Finance and funding - Biographies

David Craig, Associate Director, Remewable Energy, Lloyds Banking Group

David has over 9 years experience working in the Energy / Corporate Finance sectors having spent more than 4 years working in PwC's Energy & Utilities advisory team. Since joining the Bank’s Energy & Environmental Finance team in January 2005 he has worked on a large number of renewable energy transactions on a global basis. As a core team member with an established and wide ranging transaction history covering wind (on and offshore), solar (PV and thermal), biofuels, landfill gas and conventional fossil fuel he has both assisted and led teams in all transaction steps including; origination, structuring, credit assessment, due diligence, documentation negotiation and syndication at MLA level primarily across Western Europe. Deals closed to date have covered an extensive capital structure, including; Senior, Junior, Corporate, Acquisition and Equity Bridge Facilities. As such, this enables him to actively develop and apply financing structures to various circumstances. He graduated in Banking and International Finance from Cass Business School, London and is a CFA charter holder.

Dr Jeanie Cruickshank - Head of Energy Innovation, Department of Energy and Climate Change

Jeanie Cruickshank heads the Energy Innovation team in the Department of Energy and Climate Change, which reports to DECC's Chief Scientific Adviser, Prof David MacKay. The team's mission is that energy innovation happens, that promising technologies reach the market and that the public sector energy innovation landscape (Research Councils, Energy Technology Institute, Carbon Trust, Technology Strategy Board) joins up. The team is responsible for delivering the £400m Environmental Transformation Fund and the £155m green stimulus money awarded to DECC in Budget 2009 for low carbon technologies. It also works at EU level on the Strategic Energy Technologies Plan, and the EU Framework Programme for R&D. The team leads on hydrogen and fuel cell technologies, and until recently on wave and tidal technologies. Prior to joining the Civil Service, where she has worked in a number of Government Departments, Jeanie completed a PhD at the Social and Applied Psychology Unit in Sheffield.

Tony Lesowiec - Practice Leader, Pera Innovation Ltd

Tony Lesowiec is a Practice Leader within the UK Research Institutes at Pera , the part of the business who has helped over 100 UK companies in accessing over £200 million of funding in the last decade for new product development. His team has been involved in developing a range of cutting-edge technical and commercial solutions for clients covering a range of sectors including renewable energy, energy management, environmental technologies, electronics, materials, and sustainable manufacturing. Tony has been at Pera for over 15 years, progressing within the organisation from delivering and managing R&D projects, to his current role with full P&L responsibilities for his business. He has personally secured over of £5M of development funding for clients, and is one of Pera’s most successful fund raisers. Tony graduated with an Honours Degree in Applied Chemistry and, prior to joining Pera, Tony worked for 3M and Fuchs Lubricants.

Mike O'Neill - CEO, Element Power

Mike O'Neill joined Hudson Clean Energy Partners in August 2008 to establish and head up Element Power. Mike has been working in the renewable energy sector since 1994. During the 14 years before starting Element Power, he was a key part of the management team of Renewable Energy Systems Limited (RES), where he helped direct the company from a small UK developer into a leading international renewable energy developer, builder, and IPP. RES has been responsible for developing and building thousands of MW of wind energy in numerous countries and has an extensive development pipeline. A chartered accountant by background, Mike transitioned from Group Finance Director to Commercial Director of RES, where he was responsible for all of RES's activities outside of North America. Mike also sat on the North American Board and RES Group Board. Mike gained his ACA qualification training with Spicer & Oppenheim in England. Prior to that he gained an Honours Degree in Accounting and Finance from Brighton University.

Adrian Scholtz - Director, KPMG Corporate Finance

Adrian qualified as a chartered accountant with PwC, he is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales. He also has a joint honours degree in European Studies and German from the University of Manchester.

Adrian has focused on the Renewable Energy sector over the past 8 years. He has advised on transactions with a market value exceeding €1billion. Highlights include: Adviser to the club lenders of NEG Micon prior to the merger with Vestas, Raising equity and debt for 10 offshore wind projects across the UK, Ireland and Germany. Clients included Airtricity, RWE and Warwick Energy.

He has also advicsed RWE on their £400m Zephyr transaction, the largest renewables projects transaction in the UK at the time. This involved the first project financing of an offshore wind project.

Other advisory roles include 3i Infrastructure on their investment in renewables developer Electrawinds, the largest renewables transaction in Belgium at the time. The company had wind and biomass projects in development and operation across several countries, structuring and negotiating a variety of non-recourse debt facilities for renewables project developers. Structures included umbrella debt facilities and club lender arrangements and raising development equity for a variety of renewables project developers.

Adrian also provides strategic and consulting services for major energy companies including: Scottish Power, RWE, Statkraft, BG Group and Centrica, public sector clients. London Energy Partnership, DEFRA, (formerly) DTI, South West Regional Development Agency and business case reports for new entrants to the sector: Goldman Sachs, HG Capital, Alliance and Leicester, Vodafone, IKEA, DHL, Unilever, ProLogis, Toyota, Kingfisher.

In addition, Adrian has led a wind power advisory company, originating new renewable energy projects in a number of European countries, securing all construction permits required, and successfully constructing 4 wind projects in the UK.

Richard Simon-Lewis - Senior Director, Project Finance Division, Lloyds Banking Group

Richard is a senior project financier with over 20 years experience in leading specialised units in sourcing and executing transactions at MLA level across the power, utilities and infrastructure sectors at ‘Global Top 5’ project finance institutions. Richard has been involved in financing low carbon/renewable projects since the mid-1990s across various European markets together with a concurrent mandate across EMEA that encompassed more conventional gas-fired, clean coal and nuclear projects/technologies. In his previous role as Director and Head of Energy & Utilities PF at Lloyds TSB, he was responsible for building a £1bn+ energy and utilities portfolio taking the lead on a number of high profile MLA transactions including the Bank’s 1st onshore wind deal (Scoutmoor), the Bank’s 1st offshore wind deal (Project Boreas including Facility Agent, Security Trustee, Account Bank roles) etc. He was one of the principals involved in securing Partner Bank status for LBG in the UK Renewable Financing Programme with the EIB in 2009 and was the Bank’s representative on the related DECC EIB Intermediated Lending Working Group. More recently, Richard has represented LBG in discussions with DECC on financing biomass as a precursor to the current biomass grandfathering consultation process. Transaction highlights during 2009/10 include acting as lead director on MLA transactions including the Euros 65m solar portfolio financing in Spain for First Reserve, the £340m, 270MW Project Boreas offshore wind transaction (voted PFI Offshore Wind Deal of the Year for 2009) with Centrica and TCW, and £35m Bickerfen & Walkway onshore wind financing for EdF (including Facility Agent, Account Bank & Security Trustee roles). Additional experience included Head of EMEA Project Finance at Abbey, being responsible for the development of Abbey’s PF energy and renewable franchise in Europe and the Middle East. He was also seconded into CGE (a 10GW IPP consolidator) in which both Abbey and Lloyds TSB were equity investors during the period of systemic risk post NETA. Prior to his position at Abbey, Richard was Head of Infrastructure and PFI/PPP at Credit Lyonnais which included various thermal power MLA financings. Richard is a regular conference speaker with recent engagements including the WEF Energy Infrastructure Conference and the BWEA Annual Renewable Energy conference. Richard has a BSC (Hons) in Financial Services (First Class) from UMIST and is ACIB and SFA Corporate Finance qualified.

William Young - Senior Wind Analyst, Bloomberg New Energy Finance

William Young leads the Wind Insight Team at Bloomberg New Energy Finance. He joined New Energy Finance in 2004 and was instrumental in launching the company's Insight services in 2007 of which wind and solar were the first. He now leads a team of 8 researchers and analysts responsible for market coverage and deep understanding of the direction of the industry and develops new tools to support clients' decision making.

As part of his role William has led multiple consulting projects for private equity and infrastructure investors, turbine manufacturers and oil majors, to address specific challenges and questions they face in understanding the market, their positioning and their tactical and strategic choices.

He is a member of the European Wind Energy Association's Finance Advisory Board and regularly presents at industry events.

Prior to New Energy Finance William read Modern History at Oxford University.