Meet our Experienced Management Team and Advisory Board

Navaid has specialized in investing and developing infrastructure assets in the agricultural, energy and metal sectors around the world over the last 20 years. In particular, he has specialized in emerging and mature markets infrastructure assets with investments in companies in Africa, U.S. and Mexico. Navaid also leads a commodities trading company that physically traded grain, energy and metal commodities internationally, transacting with leading global companies such as Grupo Mexico, Cargill, Glencore, Trafigura and Bunge, among others. Navaid was previously a Structured Finance and Tax lawyer at Clifford Chance and Thacher Proffitt & Wood in New York.

Navaid has been directly involved in the development and operation as an owner and/or partner of the following infrastructure assets: 1) IFG Port Holdings Ltd, an Export Grain Terminal in Lake Charles, Louisiana; 2) Grain Bulk Handlers Ltd, an Import Grain Terminal in Mombasa, Kenya; 3) Grain Industries Ltd, a Flour Mill in Mombasa, Kenya; 3) Mbaraki Bulk Terminal Ltd, a Diesel Storage Terminal in Mombasa, Kenya; 4) Tradiverse Corp., a Commodities Trading Firm based in New York. The African grain assets in Mombasa, Kenya were sold to a sovereign wealth fund at an 8x return on investment after a 10-year hold.

Navaid holds a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from Brandeis University, a law degree (Juris Doctor (J.D.)) from the University of Florida College of Law and a Masters in Tax Law (LLM) from New York University School of  Law. Navaid is a member in good standing of the New York Bar and the Florida Bar.

Gil has more than twenty-five years of global corporate legal and business experience, which he acquired as a corporate securities lawyer at leading international law firms in Montreal, New York, and London, and as general counsel of various private companies. Gil’s corporate legal and business background includes extensive experience with cross-border private debt and equity offerings, as well as venture capital, private equity & M&A transactions.

Gil has substantial experience in the purchase and sale of commodities like copper and cobalt from emerging markets.  As the  Sr. VP & General Counsel of Cobham Capital, a commodities trading company, Gil supervised the buying, hedging, and/or selling of copper and cobalt from Mexico, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and/or Zambia to international commodity buyers like Concord Resources and Hyosung.

Gil also has substantial experience in the financing of large infrastructure projects. As special outside counsel to Grupo Mexico, one of the largest copper mining companies in the world, Gil negotiated and supervised the financing for the construction and acquisition of two of Grupo Mexico’s most important energy transition projects: the Caridad 500MW combined cycle gas-fired power plants in the State of Sonora, Mexico and the Retiro 74MW wind farm in the State of Oaxaca, Mexico.

Gil also has experience in the acquisition, financing and management of mining assets.  As a lawyer for Stikeman Elliott in London, one of the premier Canadian law firms, Gil represented the Leviev Group in the acquisition and financing of gold mines in Kazakhstan and in Siberia, Russia. As special outside counsel to Grupo Mexico, Gil supervised the outside consultants advising on the global management reorganization of the mining operations of the company, including the management reorganization of the operations of Asarco, Grupo Mexico’s Arizona based mining U.S. subsidiary.  

Gil holds Bachelor’s degree in Economics from McGill University, a Master’s degree in Economics from the Colegio de Mexico, in Mexico City, and a law degree (Juris Doctor (J.D.)) from the State University of New York at Buffalo School of Law in New York. Gil is a member in good standing of the New York Bar.

Damon is a seasoned real assets investment professional, with over 20 years of experience in capital structuring and asset management.

Prior to joining EVelution Energy, Damon served as Managing Director, Infrastructure, at Pennybacker Capital. He developed the firm’s critical infrastructure strategy, which focuses on platform investments in teams operating within essential sectors of the U.S. economy, with a specific concentration on food logistics systems and biotherapeutic manufacturing networks. Damon joined Pennybacker from Lionstone Investments, where he served as portfolio manager for the flagship value-add fund series and two develop-to-core separate accounts for two of the largest U.S. pension funds, all together comprising over $5 billion of mixed-use oriented assets located in several innovation markets. Prior to Lionstone, Damon held a senior investment management role at Amherst Capital, where he oversaw a multi-state, single family rental strategy as well as a commercial real estate transitional lending platform.

Damon spent several years as a Senior Portfolio Manager with the Teacher Retirement System of Texas, where he focused on domestic and international infrastructure and commercial real estate investing, and also managed the Emerging Manager Program in partnership with GCM Grosvenor. He landed in Austin, TX, with TRS after spending six years in São Paulo, SP, Brazil, with Brookfield Asset Management and then with OAS S.A., where he structured and managed joint ventures focused on large scale platform investing across infrastructure sectors.

Prior to Brazil, Damon worked on the Real Estate Finance & Securitization desk at Credit Suisse in New York, NY, where he structured CMBS and CDOs. Damon also traded derivatives for Consolidated Trading in Chicago, IL and New York, NY. He began his career as an international M&A and capital markets attorney with Clifford Chance, LLP, in New York, NY. 

Damon received his Juris Doctorate from The George Washington University School of Law and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from Emory University.

Nasir is a senior investment professional, with over 25 years’ experience of advising, investing & managing investments in alternative investment asset classes, with a key focus on the infrastructure asset class.

Nasir was Head of Direct Investments at Abu Dhabi Investment Company (Invest AD), owned by the Government of Abu Dhabi. At Invest AD, Nasir led the sale of Queen Alia International Airport (QAIA), Jordan, on behalf of Invest AD and three other selling shareholders, in a deal worth over US$ 0.5 billion. He was also a key member of the original investment team that was awarded the US$ 1 billion+ BOT concession for QAIA, as well originating, executing and subsequently exiting a US$ 350 million wastewater PPP project in Bahrain (Muharraq STP Project), and also overseeing a district cooling concession company in Abu Dhabi (Industrial City Cooling Company). During his time at Invest AD, Nasir was also extensively involved in the establishment of a new infrastructure fund, in a joint venture with UBS, the Swiss banking group, leading bid teams on number of opportunities in energy, utilities, transport and social infrastructure. Nasir also held board positions on companies operating in logistics (Ekol Logistics, Turkey), vehicle leasing (Massar Solutions, UAE), telecoms engineering (Mobiserve, UAE/Middle East/South Asia) and commercial real estate (e.g. Capital Tower, UAE) respectively.

After leaving Invest AD in 2019, Nasir was a Senior Director at Ernst & Young (EY) in Dubai, in their Infrastructure Advisory & Project Finance team. During his time at EY, he originated mandates such as: a review of infrastructure investment opportunities across Middle East, North Africa & Turkey region for a large global investor/developer; M&A advisory for an investor consortium for the US$ 0.6 billion privatization of flour mills in Saudi Arabia (SAGO Second Milling Company); healthcare market assessment across Middle East & Africa for a large global investor; project financing support for a UAE based developer on a new power plant project in Africa; a (utilities) project investment review for a UAE sovereign investor.

Prior to Invest AD, Nasir was a Director at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) specializing in infrastructure/PPPs and corporate finance mandates, initially based in London and then relocating in 2003 to Dubai to develop the firm’s infrastructure finance & PPP advisory practice in the Middle East and Eastern Mediterranean region. Whilst at PwC, he led the sell-side (government) advisory team on the award-winning US$ 800 million Cyprus Airports BOT Concession, as well as PPP projects for a wastewater network scheme in Saudi Arabia (Riyadh Wastewater), a port re- development and new motorway in Cyprus, amongst others, and previously a key member of the teams advising on deals such as the London Underground PPP and the Newcastle International Airport PPP.

Most recently, Nasir acted as Investment Advisor to the Chairman of the Roads & Transport Authority – Government of Dubai, where amongst other responsibilities, he provided oversight of the US$ 1 billion IPO of Dubai’s road tolling system (Salik) in 2022.

Kyeong is a project development professional with over 45 years’ experience in the agricultural, industrial, power and water sectors. He previously headed a construction department at a major EPC contractor (LG Engineering) and has acted as a lead project and business development director for utility companies (TW, United Utilities), investors and developers (Samsung Engineering, ACWA Power) across the globe.

Kyeong gained agricultural project development experience with Tate & Lyle Technical Services /Booker Tate in Africa, designing & constructing  1,885 ha surface irrigated  sugarcane fields  and  on drip-irrigated coffee estates. Further experiences involved working as the project control manager, EPC contractor (Tate & Lyle) to ICI Explosives, on a propellent plant in Thailand,  managing  multi-discipline subcontractors. Broader EPC experience involved acting as an advisor, initially, then as the head of construction department for LG Engineering based in Korea, with responsibility for resourcing, recruiting, and staffing & identifying subcontractors and putting forward constructability plan to support all international hydrocarbon projects being bid and constructed. Lead  from Korea to reside & complete in Wales a taskforce team of 15 staff as GPM for the fast track LG Electronics Wales Europe Phase1 FDI an electronics assembly plant,  utilizing the UK based consultants, managing contractor and subcontractors.

 Work with Thames Water International involved 4 continents working on water & wastewater projects including, a successful Yongin WWTP in Korea , the largest Korean  PPP BTO procurement of $400m with Samsung Engineering. Subsequently Kyeong joined Samsung Engineering in Seoul and later in UAE where Kyeong led  the successful WWTP bids such as, on ICAD2 Industrial WWTP BTO in  UAE and the Bahrain Muharraq WWTP PPP with United Utilities. With ACWA Power the  last project Kyeong  led was the Dubai Hassyan Clean Coal Project 1,200 MW IPP which was won by ACWA Power.

Kyeong’s most recent experience includes JV bidding and winning a solar 300MW PV IPP renewable project in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Kyeong is a longstanding member of the Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management and currently sits on the advisory board of Nesma Renewable Energy.