Investment Forum | London // Past speakers include

John is Director in SMBC specialising in data centre financing. John’s focus is providing funding to the DC sector across EMEA and transactions to date include those to retail, wholesale and cloud data centre operators as well as to IT managed service providers. John has been operating in this sector for eight years joining SMBC from RBS in 2018.

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Marija Simpraga is responsible for LGIM’s view formation and thought leadership on

infrastructure investment opportunities, as well as contributing to fund strategy and the

development of new investment products. Marija Simpraga joined LGIM in 2017 from

Bloomberg. Marija graduated with an MSc from London School of Economics and was

awarded CFA charter in 2016.

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Gulfraz has a distinguished track record advising communications operators and infrastructure providers on strategy, mergers and acquisitions, capital raising and other investment banking business. Over a career spanning 24 years, he has accumulated deep and diverse experience across markets, sub sectors and with a multitude of clients and capital providers. He has advised on hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of advisory deals and successfully executed over $100 billion of strategic capital raising for large corporates and investors. Today, Gulfraz’s major clients are global, Western European and emerging markets large-cap telecom operators. Gulfraz has held offices in London, New York, Singapore and Dubai.

Gulfraz holds a Masters in Finance from London Business School and a BSc with first class honours in Mathematics with Computer Science from University College London.

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Chris joined OMERS Infrastructure in London in June 2023 and leads investment efforts in digital infrastructure in Europe. He also works closely with asset management colleagues to oversee digital infrastructure investments.

Prior to joining OMERS, Chris was Senior Investment Director and head of digital infrastructure at Amber Infrastructure, where he led multiple investments across a range of digital infrastructure subsectors, also representing Amber on portfolio company boards.

Before Amber, he worked as an investment banker at Arma Partners, advising clients on digital infrastructure transactions across Europe, and as an equity research analyst at Merrill Lynch, covering the European telecoms sector. Chris started his career with PwC in London, working across assurance and consulting.

Chris holds a Master of Chemistry from the University of Oxford and a Masters in Finance from London Business School. He is also a Chartered Accountant (FCA, Institute of Chartered Accountants of England and Wales).

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Sebastien Bonneau, a Partner at Eversheds Sutherland and the Global co-head of Digital Infrastructure, leads a team that since his arrival at the firm in February 2022 clinched the ‘Law Firm of the Year – Digital Infrastructure‘ award in 2023 at the Platform Global congress, and the ‘2024 Advisory Team of the Year’ award at the Tech Capital International Finance Forum in London. Sebastien also sits on the Global TMT Leadership board of the firm.

With over 20 years of experience, he has a strong reputation in Europe and the US for advising on international M&A, private equity, and joint-venture transactions across various sectors.

Sebastien is one of the few leading lawyers with expertise in the data center sector since 2006, representing numerous prime data center owners, operators, funders, developers, and customers. He also possesses substantial experience in advising clients in the health care, industrial gases, real estate, tech, start-ups and TMT sectors.

As a Solicitor of England and Wales and an Avocat au Barreau de Paris, he brings a unique perspective and deep understanding of the legal and business challenges faced by his clients in different jurisdictions. As an entrepreneur and MBA graduate, he grasps the complexities of making the right business decisions.

Recognized as a recommended individual in Venture Capital – London by Legal500 (2024), Sebastien has also been ranked as ‘Recommended’ or ‘Highly Recommended’ in M&A and Corporate Venture (2019, 2020, 2021) by Leaders League. He has received both ‘Rising Team’ (2017) and ‘Rising Star’ (2013) Legal Awards from Leaders League.

Since joining Eversheds Sutherland in London in February 2022, Sebastien has been fully focused on developing clients and a business unit around data center and digital infrastructure.

Previously, Sebastien created and developed for 10 years a legal and management consulting firm with a team of 25+ and present in the US, the UK, France, and Hong Kong, and was trained as a corporate finance and real estate lawyer in international law firms in Paris in which he practiced by 11 years.

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Mina Janeska, CAIA, FRICS, is an accomplished senior real estate investment executive with extensive experience across the UK, Europe, and Asia Pacific. Currently, she serves as Commercial Director at Global Switch, where she actively supports the Group’s strategic decision-making. Mina has a proven track record in driving commercial strategies and implementing advanced sustainable solutions in complex, evolving environments.

Before joining Global Switch, Mina worked on the Fidelity UK Real Estate Fund, focusing on strategic asset management and integrating ESG considerations into the investment approach. Prior to her tenure at Fidelity, she was an Asset Manager at Cording Real Estate Group (now Edmond de Rothschild REIM), managing portfolios on behalf of pension funds and private equity clients.

Mina is a Fellow of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (FRICS) and a Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA) designation holder. She holds a BSc in Urban Estate Management from the University of Westminster and an MSc in Cognitive and Decision Sciences from University College London.

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Luca is the CEO of Lio DC (www.liodc.com), a Milan-based investment company developing data center projects in Italy in partnership with hyperscalers and colocators.

Lio DC combines under one roof a long-standing real-estate expertise (proprietary pipeline of prime sites, expertise in construction) together with a deep know-how in renewables (photovoltaic, battery storage).

Prior to Lio DC, Luca spent 15+ years in private equity and management consulting. Luca holds an MBA from Harvard Business School.

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Neil has over 23 years’ experience in banking, delivering projects across a range of sectors from mining and metals, through to renewable energy and infrastructure both in Europe and in the Americas. He is a Senior Director in the European Infrastructure Origination department at NORD/LB with a focus on social and digital infrastructure and is responsible for developing these sectors across Europe. More widely, the European SF business is a multi-ward winning franchise at the forefront of structuring bank and investor debt across the transport, renewable energy, and social and digital infrastructure sectors. 

Prior to joining Nord/LB, Neil held positions at Greenwich NatWest and in its later guise RBS. 

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Paul leads CBRE’s European Data Centre Capital Markets team. Paul and his team have worked on a number of the recent high profile data centre deals in Europe and he specialises in preparing complex commercial due diligence reports, coordinating large M&A advisory projects, and executing data centre investment sales & acquisitions / structuring sale and leasebacks.

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Patricia Webber is CEO and Co-Founder of Nevo Capital, a Financial Advisory firm. Specialising in Advisory Project and Acquisition investment in Data Centre Infrastructure, Energy, natural resources and land technology and Aviation. UK CEO of Apollonian in Luxembourg assisting UK and Nordic Family Offices and Asset Managers. A former partner in Swiss Banking Advisory leading British companies to overseas markets in advisory role, and Swiss companies in London. International experience in helping private companies expand overseas.

In recent years, Former Non-Executive Director on the Board MIC and Director of Investor Relations with Tessimo Technologies. Private management of the advisor to of the Ministry of Agriculture and Ministry of Defence. A company Director advising private companies on risk and compliance to engage with winning Specialist in brokerage to Institutional investors.

Patricia takes a strong stance on energy and has spoken at the Data Centre Conference Monaco and at AIM Investment Summit London and was a recent speaker for Financial Times on quantum computing.

Patricia has a Masters of Science Degree in public governance administration, memberships of the Confederation of British Industry, is a Fellow of the RSA and a friend member of the Danish Association .

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Kirsty joined Simmons & Simmons in London from a large international firm where she was head of the UK banking and finance team.  She has over 20 years of experience across the financial services sector focussing on corporate lending and leveraged finance.

Kirsty has extensive experience of working with various international financial institutions, borrowers and sponsors on a broad range of UK-centric and international financing transactions. 

She has a specific sector expertise in the TMT sector, in particular relating to Data Centres and co-heads the Simmons global data centre team.  She has worked on a variety of financing and investment transactions for both lenders and data centre owners/operators over the past 10 years.  Her CV includes all sizes of transactions – from advising on financing for a new build 2.5MW co-location data centre to advising VIRTUS Data Centres, the UK’s leading data centre operator, on its financing needs for its data halls comprising 180MW across a portfolio of UK DC campus sites.

Kirsty leads the VIRTUS Data Centres client team which has recently completed the acquisition of sites at Berlin, Germany to develop its first data centre campus outside of the UK which will deliver a total of over 350 MV.

Kirsty recently led the financing team advising Brookfield Infrastructure on its acquisition of Data4 from AXA IM.  Data4 operates 35 data centres over 6 campuses across continental Europe with 1 GW of secured power. The transaction was winner of Europe Datacentre Deal of the Year at the TMT M&A Awards EMEA 2023. Selected for size, complexity and market impact.

Working in the data centre sector during its rapid growth and acceptance as a mainstream asset class gives her a deep understanding of the financing issues facing both lenders and borrowers.

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Mayank Saraswat is a Senior Associate at Charles River Associates (CRA) Energy Practice in London. With rich experience and knowledge in clean energy and finance, he provides strategic advice and analysis to clients across different verticals of energy transition. He has worked with hyperscalers, investors, and regulators on various aspects of datacenter load growth to develop and implement solutions that address the complex challenges at the nexus of technology, policy and markets.

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Miles Loo Jr., CRE, FRICS, joined Newmark Valuation & Advisory in 2017 in the Downtown Los Angeles office, where he serves as an Executive Vice President and the Global Lead for Newmark Valuation & Advisory’s Data Centers & Life Science group.

Miles is well recognized as the industry’s leading appraiser of data center properties. His experience includes advising private equity funds, institutional investors, large pension funds, Fortune 500 companies, cloud companies and Global IT conglomerates on investments in all types of data centers, including mission critical, disaster recovery data centers, colocation facilities, carrier hotels, internet gateways and life science properties. These assignments have involved data centers owned and/or operated by Fortune 500 companies across numerous industries as well as Uptime Institute Site Certified Tier III and Tier IV facilities; U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) LEED Platinum, Gold and Silver buildings; and state and federal disaster recovery data centers. Miles has led valuations of large individual and portfolio valuations spanning multiple countries across six continents (NA, EMEA, APAC, LATAM and African regions) and has consulted on a number of the world’s largest data centers.

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Siobhán Nagle is a data centre and digital infrastructure real estate specialist having initially joining the sector over 25 years ago. During that time, she has held senior positions at AWS, Equinix, Anglo Irish Bank, PE investor vehicles, Virgin Media and lead the management of global real estate investment funds.

Having worked within a number of sector leaders globally, Siobhan is accomplished in identifying, managing and resolving tensions which can arise traditional real estate investment and the requirements of the digital infrastructure sector. She has earned a reputation for an innovative approach and incisive style in transversing the often-differing constraints of engineering solutions and “the grey” of negotiation with external stakeholders and is particularly regarded for her commercial, pragmatic and solution lead acumen.

She has built and lead teams delivering real estate, permitting, asset and investment management, corporate development, and strategy across EMEA. As an advisor to Government and agencies she brings an in depth and experienced approach to development and stakeholder consultation, PPPs and JVs.

Siobhán is a member of iMasons Women EMEA steering group and is active in a number of data centre and tech groups.

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Colm has over 35 years of industry experience, working with leading global technology companies including Fujitsu & IBM, in semiconductor, corporate real estate, data centre and critical infrastructure positions.

Colm joined JLL’s Data Centre team as a Senior Director in 2020 to manage all corporate data centre requirements. He works with corporate clients, owners and occupiers of data centres, providing strategic advisory and execution to help drive returns, operational efficiency and profitability, and deliver on critical sustainability goals.

Also a member of the TIC council supporting the EU Joint Research Council (JRC) transforming the EU Code of Conduct in to an auditable framework , referenced in the European Taxonomy for Data Centre sustainability reporting

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Svante made a decision 6 years ago after almost 15 years chasing daily P/Ls at various IBs, to take his career in the opposite direction and focus on long term value and impact generation.

Starting the journey at the charity organisation Hand in Hand responsible for creating over 5m jobs for the world's poorest 1Bn, he has subsequently engaged with the water treatment company Pharem and charity Airbnb platform Target Aid. This progression in impact start-ups culminated in assisting in the formation of the AFII working as COO to land material funding to enable a global effort to empower the fixed income market to drive the green transition at speed and scale.

Now the impact journey continues with circular data centers in Scandinavia and industrial buildings in the US.

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As Chief Financial Officer at Yondr, a leading developer, owner and operator of hyperscale data centers, Chester Reid leads on our global financial strategy. Chester has an impressive track record of financial leadership and a deep understanding of the industry, helping to grow Yondr globally and serve extensive client demands across regions.

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Natalie Sinha leads the sustainability strategy and implementation program for UBS Asset Management’s global infrastructure private markets business. The direct infrastructure business invests across Equity, Debt, Energy Storage and is transitioning towards thematic sustainable investing.

Natalie has a background in environmental policy, process, and compliance. Her industry expertise includes data centres, fibre, transport, renewable energy, water, and aviation. Natalie is a Lead Environmental Auditor (ISO14001:2015) and trained Mental Health First Aider (MHFA).

Prior to joining UBS, Natalie worked as a Sustainability Consultant for EVORA Global, developing sustainability strategies for infrastructure investors. She also worked in the Environment team at London City Airport, covering a range of areas including noise mitigation, monitoring and reporting; community engagement; waste; discharge permitting and carbon management.

Natalie started her career at Thames Water, a UK water utility, focusing on Environmental Permitting Regulations compliance. She also worked within their Operational Control Centre, monitoring environmental incidents on the wastewater network, which comprised 350 sewage treatment works, 109,000km of sewers and 4,780 sewage pumping stations.

Natalie is a Cambridge University alumni.

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