Snigdha has a decade and a half of experience in magic circle law firms in London and Singapore and then in-house in investments, infrastructure and clean energy based in Singapore working across all major APAC markets. She is currently working as Associate General Counsel, APAC at Aquila Clean Energy based in Singapore which invests and develops various solar, wind and BESS projects across mature APAC markets. She is dual- qualified in UK and India. She has also completed an MBA (part time- graduated 2020) from National University of Singapore specialising in Finance. All of this makes her super interested in the financing aspects of the energy transition which makes organising and introducing this event all the more relevant.

Alex Liam is currently the Senior Legal Counsel for the Sustainable Metal Cloud group of companies and manages its legal matters globally. A dual-qualified (Singapore and Australia) lawyer with several years of experience in corporate and commercial law, he has also led legal teams at established conglomerates Banyan Tree and YTL Power, specializing in areas such as sustainability law, finance, M&A and data privacy. He has also received multiple awards for his work over the past decade. Bearing a deep interest in the budding areas of green and blended finance, he is thrilled to be moderating this panel.

Jackie Surtani is the Regional Director and Head of Singapore Office, Asian Development Bank.

Mr. Surtani leads efforts to deepen cooperation between ADB and the Government of Singapore and the financial sector, as well as explore opportunities for private and public sector projects across the region with a strong focus on climate action.

Prior to this appointment, Mr. Surtani was Director of Infrastructure Finance at ADB’s Private Sector Operation Department covering East Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Pacific. His team successfully closed milestone projects including investments in broadband satellites regionwide, renewable power in Indonesia, cross-border renewable energy in Lao People’s Democratic Republic and Vietnam, as well as investments in electric transport and charging infrastructure.

Prior to re-joining ADB in 2017, Jackie was Regional Chief Risk Officer of the Asian commercial finance unit at Siemens Financial Services. He has also held several senior positions in Project Finance teams across Chase Manhattan Bank (now JP Morgan), Credit Suisse, and headed KBC Bank’s Asian Project Finance business in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Sydney from inception for 14 years.

Jackie has over 33 years of experience in Asian infrastructure lending and advisory. He has strong sector and regional knowledge across the entire energy chain, as well as in infrastructure, and telecommunications. A citizen of the United Kingdom, he obtained his Bachelor of Science Degree in Business Finance and Economics from the University of East Anglia in 1988 with a First-Class Honors degree. He obtained his Master of Philosophy Degree in Management Studies from the University of Oxford in 1990.

John leads Linklaters’ Asia Energy and Infrastructure team. The Linklaters team is recognised by clients and directories as one of the leaders in the market, in particular for low-carbon / renewables project development, project financing and sector M&A.   He is recognised in Chambers (Band 1) and Legal 500 as a leader in his field, with clients and peers commenting that ‘he’s very commercial and brings senior-level advisory experience to a matter’ and that he ‘has an outstanding reputation for project finance.

Joel is a private investment funds lawyer with close to 20 years of experience in top-tier investment funds practices in London and Singapore. He has extensive experience advising sponsors in Asia on the establishment of private investment funds across various asset classes and jurisdictions, with a particular focus on private equity, private credit, venture capital, real estate, infrastructure, hedge and special situations funds. Joel has worked on various non-traditional private investment fund setups such as platform structures, hybrid funds, club deals and open-ended illiquid funds. He has also advised institutional and non-institutional LPs from Asia, Europe and the US, including sovereign wealth funds, financial institutions, pension funds, corporations, family offices and fund of funds, on their investments into private funds.