Richard Abizair

Regional Product Leader and Head of the Americas
AXA XL’s Political Risk, Credit & Bond

Based out of Washington, D.C., Richard joined AXA XL in August 2016. He currently manages a team of seven underwriters located in Bermuda, NY, Toronto and Washington DC.  Prior to joining AXA XL, Richard was with Zurich's Credit & Political Risk group for eight and a half years. For five of those years, Richard was in Singapore where he managed the Asia-Pacific regional team from 2012 until 2014.  His last position at Zurich was as Senior Vice President and Head of the Americas, Zurich Credit & Political Risk. Richard also spent ten years with the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) in its Political Risk Insurance Department.  His last position was as Regional Director of the Eurasia group.  Richard earned his B.A. in Near East Studies from the University of Arizona and his M.A. in International Transactions from George Mason University.

Philippe Ahoua

Manager, Treasury Client Solutions
Asia & Pacific
International Finance Corporation

Philippe Ahoua joined the IFC in January 1994 as a Financial Officer in the Treasury department, specifically working on IFC’s Funding Program, Liquid Asset Management and Treasury Swap Based Client Products.

Prior to joining the IFC, Mr. Ahoua worked for Bank of America in Washington DC focusing on providing Foreign Exchange hedging products to local corporate clients. Before joining Bank of America, Mr. Ahoua worked for the E.D & F Mann Group in London working on providing commodity price risk hedging tools to governments in Africa, the Middle East and South East Asia. Mr. Ahoua graduated in 1994 from the George Washington University with a Master’s degree in statistics and finance.

Alberto Amo Mena

Managing Director, Global Head of Private Debt Mobilisation (PDM)
Santander

Alberto is responsible for the global asset rotation strategy of Banco Santander. He has more than 25 years of experience in banking, having developed his career mainly in international Corporate Banking, including roles of Relationship Management, Supply Chain Finance, Trade Finance, and Trade Asset Mobilization, where he added credit and liquidity capacity through distribution of assets through a wide range of innovative products, such as Trade Assets Securitizations and ECA Back Covered Bonds, among others.

He also served as member of the Advisory Board of the International Chamber of Commerce Banking Commission and the BAFT Global Trade Industry Council, as well as the DG Expert Group of the World Trade Organization.

Alberto has built the Private Debt Mobilisation proposition globally as globally responsible for the asset rotation strategy of all asset classes as Corporate Lending, Project Finance, Asset Back Finance, Commercial Real Estate and all Trade related risk & ECA deals.

PDM brings together the various private-side distributions and structuring teams from the bank’s corporate and institutional business, including, private- side structuring, loan syndications, securitization, private-side structured sales, credit insurance and trade distribution teams.

PDM Global Network leverages its distribution strategy and advisory service capacity in its two main hubs: New York and London and local teams in Mexico, Chile, Brazil, Argentina, continental Europe branches, Poland and Asia. Chile, Brazil, Argentina, continental Europe and Asia.

PDM manages Santander Private debt distribution risk, offering bespoke options on top of our regular business as usual distribution capabilities, both on single assets or diversified portfolios.

Valentina Antill

Managing Director
Head of Americas Strategic Risk Solutions
Citigroup 

Valentina is the Head of Americas Strategic Risk Solutions in Citi Global Markets division. Her expertise are structured funding and risk management solutions, predominantly in emerging markets. Valentina is a 25-year Citi veteran and earned “Latin Finance Magazine” Best Derivative Transaction of the Year Award.

Valentina serves as speaker in numerous finance events as well as guest-lecturer on the topic of derivatives and risk management at business schools. She also serves on the Advisory Board of the Yale International Center for Finance.

Valentina graduated from the Yale School of Management and University of Economics in her native Zagreb, Croatia. In her younger years Valentina was a member of the National Tennis Team of Yugoslavia and is still a tennis enthusiast. 

Miguel Arrarás

EMEA Business Development Director
Acciona Energia

Miguel Arrarás is MSc Engineer and PDG Degree by IESE (General Management Program), and actually is the EMEA Business Development Director of ACCIONA Energía, where is the responsible for leading the business across all of ACCIONA Energía portfolio in Europe, Africa and Middle East regions. 

Mr. Arrarás has previously been the Development Director of ACCIONA’s solar PV business and Managing Director of ACCIONA Solar for more than 21 years, in which the company has developed 1.200 MWp of solar PV. During that period he was the responsible for the development of the successful social investment model in PV plants HuertaSolar® which has been replicated throughout the Spanish market and has become a brand in itself. 

In 2019 Acciona in alliance with Swicorp has built tree PV plants of 50 MW each (186MWp) in Aswan (Egypt) financed by IFC.
 
Mr Arrarás is chairman of the Spain Renewable Energy Consortium and has been chairman of Spanish PV Producers Association, APPA, for eight years as well as Board Member of ASIF, Association of the Spanish PV Industry, for five years.  

He is a frequent speaker at national and international conferences and has published books and articles on mechanical engineering. 
 

Jean-Jacques Barberis

Head of Institutional and Corporate Clients Coverage
Amundi

Jean-Jacques Barbéris is the Head of Institutionnal and Corporate Clients Coverage and an Executive Board member at Amundi. Jean-Jacques started his career in the French Treasury Directorate General where he served from 2008 to 2012.
Between 2009 and 2010, he chaired the European group of experts on climate finance in the negotiations at UNFCCC. Jean-Jacques also participated in different studies on the economics of climate change, such as Jean Tirole report published before the Copenhagen conférence of UNFCC.   Between 2012 and 2013, he was member of the staff of Pierre Moscovici, Minister of Economy and Finance, French Minister of Finance.
Before joining Amundi, he acted as advisor for Economic and Financial affairs in the staff of the French President of the Republic, where he served from 2013-2016.
Jean-Jacques Barbéris is a graduate from Ecole NormaleSupérieure Lettres et Sciences Humaines, agrégé in History, and alumni at both Sciences-Po Paris and Ecole Nationale d’Administration.
Jean-Jacques has been a lecturer in advanced economics at Sciences-Po Paris From 2009 to 2012.
He is also chairman of the French think tank En Temps Réel, dedicated to European politics.
Jean-Jacques is a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum since 2019.

Lorraine Bayliss

Partner
Energy & Infrastructure Group
Allen & Overy

Lorraine is a partner at Allen & Overy in the Projects, Energy and Infrastructure Group based in London and is head of the international finance institution (IFI) practice. She has extensive experience advising IFIs, DFIs ECAs, commercial lenders, sponsors and borrowers on international project finance transactions. Lorraine is ranked as a leading lawyer by Chambers and Partners and has been named “Lawyer of the Year for Energy, Natural Resources and Mining” by Euromoney Women in Business Law for the last two years.

Pascal Blanqué

Group CIO
Amundi Asset Management

Pascal Blanqué is Group CIO of Amundi and Member of the Executive Committee since 2005. He has also been heading the third-party distributors business since 2010 up to 2016 and the Institutional Business since 2010 up to 2017. He started his career in finance with Paribas in 1991 and joined Crédit Agricole in 2000, where he was Head of economic research and Chief Economist until 2005. As an economist and a financial historian, Pascal Blanqué is the author of several contributions. His research interests and his academic work focus on monetary issues, the functioning of financial markets and the philosophical foundations of economics. His books include Money, Memory and Asset Prices, The Social Economy of Freedom, Philosophy in Economics, Essays in Positive Investment Management and The Economic and Financial Order.

Pascal Blanqué was awarded European CIO of the Year 2013 and European Chief Investment Officer Award in 2018 by Funds Europe Magazine. He also received the Manager Lifetime Achievement Award 2016 by Institutional Investor.

Pascal Blanqué graduated from the Ecole Normale Supérieure and Sciences Po in Paris and holds a

PhD in finance from Dauphine University.

Sabrina M. Borlini

Director
Syndications Department
International Finance Corporation

Sabrina M. Borlini is Director of IFC’s Syndicated Loans and Mobilization Department.  IFC’s Syndications Department mobilizes debt financing for IFC projects through a number of syndicated loan products including the B Loan Program and the Managed Co-Lending Portfolio Program (MCPP) to commercial banks, institutional investors and other developmental financial institutions. The department is also responsible for managing the relationship with investors throughout the life of the loans.

Prior to her current position, Ms Borlini was IFC’s Global Head of Trade and Commodity Finance.  In this capacity, she led a global team responsible for business origination for IFC’s suite of trade and commodity finance products such as the Global Trade Finance Program (GTFP), the Critical Commodities Finance Program (CCFP), the Global Warehouse Finance Program (GWFP), the Global Trade Supplier Finance (GTSF), the Global Trade Liquidity Program (GTLP) as well as Structured Trade Finance solutions.  Several of these programs have won awards for their contribution to crisis response efforts and market innovation.

Ms Borlini’s previous experience covered a number of different positions in IFC based in Sarajevo (Bosnia), Johannesburg (South Africa) and Brussels (Belgium). She joined IFC in 1997 as part of the Treasury Department where she contributed to the first ever securitization of emerging market debt.

Ms Borlini holds a Law Degree from University of Pavia (ITA) and a Master in International Business from the George Washington University (USA). She is currently based in Washington DC.

Marie-Aimee Boury

Managing Director
Head of Impact Based Finance
Société Générale Corporate & Investment Banking

Marie-Aimee Boury is a structured finance professional with 26 years international business experience at Société Générale in New York, London and Paris. She has a demonstrated track record in advising, structuring and executing complex transactions in project finance, structured commodity finance and project bonds where she developed a strong network of relationships amongst sponsors, MDBs and institutional investors.
 
Throughout her various positions, she has developed an in-depth understanding of debt financing and capital markets in energy and infrastructure on a global basis, with a strong focus on emerging markets in particular Africa and Latin America.
She is currently Head of the newly created Impact Based Finance team which acts as an R&D group for the Investment Banking division of Societe Generale. Its mission is to identify and implement new financing solutions for the SDGs, using impact-based business models enabled by the digitization of the economy and combining impact with long term value creation for all stakeholders.

Jonathan Brandon

Managing Editor 
Bonds & Loans

Jonathan currently serves as Managing Editor of Bonds & Loans (part of GFC Media Group), a publication focused on global emerging market credit. In his dual role as Head of Market Insights at GFC Media Group, he co-developed and manages a suite of market intelligence and survey-based data products for CFOs, Treasurers, bankers and Investors looking to access new markets for fundraising or lending and investment opportunities. Jonathan has written for a wide range of publications during his 15+ year career as a journalist and editor, and his writing has largely focused on the nexus between policy, finance, and technology.

Ruurd Brouwer

CEO
TCX

Ruurd Brouwer was appointed CEO of TCX in January 2015. Prior to that he held several senior management positions within FMO, amongst which Global Head Financial Institutions and chair of FMO’s Credit Committee.

During his career, Ruurd has been active as a member of the board of directors and investment committees of several financial institutions and investment funds, such as Emerging Africa Infrastructure Fund in London, Capital Alliance Private Equity Nigeria, Omnifinance in Abidjan, Mauritanie Leasing in Nouackchott, the Regional MSME Investment Fund (‘REGMIFA’) and BiX Fund.

Ruurd started his career in 1993 with the United Nations Protection Force in Bosnia Herzegovina, followed by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs at the private sector division. Here he was seconded to the International Finance Corporation. Ruurd holds a MSc in International Finance of the University of Amsterdam.

Parallel to his professional career, Ruurd was lecturer International Finance at The Hague University of Applied Sciences and Guest Lecturer Financial Instability the Erasmus University in Rotterdam. He publishes frequently on these topics.

Philip Brown

Managing Director, Head of Public Sector,
Green & Sustainable Debt Capital Markets,Citi

Philip has been at Citi for 20 years and leads Citi’s Sovereign, Supranational and Agency Debt Capital Markets team leading debt origination for European Sovereigns, public sector agencies and the world’s Multilateral Development Banks.

Philip also leads Citi’s Global Green and Sustainability Capital Markets activities, working with debt capital markets and relationship banking teams around the world. Citi has underwritten an apportioned value of $25.2bn of green, social and sustainable bonds across over 160 transactions since 2014. League tables are only a snapshot in time, but for 2019YTD, Citi is ranked as #1 underwriter by Bloomberg, for Green bonds issued according to the Green Bond Principles

Mauricio Cárdenas

Former Minister of Finance
Republic of Colombia

Mauricio Cárdenas, an economist who served as Colombia’s minister of finance and public credit from 2012 to 2018, and is now a visiting professor at SIPA at Columbia University. He is teaching a course on economic policy making in developing countries.

As finance minister, Cárdenas oversaw a successful adjustment program that preserved high investment rates and produced reductions in poverty and inequality during the oil shock of the mid-2010s. He also led a fiscal reform that cut payroll taxes, which was followed by the creation of many new jobs.

In 2015-16 Cárdenas was chairman of the boards of governors of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. From 2014 to 2016 he served a vice chairman and then chairman of the Intergovernmental Group of Twenty-Four (G-24).
Cárdenas became finance minister immediately after serving for about one year as minister of mines and energy. Earlier in his career he led Colombia’s national planning department, its ministry of transport, and its ministry of economic development.

Cárdenas has twice been the executive director of Fedesarrollo, a think tank in Colombia that conducts research on economic and social policy. He has also been a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, where he led the Latin American Initiative.

Cárdenas holds a PhD in economics from the University of California, Berkeley, and a master’s degree from the University of the Andes.

Sandra Carlisle

Head of Responsible Investment
HSBC

Sandra Carlisle has been head of responsible investment specialists in London since 2017. Sandra has been working in the industry since 1986. Previously, Sandra was head of responsible investment at Newton Investment Management in London. Before this, she spent several years at F&C Investments and Citi, where she set up and ran the sustainable and responsible investment team in global markets and the European equity sales team respectively. Prior to Citi, Sandra worked for Deutsche Bank in Paris and London as equity specialist and for JPMorgan Chase in London and New York as part of the sovereign debt restructuring team. Sandra is a recognized industry spokeswoman and a board member of the Principles for Responsible Investment (since 2016) and a visiting business fellow at the Oxford Smith School for the Environment.

Flora Chao

Manager
Funding
International Finance Corporation​

Flora Chao oversees IFC’s global funding operations based in London. Her team covers both public and private debt capital markets, as well as structured and plain vanilla bond issuances. Previously, she oversaw funding operations in the Asia region, including Australia, New Zealand, China, India and Japan. Prior to joining funding operations, Flora was in the Treasury Client Solutions department at IFC, specializing in structured finance transactions in Asia, Latin America and the Middle East. She began her career at Goldman Sachs in its Asset Backed Securitization group and then moved to Morgan Stanley to help start its public sector student loan securitization group. Ms. Chao holds a Master in Finance from Princeton and a Bachelor's degree cum laude in Applied Mathematics from Harvard.

Sudip Chatterjee

Head of Global Capital Markets
Euroclear

Sudip Chatterjee is Head of Global Capital Markets at Euroclear. Mr. Chatterjee is responsible for defining and designing the vision and strategy along with aligning all business initiatives across the global capital markets.

In this capacity, Mr. Chatterjee leads the discussions and partners with market authorities and regulators in local and international markets across the world, with the objective of designing solutions that help market liquidity and borrowing costs, resulting in a stronger macroeconomic climate and sustainable development.

Mr. Chatterjee has constant dialogue with multilateral financial institutions, including the World Bank, IFC, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and Inter-American Development Bank. He also maintains relationships with other key capital market entities, including rating agencies, index providers and the leading global fund and asset managers, to ensure alignment and facilitate the sustainable growth of the global capital markets.

Prior to his current role, Mr Chatterjee held a number of senior positions within Euroclear, including Head of Primary Markets of Product & Strategy, Head of International Markets in Network Management and Head of Process Change Management. Prior to joining Euroclear, Mr. Chatterjee was a management consultant, advising organisations, such as Bank of America, Axa and Eurocontrol.

Mr. Chatterjee has a degree in Civil Engineering and a post-graduate degree in Management.

Mike Cheng

Senior Vice President 
Infrastructure Financing and Securitization 
The Hong Kong Mortgage Corporation Limited

Mr Cheng joined the HKMC in April 2018 to set up the Corporation’s Infrastructure Financing and Securitisation Division and hold overall responsibility of the entire division, which comprises of 10 experienced professionals.

Mr Cheng has over two decades of experience in the infrastructure and project finance space spanning across various functions including project finance advisory, origination, execution, risk and portfolio management. Immediately prior to joining the HKMC, Mr Cheng was Credit Director, Infrastructure at Eastspring Investments.

Mr Cheng began his finance career in 1995 with Morgan Grenfell (now becomes part of Deutsche Bank), where he spent 8 years (including 2 years in London) working primarily on project finance advisory and arranging.  He also worked at WestLB where he was the deputy team head of Credit Risk Management in Hong Kong; KBC where he headed a project finance team responsible for origination, execution and portfolio management; and ANZ where he was in charge of credit risk management for the bank's structured finance transactions. 

Mr Cheng graduated from Simon Fraser University in Canada with a First Honour degree in Business Administration.  He is also a holder of the CFA charter, and is fluent in English, Mandarin and Cantonese.   

Tim Conduit

Partner
International Capital Markets Group
Allen & Overy

Tim is a partner Allen & Overy in the International Capital Markets Group based in London. He advises across a broad range of projects and infrastructure related work in the bond, bank and institutional debt markets. Tim has also been involved in the recent development of innovative project bond structures to promote capital market financing of PPPs.

Virginie Couchet

Director and Lead Analyst,
S&P Global Ratings, EMEA
 
Virginie Couchet is a Director and Lead Analyst in ABS and RMBS at S&P Global Ratings within the EMEA Structured Finance Group, based in Madrid.
Since joining S&P Global Ratings in September 2006, Virginie focused on securitizations of consumer assets, mortgage assets and ABCP conduits across all the EMEA region as well as structured credit, predominantly corporate and SME CLO, while based in London.
 
Virginie holds a Masters degree in Monetary and Financial Economics from the University of Paris II Pantheon-Assas.

Dan Croft

Upstream Manager
Infrastructure & Natural Resources, Middle East & Africa
International Finance Corporation

Dan Croft is Upstream Manager for the Middle East and Africa at IFC’s Infrastructure and Natural Resources Department. He joined IFC’s PPP Transaction Advisory Services department in 2012, focusing primarily on renewable energy, including the development and implementation of the Scaling Solar program.  In 2017 he joined the Africa Infrastructure team, working exclusively on Upstream and Creating Markets initiatives across the Africa region and taking the lead in the development of a new Upstream Strategy.

Dan is currently responsible for the development and implementation of IFC’s Upstream Strategy and IFC’s Advisory Services and InfraVentures engagements in the region and works closely with the World Bank to develop new opportunities and markets in line with IFC’s 3.0 Strategy.

Before joining IFC, Dan was a Senior Lawyer for Globeleq and then Director of Business Development for Empower, both Actis-investee IPP developers based in London.  He started his career in 1997 in the Project Finance / Energy & Infrastructure team at Clifford Chance, in London, Singapore and Moscow.

Dan holds an LLB from Durham University, an LLM from University College London and an MBA from London Business School.

Samuel Eyob

Portfolio Manager
Africa, Lendable

Samuel (Sam) is Lendable's Africa Portfolio Manager and is based in New York. Sam is responsible for deploying Lendable's proprietary technology platform to structure, execute, and manage the firms portfolio of alternative lenders (i.e. non-bank financial institutions). Prior to Lendable, Sam was based in Nairobi, Kenya where he worked at I-DEV International, a boutique investment advisory firm covering Sub-Saharan Africa providing investment advisory and growth strategy services to SMEs. Prior to that, Sam was based in London working at Goldman Sachs. There Sam was responsible for the management, and optimization of the firm's investment grade and high yield lending portfolio.

Ana de la Cueva Fernàndez

Secretary of State for Economic & Business Affairs
Ministry of Economy and Business

As Secretary of State for Economic & Business Affairs, Ana de la Cueva holds specific responsibilities within the Ministry of Economy and Business regarding the shaping and implementation of the government’s economic policy, including financial policy, public debt management, private insurance and reinsurance, capitalisation and pension funds and prevention of money-laundering policies. She is also responsible for the coordination of other government policies in different economic sectors.
She is the representative of Spain in a number of international financial institutions. She is Alternate Governor in the World Bank Group, Inter-American Development Bank, Central American Bank for Economic Integration, Asian Development Bank, Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, African Development Bank and European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

She is the secretary of the Government Delegate Commission for Economic Affairs, and president of the Commission for the Prevention of Money Laundering and the Advisory Commission for Investments of the Social Security Reserve Fund. She is also a member of the Board of the stated-owned company RENFE Operadora and of the SEPI Group.

Ana de la Cueva has developed all her career in the Ministry of Economy. She was responsible for the technical secretariat of the Government Delegate Commission for Economic Affairs and Chief of the Cabinet of the Secretary of State for the Economy.
Previously, she held a number of responsibilities in several departments of the Ministry of Economy, including the Department of Economic Policy and the General Secretariat of the Treasury and Financial Policy.

Claus Fintzen

Chief Investment Officer
Infrastructure Debt
Allianz Global Investors

Claus Fintzen is the CIO and Head of Infrastructure Debt at AllianzGI in London. The infrastructure debt platform was created in 2012 in order to develop the institutional market for this asset class and to originate suitable transactions for the Allianz Group and certain external institutional investors. So far the team invested in excess of EUR13billion in projects of the transportation, social infrastructure, energy and utility sector globally.

Before joining AllianzGI Claus spent eight years at MBIA/Trifinium as a Director, where he was involved in a variety of transactions, including transportation, social housing, renewables, real estate and corporate debt, and was responsible for the origination and structuring of transactions in Germany and Austria. Before joining MBIA/Trifinium Claus spent nine years at Citigroup, working in the structured finance, securitisation and alternative risk transfer departments.

Claus has a degree in business administration from the European Business School in Oestrich-Winkel, Germany.

John F. Gandolfo

Vice President and Treasurer 
International Finance Corporation​

As Vice President and Treasurer of IFC, a member of the World Bank Group and the largest global development institution focused on the private sector, John F. Gandolfo leads a global team responsible for managing IFC's financial position, safeguarding its international triple-A rating and maintaining its standing as a premier issuer in the global capital markets.

He leads IFC's Treasury and Syndications' global team in delivering on IFC's strategy to create markets and mobilize private capital for development. The team manages over s100 billion of liquid assets, global market borrowings, and derivatives transactions and is responsible for strengthening locaI currency financing by arranging and executing locaI currency and risk management transactions for clients and raising third-party capital through innovative syndication and mobilization platforms such as the Managed Co-Lending Portfolio Program (MCPP).

Prior to taking the reins of IFC Treasurer, Gandolfo was Director and Chief lnvestment Officer of the Pension and Endowments Department at the World Bank. His team managed $27 billion of World Bank Group pension and other retirement-benefit portfolios invested across a range of asset classes and strategies.

Over a highly successful career spanning more than 30 years in the World Bank Group, Gandolfo acquired broad experience in financial markets and treasury operations. He was Director of the Quantitative Strategies, Risk and Analytics Department, where he was responsible for the development of strategic and tactical asset allocations, risk management, and financial modeling for the asset management, capital markets, and banking businesses. Before that, he was the Director of the Investment Management Department. He began his career in IFC's Financial Management and Planning Department.

Mr. Gandolfo, a U.S. citizen, holds a BA from the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from the George Washington University.

Steve Gandy

Managing Director, Head of Private Debt Mobilisation Notes and Structuring
SCIB

He has over 28 years’ experience in the securitisation industry, having completed transactions in Europe, United States, Latin America and Asia. He serves on the Board of Directors of the European Data Warehouse, and has also served as Member Chairman of the Securitisation forum of AFME, where he participated in the development of the PCS initiative and currently serves at the chairman of the PCS Market Committee. Steve is also the current chairman of the Securitisation Working Group of the European Banking Federation.

During his 41 years of banking experience, Steve held a number of management positions, with postings in the US, Mexico, Hong Kong and Paris.

He holds a Bachelors of Arts degree in Linguistics from the University of Texas, and an MBA from Thunderbird, the American Graduate School of International Management, where he also won the Barton Kyle Yount Award.

Rahul Ghosh

Senior Vice President
Environmental, Social & Governance
Moody’s Investor Service

Rahul Ghosh is a senior vice president in Moody’s environmental, social and governance (ESG) team. In this capacity, Rahul leads the company’s thematic and educational research with respect to the impact of ESG considerations on global credit markets. This includes identifying and articulating material ESG and sustainability themes across rated sectors, and providing governance and coordination on related research initiatives globally. Rahul is also co-chair of Moody’s ESG working group for EMEA and the region’s primary ESG spokesperson.
Rahul is a regular participant at high-profile market briefings, external conferences and media engagements related to ESG and sustainable finance. He has presented on the impact of climate change on sovereign creditworthiness at the G20 Green Finance Study Group, and is a member of the Principles for Responsible Investment’s (PRI) committee on credit ratings.
He is also an impact leader for Moody’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives, and a steering committee member of the company’s UK multicultural employee resource group.
Before his current role, Rahul worked in the company’s credit strategy and standards group in London and Singapore, where he led thematic credit research for both the EMEA and Asia Pacific regions, integrating top-down macroeconomic analysis with credit views across sovereigns, corporates, and financial institutions. Prior to joining Moody’s in 2014, Rahul was the Head of Asia at BMI Research (Fitch Solutions) in Singapore, leading a team of macroeconomists and industry specialists in analysing sovereign risk, sector performance and the capital markets.
Rahul holds a Masters degree in Economics from the University of Edinburgh.

Ricardo Gonzalez

Investment Officer, Blended Finance
International Finance Corporation

Ricardo Gonzalez is Investment Officer with IFC’s Blended Finance Department. This department manages US$4+ billion of concessional funds from development partners in support of high-impact projects, including the IDA18 Private Sector Window, a $2.0 billion blended finance facility focused on the poorest and most fragile and violence affected countries. Ricardo is responsible for structuring concessional funds alongside IFC´s own account investments, with a focus on Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America. He began his career at Goldman Sachs and holds a MSc in Development Management from the London School of Economics and a Master in International Business from the Norwegian School of Economics
 

Martin Habel

Manager
CTCEM, & Acting Deputy Treasurer
International Finance Corporation Treasury

Martin Habel is the Manager of IFC‘s Treasury Clients Solutions team for Africa, Europe, Middle East, and Central Asia based in London. The team is responsible for delivering debt capital markets, structured finance and derivative solutions for IFC’s clients in the EMEA region. Since joining IFC in 2007, Martin has worked on transactions and initiatives in Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Europe across a wide range of asset classes. Prior to IFC, he worked with KfW Development Bank where among other things he helped to expand KfW’s asset securitization activities into emerging markets. Before that, Martin gained some experience in energy efficiency, renewable energy, microeconomic research and business consulting. Martin holds a Masters in Mathematics from the Albert-Ludwig University of Freiburg and a MSc in Economics from the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Darko Hajdukovic

Head of Multi-Asset Primary Markets and Investment Funds
London Stock Exchange Group

Darko Hajdukovic is Head of Multi-Asset Primary Markets and Investment Funds for the London Stock Exchange’s Capital Markets business responsible for primary market offering for international companies, debt and investment funds. Darko has extensive experience in equity and fixed income transactions on public markets and is a member of the FCA’s Listing Advisory Panel.

Darko joined the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) in 2007 as Debt Product Manager looking after primary fixed income business. Before joining LSEG, Darko was an independent consultant specialising in financial regulation and regulatory economics. His previous engagements include projects on assessing the effectiveness of the EU regulation and its impact on the economic development and sector research covering telecommunications, manufacturing and tourism. 

Darko holds a Doctorate in Economics from University of London and is a member of the Royal Economic Society.

Amit K Jain, CFA

Manager
Treasury Market Operations – Cash Management
International Finance Corporation

Mr. Jain joined IFC Treasury in 2003 in Washington DC office as a Financial Officer responsible for quantitative analysis. He moved to the portfolio management team in 2005 where he was responsible for strategic investments in various liquid fixed-income markets, including global structured products. Mr. Jain has been involved in all aspects of portfolio management at IFC including selection of benchmarks, asset allocation, portfolio construction and risk management. Mr. Jain currently heads the Cash Management unit which is responsible for daily operational cash flow management for the Corporation. The unit also manages short-term investments in the Liquid Assets portfolios, including local currency portfolios. His team is also responsible for the Global Discount Note program.

Mr. Jain holds an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania as well as a Masters degree in Systems Science from Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. Mr. Jain is a CFA charter holder.

Stephen Kay

Managing Director
Marsh Credit Specialties, Political Risk and Structured Credit
Marsh JLT Specialty

Stephen, based in New York, is a senior client advisor within the US PRI/SC team, which is integrated into Marsh’s global Credit Specialties practice. Credit Specialties includes trade credit, political risk, structured credit, project finance insurance, surety and financial risk products. Stephen’s expertise is in political risk and structured credit insurance products for banks, commodity traders, capital market investors and corporates, including Basel-compliant credit coverage. He was one of the first brokers to develop private market Non-Payment Insurance for project finance applications. Stephen joined Marsh in 2009 as US practice leader, political risk & structured credit, following a career in banking and underwriting credit and political risk for leading insurers.

Stephen began his career with a 4-year engagement at Export Development Canada (EDC, Canada’s ECA) where he underwrote and marketed export credit insurance, financing and foreign investment insurance. After EDC he was a corporate account relationship manager for Royal Bank of Canada before moving to the U.S. in 1994. He then joined Citicorp International Trade Indemnity, an affiliate of Citibank, over 7 years rising to VP & Head of Underwriting for political risk.   Following Citibank and prior to joining Marsh, Stephen spent eight years with AIG in New York, most recently as VP - East Coast Manager and Senior US Underwriter for AIG Global Trade and Political Risk. 

Stephen earned a BA in Economics, and an MBA in Finance and International Business, from McGill University in Montreal, Canada. His current affiliations include being a Board Member of the Wharton Institute for the Performing Arts, Berkeley Heights, NJ, USA and a Member of the New York Expert Panel, McGill University Faculty of Management.

Clive Kerner

Chief Executive Officer 
Clifford Capital Pte

Clive Kerner has been Chief Executive Officer of Clifford Capital since its inception in 2012. He has 30 years of emerging markets finance experience and a proven track record as a CEO of start-up financial institutions. Before joining Clifford Capital, he was CEO of Linq Asia Capital AG, a finance company focused on high yield and mezzanine credit investing in South East Asia. Prior to this, he worked in a prominent Asian family office in Singapore and Jakarta. He previously spent 20 years in investment banking with Kleinwort Benson Ltd. and its successor entities, with a focus on project and structured finance and corporate advisory in the power, utilities, infrastructure and resources sectors, primarily in Asia, where he was based in Singapore with other postings in Kuala Lumpur and London. He was latterly Head of Asian Utilities and Infrastructure business in Singapore. Mr Kerner is also a non-executive Director of Changi Airports International Pte. Ltd., Pierfront Capital Fund Management Pte. Ltd. and Pierfront Capital Mezzanine Fund Pte. Ltd respectively.  He was formerly a non-executive Director of Singapore LNG Corporation Pte. Ltd. from 2013 – 2019. He holds an MBA from the Cass Business School in London and a BA in Economics from the University of Sheffield.

Lise Kessler

Managing Director
Global Head of Credit Risk Insurance
Debt Optimisation and Distribution
Crédit Agricole Corporate and Investment Bank

Lise Kessler is the Global Head of Credit Risk Insurance (“CRI”) at Crédit Agricole CIB (“CACIB”).  She created the CRI team in 2014 to centralise all of CACIB’s political and credit risk activity and it has become an essential distribution channel for the bank.

Lise joined CACIB’s Debt Optimisation and Distribution team (formerly the Global Loan Syndication Group) in London in 2004 and for ten years was in charge of the team responsible for the distribution of all Corporate, Financial Institution, and Export Finance loans in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.  Before joining CACIB, Lise was with the Loan Syndications team at Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein for three years.  Prior to that she was with JP Morgan for six years, where she had a number of roles including originating, structuring, pricing and distributing syndicated loan transactions.  

Lise has 24 years of experience in the European syndicated loan market and over 30 years of banking experience.   She holds a B.A. from The Johns Hopkins University in the US and an MBA from INSEAD in France.
 

Burhan Khadbai

Supranational Editor
GlobalCapital at Euromoney Institutional Investors

Burhan Khadbai is the SSA reporter for GlobalCapital, the capital markets newspaper based in London. Burhan previously covered the European bond market for Bond Radar and also has experience writing about structured trade and commodity finance. He holds an MA in Financial Journalism from City, University of London.

Shrey Kohli

Head of Debt Capital Markets & Funds
LSEG

Shrey is responsible for London Stock Exchange’s Fixed Income and close-ended funds franchise, with a focus on attracting international companies and investors to London’s capital markets. At LSEG, Shrey has also covered roles across Product Development, Regulatory Strategy & Government Relations, and was most recently Head of Strategic Development for LSE plc. During 2018-19, Shrey was seconded to International Finance Corporation in Singapore and Washington DC as Financial Officer in Treasury & Syndications. He has previously worked as a consultant at McKinsey and Co. He holds an MSc in Finance and Economics from the London School of Economics and a BSc (Hons) in Physics from University of Delhi.

Jean Pierre Lacombe

Director
Global Macro & Market Research
International Finance Corporation

Jean Pierre Lacombe is the Director of IFC’s Global Macro, Market and Portfolio Research Department in Washington DC, providing to IFC’s management, operational departments and external clients with applied macroeconomics research, sector/country risk evaluations and strategic asset allocation recommendations on emerging markets and global industries.  His team also conducts empirical and fundamental economic research to gain insight on long term trends affecting investments.  In addition, his team works hand in hand with the Corporate Portfolio Department to provide a risk based approach to understanding portfolio trends, to quantify the impact of current and projected country/market developments on the portfolio as well as to build an asset allocation framework.  Previously at IFC, he worked at Corporate Portfolio Management Department, and Central Equity Department as well as the Corporate Strategy Department. 

Prior to joining IFC, Jean Pierre spent 15 years in the private sector, working for Johnson & Johnson, Lehman Brothers and Barclays Capital in New York, Hong Kong, Sao Paulo and London.  During his investment banking career, he headed institutional and proprietary trading in foreign exchange, fixed income, equities and derivatives for Latin and Asian emerging markets. 

Jean Pierre has degrees in Mechanical Engineering and Operations Research from Cornell University and Finance from MIT.

Alvaro Lario 

Associate Vice-President & Chief Financial Officer
International Fund for Agriculture Development

Alvaro Lario is Associate Vice-President and Chief Financial Officer at IFAD (International Fund for Agriculture Development)., the United Nations agency investing in global rural development. He is part of the Executive Management Committee and is responsible for the design and implementation of the financial strategies and policies at IFAD, including oversight of the Treasury, Risk, Controller and Operational Financial Management divisions.

Before joining the Fund in early 2018, Mr Lario served as and Principal Portfolio Officer at the International Finance Corporation (IFC) of the World Bank Group. His earlier positions include various roles in the private sector asset management industry and in academia, including public and business schools.

Mr. Lario received a PhD in financial economics from the Complutense University of Madrid after being awarded a master of research in economics at the London Business School. He also holds a master’s degree in finance from Princeton University.

Sara Lovisolo

Group Sustainability Manager
London Stock Exchange Group

Sara is responsible for sustainability management and strategy at London Stock Exchange Group, with focus on policy analysis.  She is an active member of the Consultative Group of the UN-backed Sustainable Stock Exchanges initiative and of the City of London’s Green Finance Initiative. She is also co-chair of the working group tasked with setting up the Italian government-backed Sustainable Financial Centre. In 2018 she was appointed to the EU Technical Expert Group on Sustainable Finance. She has a Masters in Economics and has co-authored a number of publications on the impact of taxation on the cost of capital.

Leslie Maasdorp

Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
New Development Bank

Mr. Leslie Maasdorp is Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of the New Development Bank. In this role he is responsible for the treasury, portfolio management, finance and accounting functions of the Bank. Over the past 25 years he has occupied senior leadership roles in both private and public sectors. Most recently he served as a Managing Director and President of Bank of America Merrill Lynch for Southern Africa for a period of four years. Prior to that he served in a dual role as Vice Chairman of Barclays Capital and Absa Capital. In 2002 he was the first African to be appointed as International Advisor to Goldman Sachs International. Before his 13 years as a global investment banker, he served in several senior leadership roles in the Government of South Africa. In 1994 after the transition to democracy, he was appointed as Special Advisor to the Minister of Labour and in 1999, in his role as Deputy Director General of the Department of Public Enterprises, he lead the restructuring and privatization of state owned enterprises for the South African Government. He is a former Chairman and CEO of Advtech, a leading provider of private education in South Africa. Leslie is a young global leader of the World Economic Forum. He holds a BA degree in Economics and Psychology from the University of the Western Cape and a Master of Science degree in Economics from the School of Oriental and African Studies, at the University of London.

Iain Macaulay

Head of Project Finance
CDC Group plc

Iain leads the Project Finance business at CDC Group, where through a new strategy is currently going through growth; in team size, in portfolio, in active sectors and in product offering. The team covers the geographic areas of Africa and South Asia, across sectors including power, transport, real estate, manufacturing and general infrastructure. With a dual focus on development impact and robust sustainable investments creating jobs. Partnering with DFIs, commercial banks and project developers to create additionally elements to enable investment.

He was Nedbank’s Corporate and Investment Bank in South Africa in infrastructure Project Finance for 15 years’. During this time, he held senior positions in the Infrastructure division. Iain brings extensive project finance experience across a broad range of infrastructure sectors, across South Africa and sub-Saharan Africa, including telecoms (where he led Nedbank’s Telecoms team), road and rail infrastructure, African real estate, industrial, general infrastructure and water. He brings experience as lead arranger of transactions and debt syndicates. For the first ten years of his career, Iain worked in engineering, property development and business consulting.

Iain Holds an MBA from Wits Business School and an MSc and BSc (Honours) also from Wits University Johannesburg. Iain holds South African national colours for rowing.

Gillian Marcelle

Founder & Managing Member
Resilience Capital Ventures LLC and Technology for Development

Gillian Marcelle, PhD is a senior leader in economic development and international business with a proven track record in attracting investment to emerging markets. She leads Resilience Capital Ventures LLC, an advisory firm in the blended finance space, which is involved in capital raising, deal origination and advising commercial start-ups as well as social ventures. She has also established her reputation as a thought leader in the impact investment space, particularly in areas of diversity, inclusion, accountability and alignment with the SDGs. She currently serves as a non-Executive Director of Tafari Capital Pty Ltd., an innovative fintech start-up in Joburg, South Africa. Her previous finance background includes development finance with the International Finance Corporation, as well as, equities and capital markets with JP Morgan Chase. She has also advised the United Nations on impact investment and innovation for the benefit of the global South. As a C-suite leader, in the role of Executive Director of the UVI RTPark Corporation, a specialist economic development agency for the US Virgin Islands, she successfully led a transformation program that doubled the number of technology and knowledge based investors in three years, achieved financial sustainability, while generating new social investment contributions for the local university. She is a global citizen with wide networks and various communities of practice drawn from her personal and professional connections in Washington DC., London, Johannesburg and Trinidad & Tobago. Her educational background includes earning degrees in Economics from the University of the West Indies, St Augustine, Trinidad& Tobago, and the Kiel Institute of World Economics, Germany; an MBA with a specialization in high technology management from the George Washington University and a doctorate in innovation policy from the Science and Technology Policy Research Unit, SPRU, University of Sussex. For her scholarly work, she is an affiliated researcher at the Tata Center for Technology and Design, MIT, Cambridge MA. 

David Marsh

Chairman & Co-Founder
OMFIF

David Marsh is Chairman and Co-Founder of OMFIF. He is Senior Adviser to asset management company Soditic and Chairman of the Advisory Board of independent investment bank London & Oxford Capital Markets. Previously, he worked for City merchant bank Robert Fleming, corporate finance boutique Hawkpoint and German management consultancy Droege. David is a Board Member of Henderson Eurotrust, the British Chamber of Commerce in Germany and the Institute for Corporate Cultural Affairs, and visiting Professor at Sheffield University and King's College London. He is former co-founder, chairman and deputy chairman of the German-British Forum. He was made Commander of the British Empire in 2000 and was awarded the German Order of Merit (Bundesverdienstkreuz) in 2003. He started his career at Reuters in 1973 having graduated with a BA in chemistry from Queen's College Oxford. Between 1978 and 1995 he worked for the Financial Times in France and Germany, latterly as European Editor in London. David has written five books: 'Europe's Deadlock: How the Crisis Could Be Solved - And Why It Won't Happen' (2013); 'The Euro – The Politics of the New Global Currency' (2009 – re-released in 2011 as 'The Battle for the New Global Currency'); 'Germany and Europe – The Crisis of Unity' (1994); 'The Bundesbank – The Bank that Rules Europe' (1992); and 'Germany – Rich, Bothered and Divided' (1989). He is a frequent media commentator in Europe and the US.

Euan Marshall

Manager
Investor Engagement, Syndications
International Finance Corporation

Euan Marshall is Manager of the Investor Engagement Division in IFC’s Syndications department. The Division promotes co-investment in IFC projects through supporting investor outreach and product innovation. The Division is particularly focused on identifying opportunities to support increased co-investment in IFC loans by institutional investors. The Division is responsible for developing and managing the Managing Co-Lending Portfolio Program and for leading IFC’s Syndications efforts with the Insurance industry.

Prior to joining this team, Euan headed IFC’s global advisory program focused on Sustainable Investing, managed IFC advisory operations in the Philippines and Indonesia. Euan started his career with Credit Suisse First Boston and then ING Barings where he worked in London, Hong Kong and Jakarta in a number of equity capital market roles.

Euan holds an MBA from Oxford University. 

Jean-Marie Masse

Chief Investment Officer 
Global Financial Markets Group 
International Finance Corporation

Mr. Masse joined IFC in 1994 and has held a series of leadership positions focused on direct investments and risk mitigation in the emerging markets financial sector, and on developing partnerships across the world.  He is currently overseeing an equity portfolio, creating shareholder value and exiting investments.  As part of IFC's strategic priorities to help mitigate the impact of climate change in emerging markets, he conceptualized and leads at IFC the IFC-Amundi Planet-Emerging Green One fund - closed in Feb 2018 and viewed as the World’s largest green bond fund. 

Mr. Masse has led teams responsible for the origination, analysis, negotiation, monitoring and execution of over 150 direct investments, totaling US$ 8bn. One transaction of particular note is IFC's highest ever realized capital gain in the financial sector.

Mr. Masse holds an MBA from INSEAD, and an Ingénieur Agronome diploma from a leading engineering school in France.

Meaghan McGrath

Global Head of Syndications
International Finance Corporation

Formerly, she was Chief Counsel for Debt Mobilization in IFC’s legal Department, where she led the establishment of the Managed Co-Lending Portfolio Program (MCPP) with the People’s Bank of China in 2013 and supported the creation of the MCPP Infrastructure initiative. Together, these two programs resulted in over USD 7 billion in third party financing to the development agenda over the last six years. In 2017, Meaghan was shortlisted for the Financial Times award of Most Innovative Counsel in North America.  She and her team won the Financial Times Award for the MCPP Program.

During her tenure at IFC, Meaghan has been actively involved in structuring, negotiating, and documenting debt and equity investments in private sector projects in over 30 countries and has built an expertise in infrastructure projects as well as debt mobilization. She is an elected Delegate to the World Bank Group Staff Association and an appointed member of IFC's Diversity & Inclusion Council.

Prior to joining IFC, Meaghan practiced with the firm of Chadbourne & Parke, in New Delhi, New York and Washington DC representing project developers, multilateral agencies and commercial lenders in connection with international project financings. She spent two years in India, implementing and expanding a foreign office and representing independent developers in energy projects. 

Meaghan McGrath graduated cum laude from Columbia College of Columbia University in 1989 with a B.A. in Political Science where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. She received her J.D. from Georgetown University in 1992 with honors.

Xiana Margarida Méndez Bértolo

Secretary of State for Trade
Government of Spain

Nacida el 27 de julio de 1977 en Pontevedra, es licenciada en Derecho y en Administración y Dirección de Empresas por la Universidad Pontificia Comillas. En 2004 ingresó en el Cuerpo Superior de Técnicos Comerciales y Economistas del Estado. Inició su carrera profesional en 2004 en el Servicio de Defensa de la Competencia del Ministerio de Economía. Entre 2013 y 2015, desempeñó diferentes puestos en la Dirección General de Política Económica del

Ministerio, especializándose en los sectores de transporte e infraestructuras y crédito oficial. Desde agosto de 2015, era la consejera económica y comercial de la Embajada de España en Quito.

Born on July 27, 1977 in Pontevedra, she has a degree in Law and in Business Administration and Management from the Universidad Pontificia Comillas. In 2004 she became a Civil Servant of the Spanish Administration as a member of the Corps of Trade Experts and Economists. She began her professional career in 2004 in the Competition Defense Service of the Ministry of Economy. Between 2013 and 2015, she held different positions in the General Directorate of Economic Policy of the Ministry of Economy, specialized in the transport and infrastructure sectors and official credit. In August 2015, she was the Economic and Trade Counselor of the Embassy of Spain in Quito. She was appointed Secretary of State for Trade in June 2018.

Emeka Njokanma

Head of Emerging Markets Rates Trading
TD Securities​

Emeka is a graduate of Warwick University with a B.Eng in Electronic and Telecommunications Engineering and an MSc. in Management Science and Operational Research from the same institution. Born in Lagos, Nigeria he has an active interest in Technology applications in Trading and the Fintech ecosystem in Nigeria.

Sewar Nowwar

Business Development Manager
Jibrel Network

Sewar leads Business Development at Jibrel Network, a blockchain-based FinTech company headquartered in Zug, Switzerland, where she mainly works across the technological, regulatory and financial spheres to bring traditional financial assets on- chain. Sewar's work aims to bridge the gap between traditional and crypto economies in the the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) with the goal of redefining human to human, human to machine, and machine to machine interaction in the scope of value exchange, community building, and progressive policy-making.

Before joining Jibrel, Sewar worked in venture capital impact investing with a leading alternative asset manager in Amman, Jordan. During her time there, she specialized in early and growth-stage technology investments across MENA with a focus on Jordan and Egypt, as well as providing higher-value assistance to the region's fastest-growing tech startups.

Prior to starting her career in FinTech, Sewar worked in international development at the National Center for Security and Crises Management in Amman, where her primary focus was on turning the Syrian refugee crisis into an economic opportunity. Sewar holds a Master of Public Administration (MPA) in Public and Economic Policy from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and a BSc. (Joint Honours) degree in Economics and Political Science from The University of Birmingham, United Kingdom.

Esohe Denise Odaro 

Head of Investor Relations
Funding
International Finance Corporation

Denise heads investor relations globally for IFC. She joined IFC Treasury in 2012 as a member of the funding team specifically tasked with establishing the investor relations function to augment IFC’s $14 billion funding programme - constituting Global, ESG bonds, Structured MTNs, Discount notes etc. and various other products within the capital markets. In 2018, Denise served an assignment at ICMA within the Secretariat for The Green Bond Principles (GBP), The Social Bond Principles (SBP) and The Sustainability Bond Guidelines (SBG). During her tenure at ICMA, Denise led the drafting of the updates to the SBP and the SBG, the High-Level Mapping to the Sustainable Development Goals for both the GBP and SBP as well as the Harmonized Framework for Impact Reporting for Social Bonds.

Previously, she was an Underwriter in the Energy group at MIGA, The World Bank Group’s political risk mitigation arm. Prior to joining The World Bank Group, Ms. Odaro worked for Lehman Brothers as a Debt Portfolio Manager and on loan syndications at GE Capital and secondary loan markets at Goldman Sachs.

She holds an M.B.A from Cornell University, an MSc from The University of London (SOAS) and qualified as a Barrister at The Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn.

Aude Pacatte

Director
Head of Portfolio Management
EBRD

Aude has been with the EBRD since 1998 where she has covered different positions within the Treasury department before being promoted to Deputy Head of Asset and Liability Management in 2008.  In 2014, she was promoted to Head of Local Currency Balance Sheet Management when a unit dedicated to managing risks associated with EBRD’s local currency activities was created as a result of EBRD’s increased on-shore activities in a growing number of countries. She has since been actively working on supporting the growth of EBRD's local currency loan portfolio.

Aude has a Masters in Management Finance from Nice Business School and Masters in Economy of Emerging Markets from La Sorbonne University, Paris.

Sunita Parasuraman

Head of Treasury
Facebook

Sunita Parasuraman is anticipated to join the Libra Association as the Head of Treasury. A seasoned finance executive, she has worked at and built world-class Treasury teams at Facebook, VMware, Genentech, and Apple. Most recently Sunita served as the Head of Treasury at Facebook, overseeing Facebook’s Treasury operations, $40 billion investment portfolio, foreign exchange & share repurchase programs, and the risk management function. She built Facebook’s global Treasury team from scratch over the last 8 years, managing teams based in California, Dublin, Singapore and Sao Paulo. In her prior roles in Treasury, she has set up and managed sophisticated foreign exchange hedging programs, several capital markets projects and managed multi-billion investment portfolios. Sunita holds a bachelor's degree in Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, a master’s degree in Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from the University of California, Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. Sunita is the author of two books.

Kay Parplies

Head of Unit, Investment and Innovative Financing
European Commission's Directorate-General for International Cooperation and Development (DG DEVCO)

Kay Parplies is the Head of Unit for Investment and Innovative Financing in the European Commission's Directorate-General for International Cooperation and Development (DG DEVCO), where he works, among other areas, in the development of innovative blending instruments, such as equity, guarantees and risk-sharing mechanisms, implemented in cooperation with partner financial institutions. The main current focus of his work is the EU External Investment Plan, including the new EUR 1.5 billion EFSD Guarantee facility for Africa and the EU Neighbourhood. Before joining DG DEVCO, Kay headed the unit for coordination with the EIB Group, EBRD and other IFIs. Prior to that position he was a senior economist in the trade directorate's Chief Economist team. Kay joined the Commission in 2000 as a case officer for merger control at DG Competition. Before joining the European Commission, Kay worked for NatWest Markets' project finance and advisory division. He holds a Ph.D. in industrial economics from Cambridge University and a M.Sc. in Economics and Finance from Warwick University.

Silvia Pavoni

Economics Editor
The Banker

Silvia Pavoni is the economics editor of The Banker, a monthly publication part of the Financial Times group, for which she oversees the Americas coverage and commissions and writes for the Bracken and Viewpoint opinion columns. She also writes on risk management, sustainable finance and trade, and manages the magazine's research on international financial centres.

Since joining the Financial Times in 2005, she has been on assignment to over two dozen countries, reporting with both written and filmed pieces. Silvia regularly interviews government officials, policy makers and finance professionals at the highest level and has chaired numerous conferences and panel discussions on finance, trade and economic development.

Previously, Silvia was in charge of Centaur Media’s specialist database on public private partnerships, which was tasked with providing data to the UK Government. She has also conducted research for organisations such as the Italian Chamber of Commerce and Industry for the UK and the Italian Trade Commission.

She holds a BSc in Economics and Finance from Ca' Foscari University of Venice and is an honorary fellow in the department of economics at City, University of London. She is also an adviser to not-for-profit organisation Will, Women in Leadership in Latin America and speaks Italian - her mother-tongue - and Spanish.

Giulia Pellegrini

Head
EMD Sustainable Investing
BlackRock

Giulia Pellegrini is a Portfolio Manager for the Fundamental Emerging Markets Debt team within BlackRock’s Global Fixed Income group. Giulia is the Head of EMD Sustainable Investing and focuses on both sustainable and standard EM sovereign debt strategies, with a specific concentration on frontier markets.
 
Prior to joining BlackRock in 2015, Giulia was Chief Economist for Sub-Saharan Africa in J.P.Morgan's Emerging Market Research team in London and in Johannesburg from 2010 to 2015.  Before that, Giulia was an Economist at the World Bank, in the Africa Finance and Private Sector Development Department in Washington D.C.  Giulia started her career as an Assistant Economist in the Policy & Strategy Division of the Debt Management Office of the Federal Republic of Nigeria in Abuja.
 
Giulia is a founding member of the Fiscal Transparency team of the Emerging Markets Investors Alliance, an association of investors that aims to support good governance, promote sustainable development, and improve investment performance in the governments and companies in which they invest.  She holds master degrees in Development Economics and in Econometrics from the University of Oxford, St Antony's College and from Birkbeck College as well as a BSc in Economics from the School of Oriental and African Studies - University of London.

Carsten Quitter

Group CIO
Allianz

Carsten Quitter is Allianz Group CIO, and in this position responsible for asset liability management, strategic asset allocation and investment strategy for all Allianz insurance portfolios worldwide of about 670bn Euro. Additionally he serves as Managing Director and global Co-Lead of Allianz Investment Management SE (AIM). After studying computer science, Carsten Quitter held various management positions at Swiss Re in the areas of risk and capital management and alternative risk transfer. He worked as a management consultant for two years before joining Allianz in 2005, where he held various posts as CIO in Switzerland, the United States and Italy before he was appointed as Allianz Group CIO in 2018.

Michal Ron

Managing Director, Head of International Business
SACE S.p.A.

With extensive experience in Structured Finance and Export Credit, Michal Ron - Managing Director, heads the International Business of SACE, the Italian Export Credit Agency. In her current role she holds responsibility for the Group’s International Relations, Overseas Network and Political Credit Recovery. Her responsibilities include all activities related to the Paris Club and other political recoveries, with a track history of € 10 Bn in sovereign recoveries over the past years and the achievement of successful results in post-sanctions contexts such as Argentina, Cuba and Iran. Over the past 7 years, Michal has steered the expansion of SACE’s Overseas Network, supervising international underwriting generated by the 11 offices abroad (Dubai, Istanbul, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Johannesburg, Mexico City, Moscow, Mumbai, Nairobi, Sao Paulo, Cairo). She also manages SACE’s active participation within the OECD and the European Union, as well as the relationships with the peer group. Michal has been nominated Secretary General of the International Working Group (IWG). From 2014 to 2016 she was the elected Vice President of the Berne Union, the global association of public and private Export Credit insurers counting over 80 member organisations. Michal is currently Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors of African Trade Insurance Agency (ATI), a Pan-African Multilateral Insurance agency based in Kenya. 
Prior to working at SACE, she spent 10 years at MCC SpA (Head of Oil, Gas and Petrochemicals, Structured Finance) and 7 years with HSBC (London, Madrid, Milan). With a Business Studies, Risk Management and Finance BSc Honors degree from City University Business School (London), Michal has worked in investment banking in several European countries and has been invited to speak in numerous business conferences worldwide. 
She is based in Rome, Italy (SACE’s Headquarters).
 

Salvador Ruiz Bachs

Partner
Allen & Overy

Salvador has extensive experience in the regulatory and contractual matters of financial institutions, financial instrument markets, OTC, clearing and settlement systems, custody and a wide range of financial products. He advises financial entities, particularly banks, investment firms, fund management companies, private equity firms and insurance and pension funds on, among others, licensing and products requirements, rules of conduct, capital requirements, investment rules, major holdings in financial institutions and listed companies, transparency requirements and AML.  

Salvador is a point of reference in FinTech and has extensive experience advising on blockchain projects, cryptocurrencies, initial coin offerings and DLT technology. In this area he has advised a broad range of clients, from established financial entities to innovative start-ups.

His professional practice is also focused on contractual matters about banking, investment, insurance and other financial services, particularly banking and investment contracts and complex financial products, such as derivatives, financial collateral, trading, custody and settlement matters and investment and private equity funds.

Salvador has been ranked first in Spain as "Leading Individual" in Financial Services; Regulatory in the prestigious international directory, Chambers & Partners. He is also ranked as a Leading Lawyer by Best Lawyers in the practice areas "Venture Capital" and "Banking & Finance".

Martin Scheck

Chief Executive
International Capital Market Association (ICMA)

Martin Scheck took up his position as Chief Executive of ICMA in August 2009, shortly after the association sold its markets services business (including TRAX). He has steered ICMA successfully towards a renewed focus on its membership services and core activities and has overseen the setting up of representative offices in Hong Kong and Paris to support ICMA’s growing membership.

He was a Board member of ICMA for five years prior to being Chief Executive and also chaired its Audit, Compliance and Governance Committee.

Previously he was Managing Director and Head of Fixed Income at UBS investment Bank, Zurich from 2001 to 2009 and before this Head of Debt Capital Markets for Switzerland at UBS from 1999.

From 1987 to 1999 Mr Scheck held a number of senior roles at Swiss Bank Corporation in London, Zurich and the USA, including: Head of Debt Capital Markets for North America, Executive Director of the Capital Markets Team and Director of Equity Capital Markets.

Mr Scheck is a qualified UK Chartered Accountant and worked at KPMG in London from 1980 to 1986.

Leonie Schreve

Global Head Sustainable Finance
ING

Leonie Schreve (Managing Director) is responsible to drive, promote and generate sustainable business opportunities for ING’s Wholesale Bank globally. This includes accelerating innovative business opportunities like circular economy, green bonds and loans and more established business like green buildings, energy efficiency, renewables, water, etc.
Before joining the commercial side of the bank Leonie headed the Environmental Social Risk Management team and introduced the new topic of sustainability risk management. Leonie represents ING in the board of the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP FI Banking Commission) and has acted as Chair of the Equator Principles Steering Committee till 2013.
Leonie joined ING in 2004. Before that she was Management Consultant at a technical consultancy and independent consultant in Costa Rica. She has significant international experience working with private and public sector clients on sustainability. She pioneered in the early days of Sustainability and led change processes by setting up the ESR and Sustainable Finance team at ING. Leonie holds a Master in Environmental Science, Business Ethics and International Sports Management.

Sebastian Schroff

Global Head of Private Debt
Allianz Investment Management SE

Sebastian Schroff is “Global Head of Private Debt” at Allianz Investment Management SE and in that function responsible for the Allianz Group private debt portfolio of > EUR 70bn. Previous roles at Allianz include being the responsible Investment Manager for the Alternative investment portfolio of the Germany Life & Health portfolios. Other roles include founding and exiting a fintech company, heading a research center for exchange trading, adjunct lecturer at the University of Hohenheim and doing a PhD in Behavioral Finance.

Janne Sevanto

Principal Financial Officer, CTCLA
Treasury
International Finance Corporation

Janne Sevanto manages International Finance Corporation’s (IFC) Treasury Client Solution business for the Latin America and the Caribbean region. The group focuses on providing debt capital market, derivative and structured finance solutions for IFC’s private sector clients while fostering local currency financing and development of domestic debt capital markets. Janne has 15+ years of experience in originating, structuring and negotiating innovative capital market and risk management solutions for corporate clients across industry sectors.

Peter Sprent

Head of Financial Risk Solutions
Liberty Specialty Markets

Peter joined the political risk and credit insurance market in 1994 and has led the team at Liberty since 2011 having previously worked for AIG and Chubb.

The Financial Risks Solutions division offers a broad range of political risk and credit insurance products for tenors of up to 20 years in over 150 countries around the world.  The team consists of 30 underwriters and analysts with backgrounds in banking, law, rating agencies and development finance institutions, as well as insurance. Staff are located in London, New York, Washington, Paris, Sydney and Singapore.

Liberty Specialty Markets offers specialty and commercial insurance and reinsurance products across key UK, European, Middle East, US and other international locations.

We provide our products through both the Company and Lloyd’s markets and have over 1,000 employees in 24 offices around the world.

Liberty Specialty Markets also benefits from the full financial strength of the Liberty Mutual Insurance Group, a Boston-based US Fortune 100 company.

Francesca Suarez

Green Bond Specialist
Mirova

Francesca Suarez holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Management Engineering from Ateneo de Manila University in the Philippines and a Master’s Degree in Sustainable Development from HEC Paris, France.

Francesca began her career as a financial analyst in Avon Cosmetics. She later joined Natixis Asset Management as an ESG analyst in 2012. She is currently Mirova’s Green Bond Specialist and is also the analyst for fast moving consumer goods and retail companies.

Luca Tonello

Head of Asia, Global Structured Finance
Investment Banking Dept., Asia
SMBC

Luca Tonello leads one of Asia’s most respected teams engaged in capital raising and advisory for the infrastructure and energy sectors at SMBC.

He oversees a multi-billion dollars Asia focused portfolio with exposure to sustainable energy, power, infrastructure and natural resources. Over the last decade, Mr. Tonello and his team have contributed to the development of critical infrastructure in Asia. For its contribution, the team has received several prestigious industry awards and recognitions, most recently the 2018 Asia Pacific Bank of the Year by Project Finance International and 2018 Asia Pacific Financial Adviser of the Year by IJGlobal.

Besides chairing the Finance Committee of ICCS over the last two years, Mr. Tonello was recently invited to join the alliance board of Infrastructure Asia (IA), a government initiative aimed at developing Singapore as the infrastructure hub in ASEAN. Mr. Tonello is committed to supporting the infrastructure finance industry in Asia as Chairman of the Project Finance Committee of the Asia Pacific Loan Market Association (APLMA) and as board member of the International Project Finance Association (IPFA).

He has contributed to several working groups on infrastructure development and financing promoted by the World Bank, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the Asia Development Bank (ADB), the Infrastructure Finance Facilitation Office (IFFO) of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, the Indonesia Minister of Finance, the Monetary Authority of Singapore, the OECD Organization to name a few.

Mr. Tonello grew up near Turin in Italy, where he graduated in Mechanical Engineering with a major in energy. He spent the early part of his banking career in London where he also graduated from the London Business School with a Master in Finance before moving to Singapore, where he still lives.

Frederic Wandey

Principal Financial Officer & Head 
Treasury & Syndications Coordination Unit 
International Finance Corporation

Frederic Wandey is a Principal Financial Officer and Head of IFC’s Treasury and Syndications Coordination Unit. He is responsible for the Vice Presidency’s strategy and knowledge management, and upstream capacity-building through education initiatives, capital markets advisory and in-country workshops. He oversees editorial content, logistics and partnerships for IFC’s flagship Debt Mobilization and Debt Capital Markets Conferences. 

Prior to heading the Coordination Unit, Mr. Wandey was one of the most senior staff of IFC’s Treasury Client Solutions team. He led structured finance business in the Europe, Middle East and Africa region, and IFC programs to issue local currency bonds in a range of domestic markets. He has also devised and implemented key capital markets development projects, and local currency solutions for IFC clients - through bond issuances or derivatives, structuring and delivering first-in-country products in response to funding and risk management needs.

Before joining IFC, Mr. Wandey, a Congolese national, led a team of Mortgage-Backed Security structuring specialists at Ally Financial (formerly GMAC ResCap) in Minneapolis, MN, USA. He also held teaching and research positions in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Belgium and the United States. He holds a PhD in Applied Economics from University of Minnesota, in addition to a PhD in Philosophy from the Université Catholique de Louvain. Mr. Wandey has a Master’s degree in Econometrics and Policy Analysis from the Université Libre de Bruxelles and Bachelor degrees in Economics from the Université de Kinshasa and Philosophy from the Université Catholique de Kinshasa.