Resource Persons Biography

(Please click to view each speaker's biography.)

Dr. Sam Mensah, Ministry of Finance & Economic Planning
Edward Farquharson, Partnerships UK
Godwin Brocke, Ministry of Road Transportation
Jonathan Amoako–Baah, Volta River Authority
Govindan Nair, World Bank
Edward Yescombe, YCL Consulting Ltd, U.K
Arnold McIntyre, International Monetary Fund
David Ofosu-Dorte, AB & David Law
Andrew Porter, Pricewaterhouse Coopers, UK
Kofi N. Agyeman, CAL Bank Ltd
Justina Twumwaa Brookman-Amissah, CAL Bank Ltd.
Peter Mousley, World Bank

Dr. Sam Mensah is a Financial Economist and Investment Banking Consultant. He is founder and principal of SEM Group Limited, a management consulting and investment advisory firm. In Ghana, he has been at the forefront of financial sector development and has advised on key initiatives such as the Financial Sector Strategic Plan, Venture Capital Trust Fund, the Ghana Central Securities Depository and the Ghana Stock Exchange Rulebook. In Africa, he has led several capital market development projects and served as Executive Secretary of the African Capital Markets Forum. Prior to his consulting career, he was Assistant Professor of Finance at the University of Michigan. Dr. Mensah holds M.B.A. and PhD degrees in Finance from the University of Toronto and an M.A. in Economics from the University of Ottawa and is a Certified Management Accountant. He is currently Technical Adviser (Financial Markets) to the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning.

Edward Farquharson heads up the international activities of Partnerships UK working with governments around the world to develop their own PPP Policies and programmes. Ed has a background of over 25 years in debt and equity financing of projects in infrastructure businesses including 7 years in Southern Africa with the Commonwealth Development Corporation where he led the infrastructure team responsible for developing an equity and debt portfolio of road, rail, airport and port projects in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Previously he was a member of the Finance team at Morgan Grenfell. Edward Farquharson has an MBA from Manchester Business School and is an alumnus of London Business School and INSEAD where he has attended various management and corporate finance programmes. He has a degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from Oxford University.

Godwin Brocke is the director, Research, Statistics & Information Management, Ministry of Road Transportation. He is a Civil Engineer with 24 years of experience in the road sector. He is also certified as a PPP Specialist and is a Member of the nucleus PPP Unit of the Ministry of Transportation, Ghana

Jonathan Amoako–Baah has worked for several years as a Design Engineer on several projects including the Northern Electrification and System Reinforcement Project. Currently, he is working on the West African Gas Pipeline Project specifically on pipeline development and the Takoradi 2 Expansion Project as the Task Manager. His other duties include negotiations of the power purchase agreement on the establishment of a 126 MW OSONOR thermal power plant in Tema Ghana. He is an international speaker on the electric utility industry and has spoken at various conferences in Europe, Middle East and Africa. Jonathan graduated with a Master of Business Administration in Finance at the University of Ghana, Legon. He had prior in 1985 received a BSc (Eng) degree from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi specialising in Communications. He is a Fellow of the Ghana Institution of Engineers (GhIE), a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) of the USA and also a member of the UPDEA Scientific Committee. He is the President of Society of VRA Engineers.

Govindan Nair lead economist at the World Bank is head of a PPI team at the World Bank Institute. He has over twenty years of global experience in finance and private sector development spanning Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Europe, and has led over teams in over one dozen projects involving financial sector development, privatization, and capacity building. He has also held adjunct faculty positions in international business and economics at universities in the United States and Australia. Mr. Nair holds advanced degrees in economics and finance from Princeton University (USA) and the Institute of Political Studies (Paris, France).

Edward Yescombe has over 30 years’ experience in various forms of structured finance, including project finance, leasing, export credits, property and asset finance. He has been an independent consultant on public-private partnerships and project finance since 1998 - his work has included advice to project sponsors and government entities on the financial aspects of PPP contracts, as well as on policy issues such as contract standardisation. He is the author of "Principles of Project Finance", published in 2002 (translated into Japanese, Polish, Hungarian and Russian), which is recognised as a leading work on this subject. His second book, "Public-Private Partnerships: Principles of Policy and Finance" was published in 2007 (see www.yescombe.com for information). He was previously head of project finance in Europe for Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi, and its predecessor Bank of Tokyo. He is a law graduate of Oxford University.

Andrew Porter is a Director with PricewaterhouseCoopers PPP and Project Finance team based in the UK. He has over 25 years’ of corporate finance, project finance and PPP experience based in the natural resource, process, power, transport and other infrastructure sectors. Prior to joining PricewaterhouseCoopers Andrew spent 13 years as a project financier at Sanwa Bank, at Thomson North Sea, and European Banking Company. Before that, he gained experience in both bank and corporate treasury. His experience has covered a range of emerging market countries such as Ghana, India, Indonesia, and Chile and has included generation facilities using a variety of fuel sources such as thermal, hydro, and nuclear fuels. Andrew has also advised governments and utilities on the procurement of IPPs in accordance with best practice. Andrew’s PPP and project finance experience also extends to the transport sector, where as with the power sector, his work has involved advising Government and public sector bodies on the procurement of projects involving transport infrastructure (mainly road and rail). He has also provided bid support on the buy side of such concessions.

David Ofosu-Dorte has twenty-three (23) years working experience including twelve (12) in the public sector. He holds a masters degree in public administration, one of eight (8) Ghanaians to have attained the status of UK fellow of chartered institution of logistics and transport (FCILT). He also holds a professional degree in law and is an associate of the UK chartered institute of arbitrators. He is an accomplished lawyer with considerable Africa experience in public sector projects, infrastructure development, procurement, PPPs, legislative reform and drafting, international consulting for governments, regulatory agencies, international organizations and the private sector. Notably, David was the lead legal specialist that negotiated Ghana’s Millennium Challenge Account. He worked as the international procurement and concessions specialist on the team that formulated the public procurement and concessions act for Liberia in 2005 and advised the government of Ghana on the procedure for selecting a concessionaire for Ghana’s railways corporation. He has been involved in several high level international negotiations including the settlement of international disputes before the ICC. He is an ace at cutting through the complexities and bureaucracy often associated with doing business in Africa. He is rated as #1 for Overseas Experts in Ghana by Chambers & Partners (the world’s leading publisher of leading law firms in the world).

Arnold McIntyre , IMF Country Representative for Ghana

Peter Mousley Finance and Private Sector Development Department Africa Region, The World Bank

Kofi N. Agyeman , Head, Corporate Finance, CAL Bank Ltd

Justina Twumwaa Brookman-Amissah , Manager, Corporate & Structured Finance