Webinar 1:
Arjan Hijdra
Dr. Arjan Hijdra is a pracademic at heart and worked his entire career at developing water related infrastructure. His key expertise is maximising societal value and translating this to sound and sustainable investment planning. Arjan's background enables him to link engineering-, financial and governance perspectives. He holds a PhD degree in infrastructure planning from the University of Groningen and an M.Sc. degree in Civil Engineering from Delft University of Technology (TU Delft). He started his professional career in 1995 in international port consultancy and in 1999 joined the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management. Arjan served as a visiting scholar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge and at the Institute of Water Resources of the US Army Corps of Engineers in Washington. Since 2017, Arjan leads the Vital Ports initiative, an NGO with the aim to disseminate evidence-based guidance for sustainable port development.
Reinout Viersma
Since graduating from TU Delft in the Netherlands with an MSc, Reinout Viersma has worked in coastal protection, land reclamation, ports and waterway and marine construction. He has worked for Van Oord and predecessors for 25 years in various roles in the execution of dredging and marine construction works, including commercial roles on branch offices around the world and as a tender manager at Van Oord’s head office working on large complex projects. Reinout currently works as Programme Manager Climate Adaptation, tasked with developing coastal protection to mitigate climate change.
Christian Wertli
Christian Wertli was appointed Head Infrastructure Solutions as of 1 August 2020, as part of Swiss Re Public Sector Solutions. In his role, Christian works with financial sponsors, including governments, NGOs, multilaterals, investors and financiers, contractors and intermediaries to ensure the resilience of their infrastructure projects. Prior to this, he was Global Head Innovative Risk Solutions at Swiss Re Corporate Solutions responsible for new product development, structuring and underwriting of bespoke risk and capital management solutions.
Before joining Swiss Re in 1997, he worked for Credit Suisse in corporate finance and with Reinsurance Finance Consultants, a joint-venture between Swiss Re, Credit Suisse and Winterthur Reinsurance, in their financial engineering unit. Christian has lived and worked in London, Hong Kong, Singapore, the USA and Zurich. He holds an MBA from the University of Zurich, and a CPCU from the Insurance Institute of America.
Paolo E. Alemanni
Paolo Alemanni has over 30 years of international professional experience in private equity investments and asset management in the infrastructure, energy and transportation segments. In addition to a significant track record as a principal investor as well as advisor for managed accounts and infrastructure funds. Paolo has top management experience in the restructuring of special situations and in the freight logistics and maritime terminal industries.
He currently holds the position of Managing partner and co-shareholder at B Capital Partners AG, Zurich. B Capital Partners is an investment house focused exclusively on the infrastructure asset class (including PPP and energy transition investments).
Selected past positions:
- Babcock & Brown, Milan: Marketer, European private equity infrastructure division.
- Terminal Rinfuse Italia, Venice (operator of dry bulk terminals): Chairman of the Board of Directors/CEO.
- Crossrail AG, Wiler b.U. (Switzerland): Managing Director and CFO.
- McKinsey & Co., Italy: Engagement Manager.
- A.T. Kearney Management Consultants, Düsseldorf and Milan: Project Manager
- Warth & Klein GmbH, Düsseldorf (Germany): Auditing Assistant.