Panel 1
Jean Monson
Project finance and ESG finance, MUFG Bank
Jean Monson, based in Singapore, joined MUFG in 2019 and, as a member of the Project Finance and ESG Finance teams, focuses on the origination and execution of project finance lending and advisory in the renewable and infrastructure sectors, and ESG Finance. A UK-qualified lawyer and investment banker, Monson has advised clients in the UK and the Asia Pacific regions over the last 14 years and has executed financing transactions in the international debt capital markets (both loans and bonds) and numerous award-winning transactions in project finance and ESG.
Prior to MUFG, Monson was a debt originator at Barclays Capital.
Sajal Kishore
Senior director, head of Asia-Pacific infrastructure & project finance ratings, Fitch Ratings
Sajal Kishore heads Fitch’s Infrastructure & Project Finance ratings coverage across the Asia-Pacific from the Singapore office. His team is responsible for credit ratings for issuers including owners of airports, toll roads, ports, rail infrastructure, power plants, oil and gas facilities, renewable assets or Public Private Partnership. He has 20 years’ experience covering ratings, research and advising and managing corporate customers across a diverse range of industries and sectors.
Kishore joined Fitch in Sydney in 2007 and, before taking up his current position, was head of Energy & Utility ratings for South & South-East Asia.
Santosh Janakiram
Partner, head of projects, Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas
Santosh Janakiram has acted on a number of landmark transactions, including advising the Indian Lenders on the restructuring of the Dabhol Power Project and advising the syndicate of lenders including State Bank of India, International Finance Corporation, Development Bank and other national and international financial agencies in the 4000 MW Mundra Ultra-mega Power Project, which is the first project to be financed by offshore lenders post Dabhol.
He has also advised the Adani Group in relation to its Carmicheal Coal (Mine, Rail and Port) project in Queensland, Australia and on several renewable projects. Janakiram also advised on various trade finance transactions including on the underlying documents.
Anupam Misra
Head, Group Corporate Finance, Adani Group
Anupam Misra heads Group Corporate Finance for Adani Group with additional responsibility for M&A in the company’s Energy Vertical. He has been instrumental in the capital management journey of the Adani Portfolio Verticals including capital market transactions and strategic private market transactions. Recent transactions include the US$10.5bn acquisition of the Holcim India portfolio, and raising US$1.35bn through a “revolving” construction facility for the 1,690 MW Hybrid renewable projects of AGEL.
He has extensive experience in investment banking with a focus on the infrastructure sector having worked in organisations such as Macquarie Capital, Ernst & Young and SBI Capital Markets.
Anita Karnik
Vice president, Project Advisory & Structured Finance, SBI Capital Markets
Anita Karnik is a vice president in the investment banking arm of the State Bank of India. She has 16 years of professional experience, mainly focused on the power sector. She has arranged financing for utility scale power projects including thermal, hydro, wind, solar & transmission projects.
Karnik is now leading the multilateral and DFI financing practice, arranging and managing lines of credit from the World Bank, KfW, EIB, AFD and others for deployment in Renewable Energy as well as ESG oriented projects.
Kailash Vaswani
President- Finance, ReNew Power
Kailash Vaswani joined ReNew in 2011 as a founding member to help put the business plan in place and enable ReNew with its first round of capital raising from Goldman Sachs. Over the last 10 years he has successfully led all capital raising for ReNew on the debt and equity side and has raised cumulative capital of more than US$10bn for the company. He is responsible for all fund raising and evaluation of M&A opportunities.
Vaswani has over 15 years of experience in transaction structuring, negotiations, strategic analysis and corporate finance and has worked in financial markets since 2001, starting his career as a research analyst at CRISIL before moving to Morgan Stanley into a fixed income research role.
Panel 2
Colin Chen
Head ESG Finance, Asia Pacific, MUFG Bank
Colin Chen, based in Singapore, became head of ESG Finance, Asia Pacific, for MUFG Bank in April 2021. Since taking on this role, he has built upon and deepened MUFG’s ESG presence in the region, establishing the bank as a centre of excellence for green financing.
Chen joined MUFG Bank in 2000 and has been involved in structured finance for over 30 years. Prior to his current appointment, he was head of MUFG’s Structured Finance, Asian Investment Banking Division, responsible for project finance, real estate and asset finance for the Asia and Oceania region. Under his leadership, MUFG has consistently been ranked as one of the top project finance lenders in APAC.
Sajal Kishore
Senior director, head of Asia-Pacific infrastructure & project finance ratings, Fitch Ratings
Sajal Kishore heads Fitch’s Infrastructure & Project Finance ratings coverage across the Asia-Pacific from the Singapore office. His team is responsible for credit ratings for issuers including owners of airports, toll roads, ports, rail infrastructure, power plants, oil and gas facilities, renewable assets or Public Private Partnership. He has 20 years’ experience covering ratings, research and advising and managing corporate customers across a diverse range of industries and sectors.
Kishore joined Fitch in Sydney in 2007 and, before taking up his current position, was head of Energy & Utility ratings for South & South-East Asia.
Ramanuj Kumar
Partner, Projects and Infrastructure Projects, Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas
Ramanuj Kumar is a partner in the Projects and Infrastructure Projects team at Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas, based in New Delhi, India, and has more than 15 years of extensive experience in the projects and banking & finance practice. He has also worked with International Finance Corporation (IFC) on secondment and Clifford Chance in London.
His qualifications include the license to practice in India and he has been admitted to the New York Bar.
Kapil Mahesh
New Energy Initiatives, Reliance Group
Kapil Mahesh leads renewable energy and green hydrogen development at New Energy Initiatives of Reliance Group, where he is responsible for developing and implementing strategy, solar manufacturing and PV power plant execution and electrolyser selection for the hydrogen ecosystem. Prior to this he was CEO at Hinduja Renewables and led the Hinduja Group initiatives in the renewable domain.
Mahesh has more than 17 years of experience in Renewable Energy and Sustainability. He has been involved in the design and implementation of over 2,000 MW of solar farms and rooftop installations in USA, Germany and India.
Dr Y B K Reddy
Additional general manager, Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI)
Dr Reddy currently works as AGM (Solar) and head, technical department at SECI, taking care of the technical aspects of all types of solar PV systems, solar projects with storage, solar-wind hybrid projects, innovative renewable energy projects. He has wide experience in Solar Photovoltaics in both technical and commercial areas.
Before joining SECI he worked at Sujana Energy, Hyderabad as technical head, Moser Baer India, Greater Noida as R&D Manager, National University of Singapore and IIT Chennai as post-doctoral researcher. He has published more than 20 research publications and has been granted with two patents.
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