The combination of Erik’s passion for the natural environment and his deep experience in large-scale, long-term investments in emerging markets, led to the founding of OFC.Erik has over 20 years of responsibility for organic and inorganic growth investments in infrastructure sectors in emerging markets for various entities, with a cumulative project value in excess of US$ 15 billion.
Featured as one of 10 people in the 2018 edition of Africa Power Elites. Prior to founding OFC, Erik was part of the investment team at Climate Fund Managers. He served as Senior Transaction Advisor for U.S. Government’s Power Africa initiative, and held the positions of Head of Energy at Harith General Partners (in excess of USD 3 billion in funds under management), as well as the Head of Business Development at Cennergi (joint venture between Tata Power and Exxaro resources).
He has also provided management and strategy consulting services to various entities including Sasol, Standard Bank, General Electric, Development Bank of Southern Africa, the U.S. Trade and Development Agency, Royal Bafokeng Holdings, Deloitte, Tetra Tech (a NASDAQ listed company), ESBi (Irish utility) and EnBW (German utility).
Jackie Proudfoot is a Chartered Accountant CA(SA) who prior to joining the OFC team was an audit Partner at JPA based in Johannesburg. During her twenty-year audit career, Jackie specialised in the audits of financial services providers and retirement funds, whilst providing a range of business consulting and taxation services to clients.
Jackie brings to the OFC finance table deep operational skill in the application of frameworks and governance models. This ensures that financial compliance is maintained and all stakeholders benefit making it possible to maximise OFC’s commitment to environmental sustainability.Being part of the OFC team fills Jackie with a great sense of pride in playing a role in conservation activities that will provide future generations with access to our shared environmental heritage.
Amit oversees Private Credit at Climate Fund Managers (CFM) where he previously served as Head of Asset Management since 2019. Prior to joining CFM, Amit was an Executive at the Standard Bank Group and operated within the Corporate and Investment Banking team overseeing African operations as well overseeing Standard Bank’s Brexit strategy. He has 20 years of experience in Emerging Markets and Investment Banking with a proven track record ranging within the FMCG, mining, energy and infrastructure sectors. Prior to Standard Bank, Amit was the Chief Financial Officer at the Namibia Power Corporation. In addition to serving on various Boards, Amit was also Chairman of the Allegrow Fund which is the largest private equity fund in Namibia by committed capital.
Amit holds a degree in Accounting from the University of South Africa, an Honours degree in Accounting from the University of Natal, AMP with the University of Stellenbosch and is registered with South African Institute of Chartered Accountants.
Harald has more than 30 years of experience in macro-policy advisory and financial risk management.
He worked at the IMF and since 2008 played an important role in building-up TCX, a global initiative to hedge currency risk and make development finance and low-income borrowers more risk resilient. Harald is a recognized thought leader and innovator in development finance, emphasizing that environmental, social- and financial sustainability and fairness are critical to achieve long term development objectives.
OFC’s contributions to sovereign debt financing based on innovation in financial risk sharing, and the effective application of modern impact monitoring technologies will allow global investors to engage in the protection of ocean environments, biodiversity, and create sustainable income opportunities for local communities.
Kevin Anderson is the Global Head of Strategic Initiatives at Climate Fund Managers (CFM) with over 17 years’ experience in the banking and climate finance sectors. Kevin has been a member of CFM since inception, and he assisted in setting up the Climate Investor One and Climate Investor Two funds. During his career he built a vast network of relationships in the emerging markets infrastructure industry, which enables him to originate deal flow and work closely with project developers and other counterparties.
His current focus within CFM is towards the green hydrogen and carbon credit sectors. Before joining CFM, he was a consultant to various renewable energy companies, that include companies such as SkyPower Global (Canada) and First Solar (United States) and he actively supported the development and funding of projects in emerging markets. He also worked for Rand Merchant Bank in South Africa. Kevin holds an MBA from the University of Stellenbosch Business School.
Climate Investor Two (CI2) is an innovative blended finance facility focused on water, oceans and sanitation, managed by Climate Fund Managers (CFM) – the leading climate-centric investment firm. CI2 reached its second close at USD 855 million in December 2022 and has a target size of USD 1 billion. CFM designs and deploys cutting-edge blended finance funds at scale and at pace, working in partnership to co-develop, construct and own sustainable infrastructure solutions. Through its innovative model, CFM has created a blueprint for a new generation of climate financiers, whose collective impact can end the climate crisis. CFM currently manages two emerging market infrastructure funds: Climate Investor One (CI1), an $850m fund focused on renewable energy and Climate Investor Two (CI2). With offices in The Hague, Cape Town and Singapore, CFM is established as a joint venture between the Dutch development bank, FMO, and Sanlam InfraWorks – part of the Sanlam Group of South Africa.
The water, sanitation and oceans sectors are fundamental to human life and economic development and the medium through which the effects of climate change will be most felt on earth. CI2 provides expertise, technology, and financing to infrastructure projects in CFM’s focus markets of Latin America, Asia and Africa by mobilizing private sector financing at scale, supported by catalytic public sector donor funding.Formed in partnership with Dutch Fund for Climate and Development (DFCD) and the European Commission (EC), CI2 uses the same blended finance structure as the firm’s inaugural blended finance fund Climate Investor One (CI1). This structure simplifies the manner in which capital is deployed and reduces complexity by delivering an innovative “whole-of-life” solution that provides a single financing source for each of the respective development, construction, and operational phases of a project’s lifecycle. Through its CI2 Development Fund, CI2 provides early-stage project development services and financing. Through its CI2 Construction Equity Fund, CI2 provides equity finance that accelerates project construction. With this approach, CI2 is designed to implement more projects faster, delivering positive environmental and social impact sooner.
The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is the leading global environmental authority that sets the global environmental agenda, promotes the coherent implementation of the environmental dimension of sustainable development within the United Nations system, and serves as an authoritative advocate for the global environment.
UNEP’s work includes assessing global, regional and national environmental conditions and trends; developing international and national environmental instruments; and strengthening institutions for the wise management of the environment.
UNEP’s work is categorised into seven broad thematic areas: climate change, disasters and conflicts, ecosystem management, environmental governance, chemicals and waste, resource efficiency, and environment under review. In all of our work, we maintain our overarching commitment to sustainability.
CI works to spotlight and secure the critical benefits that nature provides to humanity. Conservation International applies a “whole ocean” approach by designing solutions that address issues in the context of the entire system so that multiple benefits can be achieved and unintended negative consequences can be avoided.
CI balances the many ways people interact with nature, including food production, economic development, community involvement and traditional knowledge sharing. This approach engages partners across all levels — from individual fishers to coastal communities to national governments — integrates science with traditional approaches, and acknowledges the connection between ecosystems and economics.
Since its inception, CI has helped to protect more than 6 million square kilometres of land and sea across more than 70 countries. CI has offices in 29 countries and 2,000 partners worldwide globally.
Prime Africa is as a specialist provider of environmental and resource economic services, offering an range of service including specialist financial and economic analysis, market intelligence and strategic and technical planning. The company has extensive expertise in costal and marine environments and has performed work for various governments and public entities focussing on managing marine protected areas to optimize economic benefits and to forecast effects of climate change.
Prime Africa has partnered with UN Environment Programme (UNEP) on a large number of studies in seven African countries that evaluated ecological assets for policy and investment development purposes. It has also assisted countries with developing investment opportunities for ecosystem-based enterprises, under contract to the Green Climate Fund (GCF). Over the past 10 years, Prime Over the past 10 years, Prime Africa has performed over 200 significant studies spanning various aspects of resource economics.
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