Redcliffe Trainer 28

A consultant, public speaker, and author with over 45 years of experience in private equity, debt advisory, restructuring, and infrastructure leads Redcliffe's AI for Mergers and Acquisitions course. He is a Senior Advisor to KPMG Finland and a Senior Consultant to Grant Thornton UK.

He provides training programmes to a wide range of blue-chip clients in Europe, Africa, the Middle and Far East, North America, Asia-Pacific and China. In-house clients include:

• Banks (BNP Paribas, Société Générale, ING, Barclays Capital, Bank of China, RBS, SEB);

• Lawyers (Kirkland and Ellis, Baker & McKenzie, Skadden Arps, Sullivan & Cromwell, Cadwalader, Latham & Watkins, Weil, White & Case)

• Advisory firms (Lazard, PWC, M&A International, KPMG, EY USA, Deloitte)

• Private equity firms (Cinven, Advent, Barings Asia, Waterland, AVCAL)

• Corporates (Siemens, Airbus, Turkcell, Candy Crush, Diageo, Statkraft)

• Governmental bodies (the UKLA, the EBRD, the EIB, the ECGD, Omani Oil Corp.)

He qualified in South Africa as a Chartered Accountant with Deloitte and as a lawyer with Hofmeyr. Here, he helped in structuring several high-profile project financings, including BMW 3 Series, Ford Sierra and GM.

After moving to London, he built an extensive career in corporate finance. He served as a corporate finance executive at Lazard Brothers, an assistant director at Hoare Govett advising listed companies, and later joined ABN Amro's cross-border M&A team before becoming a Director in Cross-Border M&A at MeesPierson Corporate Finance.

Also, he has served as a member of the EU-PHARE programme and advised the Estonian government on its privatisation programme. For 18 years, he served as the Programme Director at the City Business School, London, for Infrastructure Finance for the M.Sc. programme in Business Administration and Finance. He has since stepped back from this role to focus on select advisory and consulting engagements.

For 10 years, he was an advisor to DebtXplain (subsequently acquired by Reorg and now Octus), bringing his extensive knowledge in debt markets and financial restructuring to the organisation before recently transitioning away from this role. He is a fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales and the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants.