Our Team
Our people are vital to our success and are our most valuable asset
Our investment professionals operate effectively as a cross-border team with broad functional expertise in infrastructure equity and debt. Behind our strong relationships, global vision, and ongoing success is our team of 42 investment professionals. Whitehelm has over 50 employees in total.
Team Listing
Executive Team
Infrastructure Equity – Europe and Americas
Wessel
Schevernels
Senior Investment Director
Phoebe
Smith
Investment Director
Anne
Grandin
Investment Director
Oliver
Hailzl
Investment Director
Nav
Kokri
Investment Manager
Jose
Martinez-Artiles
Investment Manager
Carlos
Sanchez
Senior Associate
Clara
Corchado
Senior Associate
Fredrik
Næsse
Senior Associate
Ekaterina
Ageeva
Associate
Christoph
Stefaner
Analyst
Infrastructure Equity - Australia and Asia
Patrick
Lee
Senior Investment Director
Liam
Tierney
Investment Director
Paula
Alvear
Property Fund Manager
Chris
Russell-Gibson
Investment Director
Shawn
Lal
Investment Manager
Safia
Schonberger
Investment Manager
Sameen
Khalid
Analyst
Richard
Chen
Analyst
Listed Infrastructure Equity
Ayaz
Memon
Senior Portfolio Analyst
Jesse
Wylde-Browne
Portfolio Analyst
Infrastructure Debt
Nick
Stockdale
Deputy Head of Infrastructure Debt
Aislinn
Bakker
Vice President
Lukas
Foltan
Associate
Morgane
Mathieu
Analyst
Investment Solutions Group
Debbie
Saunders
Head of Consulting
John
O'Brien
Principal Adviser
Risman
Cornelius
Principal Adviser
Howie
Tan
Senior Adviser
Thomas
Dutka
Senior Adviser
Nicole
McMillan
Senior Adviser
John
Fleming
Senior Adviser
Sergio
Suarez
Adviser
Jane
Baseby
Adviser
Yuqi
Yao
Analyst
Investment Operations
SIMEON
COGHLAN
HEAD OF OPERATIONS
Yee-Chuin
Lu
Associate Director
Tayo
Werkhoven
Associate Director
Noorina
Elaheebocus
Fund Operations Manager
Paul
Dickin
Associate
Waren
Jeyathasan
Analyst
Hunter
Lim
Analyst
Yiqing
Wang
Analyst
Compliance
Rebecca
Roberts
Senior Compliance Manager - Australia
Jenni
Bearsby
Compliance Manager - UK
Brydie
Kelly
Compliance Officer - Australia
Nicole
Bourke
Administrative Officer, Compliance - Australia

JANET TORNEY
Chairman and independent non-executive director
Janet has extensive business and investment experience in superannuation, investment management and professional services. As CEO of Qantas Super, Janet established and implemented industry leading governance frameworks for board, business management and investment functions, as well as rejuvenating relationships with key regulators.
Prior to Qantas Super, Janet was Principal & Practice Leader of Aon Investment Consulting in Australasia. Earlier appointments include Director of Tactical Asset Allocation at Westpac Investment Management, and senior economics roles at UBS, Macquarie Bank, Citibank and the Reserve Bank of Australia. Janet has chaired numerous industry group finance and risk committees throughout her career and champions healthy and sustainable stakeholder relationship management. Most recently she was a director of the Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia, including time as Chairman of its Policy Committee, and continues to serve on its Investment Policy Committee. Janet is Principal of JT Consult, providing strategic governance, business and investment advice.

JÜRGEN GERKE
INDEPENDENT NON-EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Jürgen Gerke is a trained banker and lawyer as well as an alumni at Insead, Harvard and IMD. Throughout his career, he has held various management positions with Deutsche Bank, Dresdner Bank, Euler Hermes, the European Commission, as well as CFO roles for different Allianz Group companies in France.
Most recently, he has been the CEO of Allianz Capital Partners (‘ACP’), the private equity firm of Allianz, investing Allianz’ and third-party funds into direct infrastructure and renewable energy, as well as into private equity funds. Having retired from ACP at the end of 2019, he is now founder of two boutique PE and VC investment companies, GML and BlueShell Capital.

JOHN O'KEEFFE
NON-EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
John is Head of Boutique Strategy at Fidante Partners where he is responsible for originating new boutique relationships as well as strategic initiatives. Prior to Fidante Partners, John worked in the Debt & Alternatives team at the Future Fund, Australia’s Sovereign Wealth Fund, that was responsible for third party manager selection and implementing the Future Fund’s fixed income, credit and hedge fund programs. John has a Masters of Applied Finance and is Chartered Accountant and Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst.

GRAHAM MATTHEWS
CHIEF EXECUTIVE
Graham is a founding shareholder and Chief Executive of Whitehelm Capital. Graham joined the team in 1998 and started the firm’s infrastructure business at the time when private ownership of public infrastructure originated globally.
Since then Graham has led the development of the firm’s investment philosophy and its world-wide asset acquisitions and disposals. He has sat on a large number of company boards and has been instrumental in delivering improved operational and financial performance through active asset management.
Prior to joining the firm’s predecessor, Access Capital, Graham held senior roles in the Australian Federal Treasury, including the Treasury’s Chief Forecaster, and represented Australia at the International Monetary Fund in Washington DC.

ROB ALLIN
CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER
Rob leads the Business Operations Group, which includes investment operations, compliance, finance, IT and HR, across both Australia and the UK.
Prior to joining Whitehelm, he worked for Fidante Partners Ltd a leading multi-boutique fund manager, which is part of Challenger Ltd group. Rob held the role of Head of Business Management & Strategy, where he was responsible for providing business services and strategic support to twelve boutique fund managers. During his eleven years at Challenger, Rob worked in senior roles across finance, analytics and strategy. Prior to this Rob worked as a chartered accountant for the Commonwealth Bank of Australia and Accenture in London.

SAJI ANANTAKRISHNAN
HEAD OF AUSTRALIA AND ASIA
Saji is responsible for the infrastructure investment team in Australia, Asia, and South America, leading the firm’s infrastructure investment and management activities in the region.
Prior to joining Whitehelm, Saji has worked at Challenger since 2004 and during his time at Challenger he was appointed CEO of EMIF. He has been a member of the Challenger Infrastructure team since its inception and has been involved at a senior level in most of Challenger’s infrastructure acquisitions, particularly whilst he was based in London. Prior to Challenger, Saji worked in corporate finance roles at Deutsche Bank in Sydney and EDS in Asia, and prior to that he was a Management Consultant with Anderson Consulting.

MATTEO ANDREOLETTI
HEAD OF INFRASTRUCTURE EQUITY - EUROPE & NORTH AMERICA
Matteo Andreoletti joined Whitehelm Capital in 2015 and leads the equity investment team in Europe and the Americas.
During his time at Whitehelm, Matteo has been actively involved in a number of investments including the acquisition of SAE, a waste to energy business in Norway and the development of strategic partnerships in digital infrastructure. He is a board member of Saren Infrastructure AS, an investment company for energy related infrastructure focused on renewables and sustainable technologies and Nest Coöperatief U.A., an investment platform for mid-stream oil storage assets.
Prior to joining Whitehelm, Matteo held roles at Macquarie, Societe Generale and Natixis, where he was actively involved in the development of private financing for major infrastructure projects in continental Europe.
Matteo holds an M.Sc. in Aerospace Engineering from the Ecole Centrale Paris and the Politecnico di Torino, and studied finance and business administration at the Collège des Ingénieurs in Paris.

TOM MAHER
HEAD OF BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT
Tom leads Whitehelm’s business development and capital raising initiatives globally. His responsibility covers Whitehelm’s key areas of investment focus including infrastructure equity, high-yield infrastructure debt and listed infrastructure.
Prior to taking on responsibility for Whitehelm’s business development efforts, Tom had over a decade’s experience as a principal infrastructure investor, with expertise in executing and managing investments across Europe, North America and Australia. This experience included leading Whitehelm’s North American origination, execution and asset management efforts.
Tom currently serves as a Director of Igasamex and has previously served on a number of other investee company boards.

URSULA TONKIN
Head of Listed Strategies
Ursula has extensive portfolio management and analytical experience in Australian and global equities, with 16 years industry experience.
Prior roles include portfolio manager of an international equity fund, and senior analyst responsible for covering energy infrastructure, natural gas and renewable energy.
Ursula was previously an asset consultant and Co-Head of Manager Selection within Whitehelm’s Investment Solutions Group and has a background in ethical/SRI investing.

ALEXANDER WALLER
HEAD OF INFRASTRUCTURE DEBT
Alexander Waller leads the debt investing activities for the business and has experience in debt financing, investment banking and principal investment.
Prior to joining Whitehelm, he was responsible for infrastructure debt investment origination and raising finance for infrastructure equity investments at Challenger across the span of the capital markets, joining the firm in 2007. He has led or been involved in numerous large infrastructure financings as sponsor or investor, including closed transactions for Southern Water, Thames Water, Yorkshire Water, Angel Trains, Aquasure, Coriance, Inexus, Aguas Nuevas and Heathrow Airport. He has also worked in debt financing groups at RBS and Barclays Capital.

JUSTIN WEBB
Head of Investment Solutions Group
Justin leads Whitehelm’s Investment Solutions Group, advising clients on investment strategy, and advising the firm’s Investment Committee on investment markets and risk management.
Justin is a Chartered Accountant, a graduate of the Investment Management Consultants Association and a member of the Institute of Company Directors with extensive experience in infrastructure investment, corporate finance and financial modelling together with performance analysis, reporting and asset management. Justin is a member of both the investment and management committees. Justin is a regular speaker on investment markets and alterative investment strategies.

KEN LIOW
Advisory Investment Committee Member
Ken is an investment professional with extensive financial markets experience spanning over 20 years. Most recently, Ken held senior positions at Blackrock, most notably as Chief Investment Officer of Equities where he was instrumental in implementing the insight-based portfolio management approach into the Fundamental Equity team. Ken was also the Head of Strategy (Scientific Active Equities) and Chairman of the Risk Management Committee also serving on Blackrock’s Executive Committee. Prior to these roles, Ken was Head of Quantitative Equities at Blackrock where he led the development of a successful team and business from an asset base of zero to $4 billion under management.
Prior to his 13 years at Blackrock, Ken was Head of Research at Mercer Australia. Ken currently serves as an independent adviser and technical adviser to a range of institutional investors including superannuation funds, charitable institutions and fund managers and is a Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries Australia.

WARWICK MCKIBBIN
Advisory Investment Committee Member
Warwick is a former member of the Reserve Bank of Australia Board and is internationally renowned for his contributions to global economic modelling. He has published more than 200 academic papers as well as being a regular commentator in the popular press. He has been a consultant for many international agencies and a range of governments on issues of macroeconomic policy, international trade and finance, greenhouse policy issues, global demographic change and the economic cost of pandemics.
Warwick holds the Vice Chancellor’s Chair in Public Policy in the ANU Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis (CAMA). He is also an ANU Public Policy Fellow; a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Social Sciences; a Distinguished Fellow of the Asia and Pacific Policy Society; a non-resident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington D.C (where he is co-Director of the Climate and Energy Economics Project) and President of McKibbin Software Group Inc.
Warwick was foundation Director of the ANU Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis and foundation Director of the ANU Research School of Economics. Warwick received his B.Com (Honours 1) and University Medal from University of NSW (1980) and his AM (1984) and a PhD (1986) from Harvard University.

ROSS BLAKERS
STRATEGIC ADVISER
Ross is a strategic adviser to Whitehelm’s Investment Solutions Group, providing tactical insight on investment strategy.
Ross has extensive experience in investment markets, investment strategy, portfolio construction, risk management and manager selection. Before joining Whitehelm, Ross spent four years in the Risk Management Group of the Australian Office of Financial Management where he focussed on credit and interest rate risk management.

Oaklands Hill
Oaklands Hill is a 63MW wind farm located in Victoria, Australia. Its revenues are underpinned by a 25-year energy offtake agreement with AGL Energy. AGL is also responsible for the O&M of the wind farm under a 25-year agreement. There is no merchant risk with full output contracted under the terms of the PPA to AGL Energy.

TDF Holdco Junior Loan
TDF is the market leader in the provision of TV and radio broadcast networks, telecom infrastructure solutions and digital terrestrial media platforms in France. The company has a portfolio of high quality real assets in key locations with the widest geographic coverage in France, which are critical to the reception of TV and radio channels, and to the functioning of mobile telephone networks.

Igasamex
Igasamex is a natural gas distribution company formed in 1996, headquartered in Mexico City. It is focused on the construction and operation of ‘lateral’ (i.e. “last mile”) pipelines connected to major transmission lines and arranging gas supply contracts for industrial customers. Igasamex owns and operates pipeline systems across 12 Mexican states, mainly in the northwest, southeast and central regions of Mexico.