patrick.lagrange@namenesolar.com
Patrick is Namene’s Chief Executive Officer. Prior to founding Namene, Patrick spent 15 years in investment banking, where he headed a number of front office structured products teams across Europe and Asia. Drawing on his engineering, finance and cross-border leadership skills, Patrick created Namene to deliver innovative solutions to empower people in remote, low-income communities. Supported by a diverse and passionate team, he is focused on ensuring that everything Namene does brings genuine benefits and impact to families neglected by current utility and energy provision models, while delivering sustainable profitability to the company.
nicolas.brouet@namenesolar.com
Nicolas is Namene’s Chairman. He has over 20 years’ experience in startup strategy, company development and financial management having created, managed and acquired companies in Europe, the USA and Brazil. Notably, Nicolas successfully drove the global expansion of IFR Monitoring as its CEO – growing the company’s operations from 4 to 54 countries and increasing its revenues tenfold. In addition to chairing Namene’s Board, Nicolas is currently an investor in, and board member of, a variety of businesses from software engineering to movie production and hospitality.
Kamal has had a 24-year career in investment banking, specialising in cross-asset derivatives and related financing products’ origination, structuring, and risk management. As Managing Director at HSBC, he served diverse clients ranging from large corporations to family offices. Kamal’s decision to use his corporate experience to help end energy poverty stems from witnessing the widespread use of oil-burning lamps in his parents’ remote mountain village in Algeria in his early years. Keenly aware of the transformative impact that clean and safe lighting has on people’s lives, Kamal now focuses his expertise on structuring the financial instruments that enable Namene to achieve its mission.
Jason is Namene’s Chief Finance Officer. Jason qualified as an accountant at Deloitte and worked as CFO in a number of renewable energy companies before joining Namene – ranging from start-ups to a NYSE listed group. Jason draws on his financial expertise and experience, notably in fund raising and deal-structuring, to devise and deliver innovative financial structures that allow Namene to deliver a positive and growing triple bottom line for people, planet and profit.
Bernardo is Head of Climate at Namene. His experience includes 18 years in carbon markets and climate change policy internationally. Before joining Namene, he worked as Director of Partnerships and Business Development for the Gold Standard Foundation, one of the main carbon market standards. Bernardo is responsible for developing and growing Namene’s portfolio of climate projects – leveraging carbon finance to rapidly scale access to affordable clean devices to low-income and off-grid families. Supported by his team as well as Namene’s country offices and trusted partners, Bernardo has pioneered and led innovative last-mile distribution models to reach and serve rural communities that would otherwise be left behind.
Anurag is Namene’s Senior Carbon Project Manager. Anurag has over 17 years of professional experience in the carbon markets with multi-faceted roles in project origination, third party auditing and certification. Prior to joining Namene, Anurag was employed with Sustaincert (Certification Partner of The Gold Standard Foundation) and was managing the Certification portfolio of community-based projects with an estimated annual volume of 70 million carbon credits. At Namene, Anurag is focussed on planning and implementing the carbon certification activities of Namene’s climate projects, and engages with carbon stakeholders through a variety of industrial forums.
Wayne.VanRensburg@namenesolar.com
Wayne is Namene’s Senior Distribution Manager. Prior to joining Namene, Wayne spent 20 years in the logistics industry where he held various roles, all of which focussed on improving performance and efficiency while developing and motivating people, to ultimately create a culture of customer centricity. Drawing on his operational, commercial and general management leadership experience and abilities, Wayne works with, supports and develops Namene’s country distribution teams as they strive to deliver best in class last-mile delivery solutions to people in frontier markets.
Danny is the Operations Senior Associate within Namene’s climate team. Danny joined Namene while completing his masters on the utilisation of Sustainable Development Goals in emerging markets. Danny’s focus at Namene is on the development of the company’s expanding climate projects, as well as working with our distribution teams to ensure compliance with Gold Standard’s certification requirements, including collaborating with technology providers to provide tools for robust monitoring. Danny’s work is driven by his commitment to providing energy access to communities that are left behind by traditional financing methods.
clemence.mungwariri@namenesolar.com
Clemence is the Namene Climate Team’s Data Analyst. Drawing on his previous experience working in sell-side equity research, Clemence leverages problem-solving, programming, and data analysis skills to optimise Namene’s reporting efficiency and transparency, ensure data integrity, and build and maintain reporting pipelines while supporting the team with bespoke solutions and tools.
jackson.mungoni@namenesolar.com
Jackson is Namene’s Country Manager for the Zimbabwe operations. Before working with Namene, Jackson led emergency and early recovery humanitarian projects for more than 20 years, across areas such as food security, water and sanitation, emergency shelter and non-food items programming in both conflict contexts and economies in transition. Leaning on his engineering, environmental and project management skills, Jackson heads up the team responsible for distributing Namene’s products across all eight rural provinces of Zimbabwe. He is focused on designing an efficient last mile distribution strategy that balances speed with data quality, customer-centricity and organisational profitability.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jackson-mungoni/?originalSubdomain=zw
chanda.mulenga@namenesolar.com
As the Country Director for Namene in Zambia, Mulenga is responsible for developing and driving Namene’s business strategy in the country – from governance and finance to talent management and commercial distribution. He has drawn on his extensive experience working in the private sector, NGOs and government agencies across Africa to build Namene’s team of over 300 full time staff and part time field agents in Zambia, and distribute over 500,000 lights in three years. Mulenga is also the Vice President of the Solar Industry Association of Zambia.
Bruce.salt@namenesolar.com
Bruce is the Country Director for Namibia at Namene. With a background in sustainable energy solutions, Bruce’s multifaceted experience ranges from entrepreneurship in the biofuel industry to extensive involvement in community service and conservation efforts – demonstrating his commitment to sustainable energy, social impact, and environmental stewardship. With a strong belief in the transformative power of sustainable solutions, Bruce is focused on empowering both Namene employees and the communities they serve, and on promoting economic development while minimising environmental impact.
Find Bruce on LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/in/bruce-salt-68067211a/
John is operations manager for Namene in Namibia and is responsible for people, operations, budget, project delivery and strategy. He has a combined working experience of more than 17 years in the commercial and technical areas, having spent the last 10 years in the airline industry. John brings to Namene’s Namibia team his ability to anticipate business requirements, identify innovative strategies, deliver tailored solutions, and empower people to take ownership in a positive and motivating environment.
Find John on LinkedIn
Njavwa.Musondela@namenesolar.com
Njavwa is Namene’s Senior Operations Manager in Zambia. Prior Namene, Njavwa worked for a boutique financial advisory firm where he focused on identifying areas of growth, building and incubating businesses, M&A deals, and capital raise. Driven by his passion for sustainability and building functional businesses, he joined Namene to manage day to day climate operations in Zambia – ensuring the company maintains high quality data for all carbon projects, while expanding its distribution network across Zambia.
www.linkedin.com/in/njavwamusondela
Ian is Namene’s Head of Partnerships and Sales. Prior to joining Namene, Ian spent 20 years working across numerous business and NGO sectors in several African countries: building, delivering, and running a range of entities and projects addressing disaster relief, humanitarian development, and social impact. Ian leads Namene’s business development and uses his extensive experience and network to open new opportunities and partnerships to increase and grow Namene’s social impact and profitability.
Irene is Namene’s Business Development Manager, East Africa. She is a seasoned business strategist and negotiator with over ten years of innovative and commercial agility in generating and driving business in East African countries. Irene is responsible for constantly developing and managing new credible leads and partnerships for solar Namene’s products and programmes across the East African region. She heads a multicultural and determined team who supports her in building solid relationships with strategic partners.
Jordan is the Head of Product and Manufacturing at Namene. Jordan’s experience spans over a decade in the product and manufacturing sectors – consistently contributing to the growth of numerous businesses through the application of thoughtful design practices. Jordan’s efforts at Namene have resulted in the manufacturing of over 1,000,000 products and the successful introduction of four new products in just two years. With a diverse background and a genuine desire to make a difference, Jordan aspires to utilise their skills at Namene to empower communities and bring about meaningful change in the lives of others.
massimo.lisanti@namenesolar.com
Massimo is responsible for Namene’s products validation and verification, contributing over 15 year’s experience in solar energy and high-tech industries to the Products team. Massimo’s expertise spans both production (semiconductors) and product quality control and assurance (photovoltaics). One of the earliest members of the Namene team, Massimo’s work is driven by his commitment to helping people live better lives.
Leah is Namene’ s Head of Operations. Having joined Namene from a senior procurement and logistics role at an East Africa-based solar company, Leah uses her 10 years’ experience in inventory management, warehousing, global shipping, customs regulations, and logistics processes to ensure Namene’s operational cogs run smoothly. Leah’s remit is global and ranges from assembly to finished goods, and engaging all stakeholders from suppliers to component manufacturers and eventually to B2B and B2C distributors.
Nina is a Product Design Engineer at Namene. Having spent some time supporting a number of projects dedicated to enabling access to clean energy before joining Namene, Nina helps design and bring to life products, utilising her engineering experience to delve into manufacturing and technical details.
Leo is Namene’s manufacturing quality manager, drawing on over 20 years of hands-on manufacturing and quality management experience, covering almost all key commodities and manufacturing processes in a wide variety of industries. Based in China, Leo takes care of the quality of Namene’s supply chain.
Rebecca.Archer@namenesolar.com
Rebecca, a Senior Manager in the Finance team, qualified as an accountant at Deloitte and has lead finance teams in dynamic and acquisitive international, listed technology groups. She has a science background, a naturally curious and analytical mind and has been instrumental in delivering successful change programmes. At Namene, Rebecca leads an improvement agenda which includes implementing a best-in-class financial reporting and forecasting system which will empower the business to understand how it can best achieve its high growth ambitions.