The Team

Dr. Arvind Mayaram

Chairman

Arvind Mayaram has a PhD in Finance and is a Certified PPP Specialist. He was earlier the Finance Secretary of India. He has been the Alternate Governor of India on the Board of World Bank, ADB and African Development Bank. He was India's finance deputy in G20 and BRICS. He was also on the Board of the Reserve Bank of India and the Securities Exchanges Board of India. He was India's chief negotiator for BRICS New Development Bank and co-chair of the Framework Working Group of G-20.

In the Indian State of Rajasthan he worked, in addition to several other assignments, as Investment Commissioner, Secretary Industries & Commerce and Tourism Secretary. He has also had experience of senior management positions in several public sector enterprises.

He has been instrumental in several major initiatives in the area of investment, infrastructure development, Public Private Partnerships and institution building. He spearheaded the establishment of the framework for mainstreaming PPPs in India and accelerated the process of including newer areas for PPPs. He has worked extensively in the field of infrastructure finance. He also designed the first PPP module for delivering infrastructure in the rural areas deftly combining infrastructure asset creation and delivery of services with private investment in economic activities and skill development for the poor and an integrated education and skill certification programme for school dropouts.

He was Vice President of the World Association of Investment Promotion Agencies (WAIPA), formed under the aegis of UNCTAD, UNIDO, FIAS and MIGA for two terms in early 2000. He has been an investment promotion expert with the UNCTAD for several years and his expertise in the area of PPPs is internationally acknowledged. He has undertaken a large number of missions for the UN agencies in several developing countries such as Sudan, South Africa, Fiji, Ecuador, Uzbekistan, South Africa, Cambodia etc. and has led several foreign economic negotiations on behalf of the Government of India at sub-cabinet level strategic economic dialogues with countries such as the USA, China, the UK, Japan and South Korea.

He is an institution builder. He was one of the founder members of the World Association of Investment Promotion Agencies (WAIPA), a multilateral organisation. In addition to many other important initiatives in building institutions, he conceived of the unique public private partnership structure for Project Development Company of Rajasthan (PDCOR) and National Skill Development Corporation and the National Skill Development Trust, the foundation stones of the National Skill Development Mission in India.

Sadak Choudhury

CEO

Sadak Choudhury is a Founder and CEO of PPP Experts. Sadak brings more than 12 years of commercial and management consultancy experience to the advisory mandates. More recently, Sadak has assisted regional and national governments to develop PPP programs in order to facilitate private sector investment across Asia, Europe and Africa. Sadak holds an Aeronautical Engineering degree (BSc) from London City University.

Sergey Samolis

Executive Director

Experienced Infrastructure and Project Finance professional with over 10 years’ track record of successful financial structuring, advisory and management of major projects in transportation, utilities, healthcare, education and other infrastructure sectors across vast geographies, particularly in emerging markets.

Strong expertise in deal financing and capital markets, including debt, equity investments, bonds, institutional investors, etc. In-depth knowledge of PPPs, demonstrated in leading MLA mandates on international award-winning transactions. Creative thinker, passionate about all aspects of infrastructure projects; reseacher, lecturer and writer with publications on Infrastructure and Mega Projects, currently reading Major Programme Management at Said Business School, University of Oxford.

Jitesh Shah

Executive Director

Jitesh is an Executive Director in our Advisory practice with over 25 years of experience specialising in lead financial advisory services including PPPs, attracting investments in emerging markets, raising funding, on both sell and buy side, alliances and joint ventures having closed transactions ranging from $30m to $4bn in size. Prior to joining PPPExperts, he was a senior director with PwC’s Corporate Finance division in the UK and the Middle East and an Associate Partner with Oliver Wyman in the UK.

Jitesh has worked with Governments, sovereign wealth funds, private equity players and corporates across EMEA advising them on a range of issues from strategy to implementation and execution of transactions, both on the sell side and buy side ranging from $50m to over $4bn.

During this time he has worked on iconic projects including with Qatar Tourism Authority, Qatar General Electricity & Water Company advising them on the Middle East region’s largest greenfield IWPP, Ooredoo, King Fahad Causeway Authority, Qatar Investment Authority among the key infrastructure focused players.

Erk Ozbelge

Executive Director

Mr Erk Ozbelge is the Head of Infrastructure and Real Estate investments of VERA Capital and holds various board membership roles in a number of affiliated investment companies of VERA and non-for-profit organizations. VERA Capital is the family investment office of the Ulker family, who are the wealthiest family of Turkey whose portfolio besides Ulker brands include global brands such as Godiva and United Biscuits.

Mr Ozbelge is a finance and investments professional with over 23 years of experience in leading asset level and portfolio level greenfield and brownfield real estate (malls, office buildings, residential, assisted living, parking) and infrastructure (energy and healthcare) investment transactions with over $10 billion volume working for major global investment companies such as GE Capital, Dogus, GAMA and Limak where he has assumed exectuvie management roles such as Country Director, Managing Director, and various Board Member roles.

Mr Ozbelge is a US Certified Public Accountant and holds an undergrate degree from Bilkent University (BS in Management) and a graduate degree from Columbia University (MBA).

Arthur Smith

Associate Director

Art Smith has 29 years of experience in analysing and implementing Public-Private Partnerships. He is President of Management Analysis, Incorporated, a consulting firm which specialises in Public-Private Partnership (PPP) related issues.

Mr. Smith has been active in United Nations PPP programs since 2001. In October 2005, he was elected to the post of Vice Chair for Public-Private Partnership Research and Education for the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) PPP Alliance. In December 2005, he completed a UNECE-funded research effort on the Statutory and Enabling Environment for Public-Private Partnerships in the Russian Federation, based upon the new (August 2005) concessions law. He has represented the UN on PPP-related issues in Eastern Europe and the Middle East. He was a primary author of the UNECE’s publication, “Governance in Public-Private Partnerships for Infrastructure.” Currently, he is participating in a United Nations Economic Commission for Europe research project, “Creating a New Dynamic for Public-Private Partnerships for Peaceful and Sustainable Development: Human Security and Equitable Access to Resources in Countries at the Pre-PPP Stage.” Mr. Smith’s first assignment under this 24-month project was to analyse utilisation of PPPs as a tool for Natural Resource Funds to promote sustainable development.

Earlier, Mr. Smith provided analysis in support of the Czech government’s voucher privatisation program, and manager a USAID-funded project to identify the costs of potable water production in Albania. He has PPP experience on five continents and is the author of more than 30 articles on Public-Private Partnerships, published in six languages.

Mr. Smith has been actively involved in the National Council for Public-Private Partnerships (NCPPP) since 1999. He has served on the NCPPP’s Board of Directors, and as a Vice President, President and Chairman.

Mr. Smith holds an M.S. in Technology Management from the University of Maryland.

Marcel van den Broek MBA MSc

Associate Director

Marcel is an independent Consultant specialised in Public Private Partnerships (PPP). His professional experience of more than 20 years covers primarily infrastructure finance and PPP’s. He was founder and director of the PPP Task Force within the Dutch Ministry of Transport. For 9 years Marcel was Director PPP & Financial Advisory Services at ECORYS. Before ECORYS, he worked for PricewaterhouseCoopers, the Ministry of Transport in the Netherlands and Arthur Andersen.

He has been involved the last decade in some 100 project over 30 countries in a variety of sectors. He has supported over a dozen governments and several multilateral institutions in the design of a policy or instruments to enable and facilitate private sector participation in the provision of public services. Recommendations have been mostly presented to the key decision makers including parliament, ministers or even prime ministers.

He has supported the establishment of various PPP units around the world (e.g. Netherlands, Poland, Albania, Jordan, Bangladesh, Kyrgyzstan). He furthermore has provided numerous trainings and workshops on the subject of PPP (e.g. in Bulgaria, Hungary, Albania, Romania, Nigeria) mostly evaluated with outstanding reviews. He has been responsible for the development of the first PPP training in the Netherlands.

Marcel has an Executive Master of Business Administration, University of Nyenrode in the Netherlands in association with Simon School of Business at the University of Rochester in the USA and a Business Economics Master’s degree, University of Tilburg.

Sean Amoroso

Associate Director

Sean is an independent consultant with 40 years experience in construction design and project management, facilities services organisation and estates management. He has held positions in commercial management, business development and operations management for consulting and contracting organisations in the UK, France, Germany, Canada and the Middle East.

Sean’s early career was in ‘traditional’ construction design and contracting. Subsequently, in the 1990’s, he was involved in some of the UK’s early PPP infrastructure projects where he undertook funder’s technical due diligence and monitoring assignments (DSS Accommodation in Newcastle, Joint Services Command Staff College, Swindon) before moving across to contractor development responsibilities in some of the early ‘pathfinder’ PPP projects in the education, health and government sectors.

In the area of PPP Sean has undertaken advisory and implementation work for both central and local government organisations including the Home Office, the Cabinet Office and the NHS (National Health Service) with mandates covering a wide area from market/competitor research and strategy development to outline and final business case development; procurement strategy and support; project requirements definition; programme management; client relationship management; contract compliance and performance monitoring; commercial claims validation and technical audits.

His consulting exposure working for Government departments and contracting experience in private sector organisations gives him an excellent feel and pragmatism when working with the sometime competing demands of PPP sponsor organisations, funders and construction/facilities services providers.

Sean qualified as a building services environmental design engineer (BSc) from the University of Bath School of Architecture and achieved chartered engineer status (CIBSE) in 1982. He also holds an MBA in general management.

John DM Davie

Associate Director

He served two three-year terms as chairman of the UKTI (UK Government) Advisory Group on Public Private Partnerships, served as a member of the UK Financial Services Sector Advisory Board and as Chairman of British Expertise. He is chairman of the British Expertise Project Finance and PPP working group. John is a member the UN Economic Council for Europe Panel of PPP Experts. He has been involved the evolution of contemporary theory of PPP since its inception in the UK in 1992.

John is well known in the City of London, where he is an adviser to The Lord Mayor of the City of London on PPP. John runs the British Expertise series of PPP Master Classes providing training for novices and experts in PPP.

With a background in project management of major real estate and infrastructure developments John has developed a thorough appreciation of both finance and management. He has gained wide-ranging hands-on experience in Asia, Africa, Europe and the Middle East, where he has advised many major private sector clients and governments on various strategic issues.

Mr Davie is a Visiting Professor at the London Metropolitan Business School.

Stephen Harris

Associate Director

Stephen Harris has fifteen years’ experience of working with over 60 overseas governments on the development of their PPP policies and programmes; especially in the areas of structuring, capacity building, communications and training. He is a regular speaker on PPP around the world, and has made over 150 presentations in 50 countries. He has run over 180 PPP overseas seminars, events or training courses. He has written many reports, articles and papers on PPP and is regularly interviewed by the international print and broadcast media.

He acts as advisor on PPP for the Lord Mayor of London and has written speeches for UK and foreign ministers. He provides PPP training for UK diplomatic Posts.
Previous roles have been at Global Infrastructure Group Ltd, Tribal Group plc, International Financial Services London and Lloyd’s of London. He began his career at Clyde & Co, solicitors. He was educated at Hampton School, Brasenose College, Oxford University and the College of Law, Guildford.