The Finadvice Group is pleased to announce the creation of a Senior Advisory Council (“SAC”) whose purpose will be to provide strategic advisory support to the management of Finadvice as well as its clients regarding industry and regulatory trends, further enhance Finadvice’s visibility across the Energy & Utilities sector and convey the Pan-European, and increasingly global, nature of its business.
The SAC members are appointed among former/senior industry executives, policymakers, regulators, executives of infrastructure funds, large sector lenders, private equity companies with a strong focus on the energy sector in one or more of the Finadvice core markets.
The founding SAC members are:
- Cyril Roger-Lacan, the CEO and one of the founders of Tilia, a Franco-German services, consulting and co-development company and cooperation partner of Finadvice. Tilia is the partner of cities, communities, public and private utilities, industrial businesses and co-investors who seek to develop innovative projects and improve their investments and operations in the fields of energy, water and environmental services. In this capacity, it has developed several first-of-a-kind European projects in those fields. Prior to the creation of Tilia, Mr. Roger-Lacan was a senior executive with the Veolia group, also a long-standing client of Finadvice. After making the first environmental PPP in China, he held senior international positions and was CEO of Veolia Water Europe for 8 years. He also is a member of the French Conseil d’Etat, France’s highest regulatory body, and in this capacity, held senior positions in the public service. Mr Roger-Lacan holds diplomas from ENA, ENS, Sciences Po and Sorbonne including an agrégation in economics and social sciences. As an expert, he is a regular contributor to policy making, both at the French and European level and speaks fluent French, English, German and Spanish.
- Gianni Operto, a veteran utility and cleantech expert, based out of Zurich and currently acting as the President of AEE Suisse, the Industry Association of Renewables and Efficiency Industries in Switzerland and as a Non-Executive board member at several companies in Germany and Switzerland. Formerly, Mr. Operto was a private equity investor at Good Energies, a venture capitalist at Emerald Technology Ventures, the President and CEO of EWZ, the Zurich municipal electric utility and a long-standing client of Finadvice and held various senior positions with worldwide responsibility at ABB Power Generation. Mr. Operto is a graduate (MS Mech. Eng.) of the ETH Zurich and has completed executive education at LBS. He speaks four languages fluently.
- Nicola De Sanctis, an accomplished senior executive in the energy and utilities sector in Italy, based out of Milan and Bari and currently acting as the Vice-Chairman, CEO and General Manager of Acquedotto Pugliese, the largest water business in Italy and as a Non-executive Chairman at Delos Power, the Management Company of the infrastructure fund TAGES HELIOS, the third largest photovoltaic player in Italy by assets. Formerly, Mr. De Sanctis was the Chairman and CEO of E.On Italia, the CEO of IREN (the municipally-owned and publicly-listed utility in the North-West of Italy), the CEO of Edison Energie Speciali (the renewable energy business of the Edf/Edison group in Italy), the CEO of the Edison gas business, a Managing Director of Waste Management Italia and held various senior positions at Agusta (helicopters) and Baxter (pharmaceuticals). Mr. De Sanctis is a graduate (MS in Nuclear Eng.) with honors of the University of Pisa and holds an MBA from INSEAD in Fontainebleau (France).
Mr. Hans Poser, one of the Founders and a Managing Director at Finadvice AG in Zurich, commented: “We are honored to announce the creation of our SAC with such senior members. I have been working with both Cyril and Gianni for roughly twenty years on many projects and in different markets. We as a team look forward to the added value that the Senior Advisory Council will bring to our group.”
Mr. Pier Paolo Raimondi, the Managing Partner at Finadvice Mediterranean, added: “I am delighted that two seasoned professionals of the caliber and of the moral fabric of Gianni and Nicola have accepted to join our Senior Advisory Council. I am also convinced that today´s announcement will pave the way for additional recruits at Senior Advisory Council level in some of the other Finadvice core markets.”
About Finadvice
Finadvice is a corporate finance advisory group with a twenty-year track-record in delivering financial, strategic and transaction-related advisory services to energy and utilities companies as well as to financial and institutional investors across Europe and beyond. Finadvice has advised on more than 430 transactions for a combined amount slightly short of € 50 billion over its twenty-year history.
Finadvice operates from its offices in Zürich (covering also the Mediterranean region), Linz, Düsseldorf, Warsaw and Prag (covering the broader Eastern European region) and from its representative offices in Vienna and Madurai (Tamil Nadu, India). Each office is owned and operated by local management.
Contact
Finadvice AG
Felix ab Egg
Soodstrasse 55, 8134 Adliswil, Switzerland
Phone +41 43 377 1000, Fax + 49 321 212 500 51, f.ab.egg@finadvice.ch