The Green Guarantee Company (GGC), the world’s first climate-focused guarantor, took a key step towards becoming fully operational by announcing its new Board of Directors. The new Board, comprised of leaders with deep experience in climate finance, emerging markets, capital markets, and insurance will help oversee and guide GGC’s strategy and performance. The new Board is as follows:
Christopher Marks (Board Chair) is Managing Director at Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Bank (MUFG), leading its growth markets and blended finance initiatives, including MUFG’s activities as Accredited Entity of the Green Climate Fund, comprised within MUFG’s Climate Finance practice area.
In his current role, Christopher manages corporate and investment banking in developing markets, spearheads innovative finance for sustainable development goals and climate projects and oversees portfolio solutions for MUFG’s EMEA portfolio.
Before joining MUFG, Christopher was a senior advisor at the African Development Bank, consulted on sovereign debt management for the IMF, and was the Global Head of Debt Capital Markets for BNP Paribas.
Price Lowenstein is the founder and former Chief Executive Officer of Sovereign Risk Insurance Limited, a prominent emerging market credit and political risk insurer which since its inception has underwritten more than 2,000 transactions and has a global portfolio spread over more than 100 emerging and frontier markets. Price’s expertise extends to risk analysis and risk transfer for bank lending and equity investments in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Former Soviet Union.
He is also a lifetime member of the Council on Foreign Relations and previously served on the board of the African Trade Insurance Agency, a multilateral agency and the leading provider of investment and credit risk solutions in Africa.
Thomas Venon is a partner and founder at Eighteen East Capital and Executive Director of the Center for Development Finance Studies. Thomas currently leads product development for MOBILIST, a flagship UK Government programme focused on mobilising institutional capital to spur new scalable and replicable financial products. He also helped the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa launch the Liquidity & Sustainability Facility, a repo facility for African sovereign debt.
Thomas previously managed a pan-African institutional asset management business and held senior positions at Standard & Poor, Royal Bank of Scotland, and ABN Amro Bank.
Aminu Umar-Sadiq is Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority – an independent, globally-focused institution set up to receive, invest, and manage Nigeria’s sovereign wealth fund.
Aminu holds non-executive positions on Boards including the Infrastructure Credit Guarantee Company (InfraCredit), Development Bank of Nigeria (DBN), Nigeria Mortgage Refinance Company (NMRC), NSIA Advance Medical Services Limited (MedServe), and Renewables Investment Platform for Limitless Energy (RIPLE).
Aminu previously held roles at Morgan Stanley, Denham Capital Management, and Société Générale. He is a member of the European Union High-Level Expert Group on Sustainable Finance for Emerging Economies and the Sustainable Investment Advisory Council for the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.
Stacy Swann founded Resilient Earth Capital and was formerly Chief Executive Officer of Climate Finance Advisors, which she also founded and exited via a sale to a global consultancy.
During her career, Stacy established the Blended Finance Department for the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and held senior and executive positions with the US Department of Treasury, Enron Corporation, and other organisations. Stacy serves on multiple boards, including Winrock International and the Montgomery County Green Bank, where she chairs the Investment Committee.
Ricardo Nogueira is a board member of Washington DC’s Green Finance Authority and serves on the Green Climate Fund’s (GCF) independent Technical Advisor Panel, which advises the GCF’s Board on proposed projects.
Ricardo previously served as Senior Advisor on Climate Finance in the U.S. Department of State and was a U.S. board member of the GCF. Prior to public service, Ricardo worked in private sector fund management and practised as a lawyer, both with a focus on carbon markets and clean energy.
About Green Guarantee Company
As climate financing contributions from developed countries to developing countries are central to the success of the world’s collective efforts to mitigate and adapt to climate change, greater mobilisation of long-term pension, insurance, and other global institutional capital will be needed.
The Green Guarantee Company is an investment grade (Fitch BBB/Stable) guarantor that will credit enhance debt instruments issued by climate mitigation and adaptation projects in developing countries, thereby enabling investors in global capital and credit markets to invest.
The Green Guarantee Company has a USD 1 billion guarantee capacity underpinned by capital provided by several blue-chip investors being the UK’s Foreign Commonwealth & Development Office, the Green Climate Fund, the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority, United States Agency for International Development with Prosper Africa and the U.S. Department of State, and Norfund.
The Green Guarantee Company is managed by the Development Guarantee Group.
