Europe-Mozambique Investment Forum: Renewables in Mozambique 2021

Master's degree in Renewable Energies from the University of Beuth, Germany and a degree in Physics from the University of Eduardo Mondlane. He began his career in the energy sector in 2000, having taken over in 2001 the Head of the Solar Energy Section. In 2003 he served as Head of Department for New and Renewable Energy. He was appointed National Director of New and Renewable Energies in 2005, a position he held for 10 years. As National Director of New and Renewable Energies, he assumed several functions in ​​renewable energies, namely as Representative of Southern Africa on the International Board of Directors of REEEP and Representative of Mozambique in the Energy and Efficiency Partnership initiative, promoted by Finland. Dr António Saíde is a university professor with teaching experience at Eduardo Mondlane University, Higher Institute of Science and Technology of Mozambique and Technical University of Mozambique.

Antonio Sánchez-Benedito Gaspar has been the European Union Ambassador to the Republic of Mozambique since September 2018 and was previously the European Union Ambassador to Madagascar since 2014. He began his diplomatic career in 1995 at the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and has since represented Spain in several African countries, such as Libya, Angola, Mozambique, Ethiopia and the Sahel region. He was also director for Africa and an advisor in the Office of the Secretary of State for Cooperation and Latin America. He has academic training in Law, Economics and Business Environment, and speaks 5 languages (Spanish, English, French, German and Portuguese).

 Caroline has more than 18 years’ experience in project management and implementation in the sectors of Renewable Energy, Water and Sanitation, Gender and Governance. She is currently the Sector Lead Renewable Energy and Adaptation Technologies at the AECF.  She previously worked at Tetra Tech (Africa Clean Energy Technical Assistance Facility Programme) where she worked as the Demand Led Facility Lead and Country Manager for Kenya, Somalia and Ghana. Before she worked as Senior Technical Advisor at RTI- Power Africa Off-grid Programme, Regional Programme Manager at Energy 4 Impact, Programme Manager at the Rainforest Alliance and Sector Leader Renewable Energy at SNV-Netherlands Development Organization in Kenya

Her expertise is in decentralized clean energy access, strategy development, programme design and implementation, and policy advocacy. In the last 12 years, she has been on the frontlines providing strategic leadership to Renewable Energy Programmes - working with governments, private companies and renewable energy associations to advance access to decentralized clean energy solutions for cooking and electrification in 10 countries.

Caroline has a deep belief in the role of markets in accelerating access to clean energy and over the years has worked on different models to catalyze market approaches and private sector delivery of off-grid energy access solutions.

Board Member at Energy Regulatory Authority (ARENE), responsible for Legal Affairs and Consumer Protection portfolios.

2014/ 2020: Non-Executive Board Member of the Communications Regulatory Authority - INCM .

2020/2018: Regulatory Affairs Manager at Absa Bank Mozambique.

2018/2017: Legal and Compliance Director at Bayport Financial Services.

2014/2013: Legal Advisor on the Ministerial Committee, created by His Excellency Minister of Industry and Commerce, to assist and guide the implementation of the Competition Regulatory Authority (ARC) and prepare and submit for approval de first operating regulations.

2013/2009: Head of Ethics, Risk and Compliance Division of Vodacom Mozambique (member of Vodafone Group).

Gemma Verhoeven, Regional Manager at EDFI MC - European Development Finance Institutions Management Company. EDFI is the manager of ElectriFI (short for Electrification Financing Initiative), a blended finance facility funded by the EU providing early stage catalytic capital to financially sustainable  initiatives aimed at increasing or improving access to energy in emerging countries.

After finishing her masters degree in international financial business in Amsterdam, Gemma started her career in the financial sector. The majority of this 15+ year period she spend in development finance. At FMO, the Dutch development bank, she worked as Investment Officer in multiple regions and sectors. Her expertise lies with project finance and small scale infrastructure. She lived in Bulgaria for 6 years where she started to work remotely among others for ElectriFI. She currently fulfils the role of Regional manager covering ElectriFI's investments in East Africa and Asia.

Irene co-founded Sunkofa Energy a new mini-grid start-up focusing on development and innovation on operations in Africa. She is the responsible for business development. She worked previously in ENGIE PowerCorner as Business Development and Commercial Manager for 3 years and in ENGIE’s strategy department within the center of expertise in economic modelling and studies, focusing on regulation impact analysis and decentralized solutions. Her expertise lies in business development, economic modelling and analysis as well as decentralized generation with a special focus on energy access. She holds a double degree including a Master of Science (MSc) of Sustainable energy, from the Denmark Technical University and the title of Ingeniero Industrial from the Universidad Politécnica de Valencia.

Javier Ayala serves as SNV Mozambique’s Country Sector Leader Energy and Team Leader for the FCDO funded BRILHO Programme.He has over 12 years of experience in Inclusive Business, Impact Investing, Market access, fund management and socioeconomic research having worked in a large variety of inclusive business initiatives, from renewable energy to mobile banking initiatives in Africa, Latin America and Asia.

José is currently based in Maputo as the Coordinator of GET.invest Mozambique Country Window. His tasks revolve around implementation of both private sector mobilisation and pipeline development activities, which include managing the implementation of GET.invest core services in the country. Over the past 15 years his field of work included policy and regulatory frameworks, and financing, towards facilitating private and public investment in renewable energy and energy efficiency, particulary in Sub-Sahara Africa. 

Julia Crause, a German National with roots in Portugal, has more than 20 years of professional experience in international development cooperation. An anthropologist by training, she has worked at KfW Development Bank in the fields of infrastructure, energy and climate finance since 2007. Since 2018, she is the Country Director of the KfW Office in Maputo. Previously, she worked on international environment policy and urban development at the United Nations Environment Programme in Nairobi. KfW Development Bank implements projects of German Financial Cooperation on behalf of the government of the Federal Republic of Germany.

General Director of the Agency for the Promotion of Investment and Exports - APIEX since June 2017. Previously he was General Director of the Investment Promotion Center (CPI), from July 2010 to June 2017 and, economic advisor to the Minister of Planning and Development of the Republic of Mozambique from June 2006 to July 2010.

Graduated from the Eduardo Mondlane University in Economics, he holds a master's degree in Agricultural Business Management.

Among many studies, he carried out a study sponsored by the Friederich Ebert Foundation on the social and macroeconomic impact of SADC regional integration for Mozambique as well as a study on the perception of the national business community and non-state actors as a complement to the study, published in Africa of the South by the University of Wits SAIA, namely "REGIONAL INTEGRATION IN SOUTHERN AFRICA", Vol. 2, on the deepening of integration in SADC - Rapid Changes in Mozambique so that the country meets the SADC goals. He also participated in the study on the reengineering of the CPI in 1996, which culminated in the elaboration of the first Strategic Plan of the CPI (1997-2000), as well as in the formulation of several proposals for studies and interventions crucial for the development of the business and the business sector in Mozambique requested by different public entities.

Lothar Freischlader has a degree in Medieval and Modern History, as well as in Political and Legal Sciences (Public Law), from the Universities of Mainz / Germany, Dijon / France and Haifa / Israel (Master's). His professional career was quite diverse, having gone through several German embassies around the world as a political, economic and diplomatic advisor, he was also in charge of business affairs, Head of the Directorate for OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe) and Consul General in Australia. Since August 2020, he has been Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany to Mozambique.

Luke has 8 years experience in leadership and product design in renewables and financial technology. As Global Product Director for Fenix International, he was part of the leadership team sold the business to ENGIE in 2018, achieving the first major acquisition in the off-grid energy sector. In 2019, Luke led the expansion of the business into Fenix’s 6th market, Mozambique, where they recently celebrated a milestone of reaching 30.000 households within the first 2 years of operations.

Project Manager since 2016 and current Energy Cluster Coordinator of GlZ Mozambique as well as Teamleader of the programmes Energising Development (EnDev) and Green People's Energy.

Experience of more than 17 years working with the International Cooperation, 14 of them in the clean energy sector.

Mark is currently Renewable Energy Intervention Manager for Rural Development (Phase 2) in Maputo, Mozambique. He has over 25 years of experience in the sub-Saharan region, of which 20 years in national and provincial management dealing with leading national and international experts. He has already worked at the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Swiss Development Cooperation and the Belgian Development Agency. His experience include rural development and research focused on the environment, planning, programming and management; building partnerships and training local partners and governments, coordinating programs, financial and administrative management and human resources.

Merja Laakso is Head of Programme, Southern Africa at REEEP, where she and her team are in charge of programme management for the Beyond the Grid Fund for Africa (BGFA) in Zambia and Mozambique, including programme development and oversight of implementation of the results-based financing scheme. Merja has multiple years' of experience in managing, implementing and developing programmes to support the creation and acceleration of clean energy markets in Sub-Saharan Africa and supporting renewable energy projects in developing countries globally.

Experience of more than 10 years of Work in the areas of Natural Resources Management, Biomass & Improved Cookstoves (ICS) and Renewable Energies. He worked as Assistant and Consultant at Eduardo Mondlane University (UEM) and in 2010, he was appointed by UEM to lead a Team of Remote Sensing Specialists in a pilot project aiming to study the feasibility of implementing REDD+ projects (Reducing Emissions caused by Forest Deforestation and Degradation) along Mozambique. Later on, this project was transformed into a business and therefore registered as a company (Mozambique Carbon Initiatives, Lda - MozCarbon), where he currently works there as COO & Business Development and Partnerships. At MozCarbon, He led the implementation of the first REDD+ pilot projects in Mozambique and the first Program of Activities (PoA) with the objective to disseminate Improved Cookstoves with the ultimate goal to generate carbon credits, as a way to ensure the project sustainability and scalability.

• From 2018 to 2021 was Managing Director and Business Development Director at SolarWorks Mozambique one of the leading companies of Solar Home Systems in Mozambique
• 6 years performing as Executive Director of Express Glass Angola and AS Glass Angola (PG Glass Africa), leading glass manufacturer & supplier of building and car glass products, and Sales Director at ECIL Group in Angola.
• For 4 years, launched and developed sales channels of Novis (now NOS) provider of services for internet, mobile and fixed telecommunications owned by SONAE Group in Portugal.
• 9 Years developing sales channel of Texas Instruments Including Personal Productivity Products and Telecommunication company ONO (now Vodafone) in Spain.

Pedro has over 10y experience in the African Renewable Energy space, led the feasibility of just over 2,500 MW of Renewable Energy in South Africa (REPP), Mozambique and Angola. In 2015 Pedro incorporated SOURCE CAPITAL, headquartered in Maputo, a focused private equity and investment advisory boutique sourcing and managing investable assets in Lusophone Africa. The Energy sector quickly become a major focus and lead to the creation of SOURCE ENERGIA, a subsidiary that is the diversified renewable energy platform focused on the development, management, operations and maintenance of large & small scale on- & off-grid projects in Lusophone Africa, now with offices in Maputo and Luanda. SOURCE ENERGIA current portfolio is made of 350+ MW of Renewable Energy Projects (both IPP and C&I) in different stages, and the investment in one of the leading Solar Home Systems Company in Mozambique.

Ricardo Costa Pereira is a founding member and current President of the Board of the Mozambican Renewable Energy Association (AMER).

Ricardo has been working for over a decade in the renewable energy sector in Southern Africa, specifically in Mozambique where he has worked for the public sector through the National Directorate of New and Renewable Energies (Ministry of Energy), contributing to a series of regulations and legislative documents on the development of renewable energy. For the private sector through a large multinational consultancy company where he led multidisciplinary projects and managed teams in a variety of different countries. For donor funded programs, he was part of the core technical assistance team appointed by the EU and AFD to structure the first competitive tender for large scale renewable energy projects (PROLER). Presently, Ricardo is the Portfolio Manager for AECF’s program REACT-SAA in Mozambique providing end-to-end support to companies that AECF has invested in.

Senior Economist
CEO of Leonardo Group
Chairman of CTA's Mining, Hydrocarbon and Energy Department
President of the Chamber of Commerce Mozambique Italy - CCMI
President of EUROCAM - Association of European Entrepreneurs in Mozambique

Steffen has more than 25 years of experience in project management, public relations and conference coordination and in-depth knowledge of international cooperation gained with KfW, OECD in Paris, German Government (BMZ), Association of German Development NGOs, and Amnesty International. He studied in Cologne and London and holds an MA in African Studies, Political Science and History.