archive of IJGlobal news stories, you will find that the first mention of Lisa dates back – impressively – to 2006 when we reported on her joining NIBC Bank from IKB.

More recent career developments (from the last decade) have seen Lisa play a prominent role in a couple of infrastructure funds where ESG has played an increasingly central role.

On the ESG front, Lisa previously served on the judging panels for the inaugural IJGlobal ESG Awards in 2021, and then again at its second airing in 2022.

Lisa joined Vantage Infrastructure in 2013 and has more than 20 years’ infrastructure debt experience. These days, she leads Vantage’s global asset management team for the debt business.

She is responsible for all of the debt team’s analytical processes including ESG, credit assessment, valuation and performance. Lisa is a member of Vantage’s debt investment committee and of the GRESB infrastructure debt working group.

Prior to joining Vantage, Lisa was associate director and head of portfolio management, infrastructure and renewables at NIBC Bank, where she ran a book of more than 120 debt transactions across Europe.

She also worked for the infrastructure teams at IKB Deutsche Industriebank and Abbey National (now Santander).

Jonathan Stevens

AEW

Another of the awards judging panel who worked at WestLB in its heyday – and likely still shudders to recall the Portigon zombie spell – Jonathan is a long-established figure in the European infrastructure community.

Like another of our judges, he started off life at PwC before leaping the table to join WestLB where he rose to head of infrastructure for Europe, followed by spending a little time at BNY Mellon, before joining CIBC as European head of infra debt.

Jonathan left CIBC in the summer of 2016 to join BlackRock as head of European infrastructure debt – a role he exited last summer (2023) to take on the mantle of head of private debt at AEW Europe.

The Natixis-owned real estate investor brought in Jonathan to take on a newly created role to break its private debt platform into the infrastructure sector. In this position, he reports to AEW European chief exec Rob Wilkinson.

Jonathan is responsible for shaping the strategic direction and growth of AEW’s enlarged private debt platform, including the creation of innovative investment products that meet institutional requirements for long-term secure income with low volatility, capital efficiency and strong relative value.

Anaïs Triboulet

DC Advisory

Anaïs has been on the DC Advisory UK infrastructure investment banking team since the end of 2021, and she is another new face on the IJGlobal panel of judges.

A French national, Anaïs started her career in Paris on the TMT and leveraged finance team at Societe Generale, relocating to London at the start of 2015 and she has since continued to build her career in the UK.

She remained at the French bank until December 2021 by which time she had risen to the level of vice president on the TMT leveraged and structured finance team, working across a range of lending and debt advisory mandates for key infrastructure clients.

Anaïs joined DC Advisory as an associate director and was promoted to director in May 2023, the role she currently holds.

On the DC Advisory website, Anaïs says: “The infrastructure team at DC Advisory is incredibly committed, always going above and beyond to deliver the best possible results for our clients.

“With the market leading expertise of our company, we are able to provide best-in-class independent advice, setting us apart from the competition. It is a privilege to be part of a team that is redefining the infrastructure market and making a real impact on the industry.”

Daniel Tyrer

Linklaters

Daniel operates out of London and serves as head of the global energy and infrastructure practice at Linklaters. He joins the judging panel for the first time this year.

He is widely recognised as a leading projects practitioner with nearly 25 years’ continuous experience specialising in upstream oil and gas, LNG, pipeline, refinery and petrochemical plant related project development, project finance and private equity transactions across EMEA and the CIS.

Dan has previously worked in Hong Kong, Sydney (where he worked for 3 years at Mallesons) and in Moscow where he was based from 2004 to 2010 building a project finance practice.

While he focused primarily on thermal power projects and early onshore renewables projects as a more junior lawyer, he moved into the heady world of LNG, refineries and petrochemicals (as well as transport infrastructure) with his move to Russia in 2004, a practice that he developed across the EMEA region upon his return to London.

Much more recently, he has started venturing into the exciting world of Net Zero new technology projects and financings.

Bart White

Santander

Serving as EMEA head of energy structured finance at Santander out of London, Bart’s rise has been fairly meteoric.

He stared off life in the infrastructure space at RBS in 2008 – not the best of times to join a bank that had been leading IJGlobal’s project finance league tables for years, but had smashed into the buffers.

In this role, he worked on the secured / structured corporate financing team, with a primary focus on supporting event-driven secured financings in the EMEA Infrastructure space.

He spent 5 years at RBS and then left to join UBS as head of infrastructure and utilities finance across the EMEA region, before moving on to Santander where his career has continued to flourish.

Bart started at the Spanish bank’s European structured finance advisory practise, before stepping up to take on the UK and Nordics structured finance business.

That evolved into his current role – which he has held since the summer of 2022 – running Santander's energy financing activity across Europe, the Middle East and parts of Latin America.

He has a team of around 50 professionals that is primarily focused on financing and financial advisory of renewable energy where Santander has a strong presence, but also in hydrogen, CCS, BESS, biogas, EfW, smart meters and other tangential subsectors.