Updated on January 2021

Highlights

• Analytical and multifaceted economist with extensive experience in project/policy evaluation

• Has the skills to develop rigorous financial and economic models

• Able to execute financial/economic advisory engagements through research, data analytics, modelling, and structuring

• Can derive alternative solutions to the status-quo and synthesize key issues by utilizing quantitative applied and analytical skills

• Can support decision-makers on complex commercial term-sheet negotiations (e.g., pricing and lending terms)

Areas of expertise

• Infrastructure project finance

• Financial, economic and risk analysis  

• PPP project appraisal

• PPP project (re)structuring

Project portfolio

30+ projects ranging in size from EUR 12m to EUR 25b and covering more than 15 countries, mainly in Africa. Mostly PPP with debt: equity financing structure by various DFIs (AfDB, DBSA, EIB, FMO, IFC/WB, KfW, USAID, US-DFC, etc.), in collaboration with governments, and project stakeholders

• Project origination, total of 12 projects. 7 grid-connected renewables (solar PV in Chad, Egypt and Nigeria; onshore wind energy in Kenya and Mozambique; geothermal in Ethiopia, hydropower in Madagascar); 2 off-grid (solar electrification and mini-grid with solar PV in Burkina Faso and Togo); 3 thermal electricity generation (gas plants in Benin, Gabon and Mozambique)

• Project development phase, total of 10 projects. 2 grid-connected renewables (hydropower with transmission line in Angola-Namibia and Zambia-Zimbabwe); 2 waste-to-energy projects in Cambodia and Laos); 6 projects, project origination (2 urban road (clean transport) projects in Jordan, 1 waste water project in Jordan; 1 urban road transport in Gabon, 1 natural gas extraction and exportation in Nigeria, and 1 SME fund program tied to LNG value-chain in Mozambique)

• Debt structuring, total of 6 projects. 2 projects, project origination (hydropower Gabon and urban road transport in Uganda); 4 projects, post-construction and debt re-structuring (thermal power plant in Ivory Coast, solar PV in Egypt, hydro in Cameroon, cocoa production in Ghana)

• Peer Reviewer and Supervision. 5 projects (transmission system reinforcement in Rwanda, transmission rehabilitation in Haiti, natural gas extraction and export in Mozambique, scaling grid-connected solar PVs in Burkina Faso, and utility-scale wind project in Cape Verde)

Professional experience*

June 2018 – February 2021,  Senior investment analyst & transaction advisor, African Development Bank, Ivory Coast            

• Analyse and structured PPP-energy project financial models for senior loan origination

• Provide advisory services for financing PPP-energy sector projects during the business development phase, including contribution to management briefs, recommendations and guidance to complete sector study and technical and project structuring notes for sustainable business solutions

• Review key project energy contracts and documents (EPC, 0&M, concession, PPAs, LTAs, term sheet) and financial cashflow statements to determine projects’ commercial viability and bankability

• Conduct sensitivity and scenario analyses of critical project parameters and interpreted results consistent with the bank’s credit risk policy and lending guidelines, to achieve sustainable risk sharing among all parties

• Support investment officers to optimize financial structures; extract/test negotiation instruments from financial models (during term sheet negotiations) and compute tariff impacts using project finance models (during PPA negotiations)

• Provide input on project appraisal documents related to financials, economic impacts and risks

• Represent investment modelling team at project appraisal missions (sponsor meetings, country meetings, due diligence, internal and external meetings with project appraisal team and stakeholders)

• Develop economic models to determine project impacts on electric utility, consumers, government budget, environment etc.

2008 – 2015, Economist, JDI, Queen’s University & CRI Canada, Canada                     

• Developed and structured financial and economic models for appraisal of PPP-structured infrastructure projects (thermal and renewable electricity generation, road transportation); provided input and data from own analysis (e.g., cost benchmarking, levelised energy cost/tariff, unreliable electricity coping cost estimates, capacity and energy calculations from power system analysis etc.)

• Developed user-friendly energy policy evaluation models to determine optimum level of PPA tariff for IPP investments and estimate full range of electric utility impacts from transmission line rehabilitation

• Provided back-office technical support to Queen’s University modelling team at AfDB Tunis

• Engaged with a team of professionals to construct financial, risk, economic and stakeholder impact assessment excel spreadsheet models for project evaluation (electricity generation, road transport)

• Delivered lectures (theoretical and hands-on labs) to project officers/executives on constructing and analysing PPP project finance models (15+ programs delivered to DFI employees including at USAID, IDB, IsDB, AfDB, and public service employees across the Global South. Subjects included financial and risk appraisal of PPP investments in electricity generation and transmission line projects, valuation and integration of projects’ economic and distributive impacts (e.g., consumer, labour, electric utility, gov't budget, and local and global environment)

• Developed a general equilibrium model to estimate economic cost of foreign exchange and shadow price of non-tradables for economic analysis of projects (currently used by DFIs)

(*) The professional experience excludes cumulative five (5) years of cumulative teaching experience. The teaching portfolio included BSc level courses (Microeconomics, Macroeconomics, Statistics, Intermediate Macroeconomics, and Computer Applications in Business and Economics), MSc level courses (Project Finance & Risk Management, and Microeconomics), Ph.D. level courses (Advanced Microeconomics, Advanced Public Finance, and Advanced Capital Budgeting), and lectureship on 15+ capacity building training on Investment Appraisal (Azerbaijan, Jordan, Haiti, Ivory-Coast, South Africa, Canada etc).

Research experience [Link]

2015-2018, Postdoctoral Fellow, Economics, Queen's University, Canada

2010-2015, Ph.D., Economics, University of Birmingham, United Kingdom

Supervisors and examiners: Richard Green (Imperial College London, UK), David Maddison (University of Birmingham, UK), Daniel Ralph (University of Cambridge, UK) and Matthew Cole (University of Birmingham, UK) 

Presentations: University of Regina, Canada; University of Ottawa, Canada (May 2018, June 2016), George Washington University, USA (March 2014, October 2011), University of Birmingham, UK; University of Nottingham, UK (December 2013, December 2012)