Natural Capital Solutions

PEOPLE & PARTNERS

OFC TEAM

Erik Wandrag

Erik Wandrag

CEO & Board Member

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

CFO

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.

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Isobel Evans

Isobel Evans

Sustainability Manager

Isobel is responsible for leading the implementation of OFC’s sustainability management system.  She is committed to ensuring our projects and investments deliver long-term environmental and socio-economic benefits to the ecosystems and communities where we operate.

Isobel has over 16 years’ experience in effectively identifying and managing environmental and social risks through the full asset life cycle from planning to execution.  She has specialised in the development and implementation of environmental and social management systems compliant with international finance standards (e.g. IFC Performance Standards and Equator Principles).  Isobel has led environmental teams on a number of major capital projects throughout her career, often located in ecologically vulnerable marine and terrestrial environments.

She holds a BSc Hons in Environmental Science from the National University of Ireland, Galway.

Norman Wray

Norman Wray

Project Manager

Norman is responsible for all activities associated with planning, implementing, monitoring and reporting of the OFC Sustainability Funding Programme in Ecuador.

Normans’ passion lies in conservation and social justice, where humans and nature thrive together. He was Conservation International’s Programme Manager for the Galapagos for a period of three years.  He has since played a prominent role as an advisor to non-for-profit organizations focused on conservation activities such as Ocean Legacy, Pew Charitable Trust, Bertarelli Foundation, and Birdlife International.

He is a former Minister President of the Governing Council of the Special Regime of Galapagos. During this role, he was instrumental in driving the “Galapagos 2030 Plan”. This Strategic Plan for Galápagos Islands seeks to promote wellbeing and provide tools to deliver positive impacts.

Norman’s educational background is in law. He holds a Juris Doctor and a Diploma in Environmental Democracy and Governance from the University of Wolverhampton, UK.

Trevor Baptiste

Trevor Baptiste

Investment Manager

Trevor connects the dots in understanding the objectives of all stakeholders, underlying projects and the optimal financial solution to achieve positive benefit and impact. With over 15 years of structured finance experience, Trevor plays a central role in the development, execution, and management of every transaction.

Prior to OFC, Trevor was an investment manager at Mergon, an investment company with a growth and income mandate to support charitable organizations across Africa and the Middle East. His experience included portfolio and investment management, end-to-end dealmaking and various debt and equity capital raise initiatives.

He also worked in the structured finance team within Corporate and Investment Banking at Standard Bank, involved in various corporate mergers, acquisitions and debt advisory solutions and as a senior tax advisor at Norton Rose Fulbright. He holds a Masters degree in Tax, Honours degree in Accounting and is registered with the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants.

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Leonieke Surie-Hermans

CIO

Leonieke heads up investments at OFC. She is a conservation and emerging markets finance specialist with a unique combination of Masters in Science degrees in both Finance & Investments as well as in Conservation. The dissertation for her MSc in Biodiversity, Wildlife and Ecosystem Health from the University of Edinburgh is titled “The suitability of commercially funded Debt-for-Nature swaps in financing biodiversity conservation.”

Leonieke started her career at ING Bank in The Netherlands in the Structured Acquisition Finance team, financing large cap private equity transactions. She then spent 7 years in Kenya, first working as a financial advisor and business development consultant for various financial institutions before joining the newly set up Rabobank Nairobi office. For Rabobank, Leonieke played a key role in establishing and growing the bank’s Trade and Commodity Finance business in Southern and Eastern Africa. Following her subsequent move to South Africa with her family, Leonieke decided to follow her passion and pursue her conservation degree.

OFC BOARD

Andrew Johnstone

Andrew Johnstone

Andrew Johnstone is the CEO of Climate Fund Managers(CFM), a leading climate-centric blended finance fund manager.

CFM’s purpose is to end the climate crisis through the raising and deploying of blended finance funds at scale and at pace, working in partnership to develop climate-resilient solutions.

Andrew has over 30 years of experience in the infrastructure sector and is responsible for setting the long-term strategy of CFM and the overall management of the business units. Under his leadership, CFM has c.1.7 billion USD in commitments and approved over USD 700 million for disbursement to green fields projects in emerging markets.

Prior to CFM, Andrew was the CEO of African Infrastructure Investment Managers (“AIIM”), a joint venture between Macquarie and Old Mutual, where he led the structuring, raising, and deployment of five unlisted infrastructure fund vehicles in Africa.  During his tenure, he was also the Chairman of Macquarie Africa.

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Harald Hirschhofer

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.  

George Beukering

Georges Beukering

Georges Beukering is the Head of Capital Raising & Business Development at Climate Fund Managers (CFM), a leading climate-centric blended finance fund manager.

CFM designs and deploys cutting-edge climate finance funds at scale and at pace, working in partnership to develop climate-resilient solutions.

Prior to CFM, Georges worked as senior Banker at the Dutch Development Bank, FMO. Before joining FMO, Georges worked at ABN AMRO Financial Markets department and the Dutch Ministry of Finance. Georges holds a MSc degree of Applied Mathematics from Twente University and an MSc degree of International Economics & Business Studies from Erasmus University in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

ANCHOR INVESTOR

Climate logo

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.

TECHNICAL PARTNERS

UNEP logo

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.

Cl Logo

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 logo

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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