IJGlobal Awards 2025 – APAC Judges
We are delighted to unveil the Asia Pacific judging panel for the IJGlobal Awards 2025. This esteemed group comprises seasoned industry professionals with extensive expertise in infrastructure and energy financing throughout the region. They will determine the recipients of the company awards.
These awards honor significant developments that reached financial close in the Asia Pacific region during the 2025 calendar year. They spotlight the organisations instrumental in delivering greenfield projects in the infrastructure and energy sectors, as well as those involved in refinance activities.
Our debut APAC Investor and APAC standalone Awards were announced at a gala dinner on 19 November at The WestIn Singapore, the last day of our 2-day Infrastructure Finance Forum: Asia 2025.
IJGlobal Awards stand out as the most transparent and peer-reviewed recognition in the industry. Regional teams of experts meticulously evaluate submissions and confidentially vote on the most outstanding organisations throughout the judging period.
During Asia Pacific Judgment Day in late January (2026), our impartial panel of judges will convene to deliberate on companies that closed deals in greenfield project finance and refinance activities throughout 2025. Winners will be disclosed on the awards night in Singapore towards mid-April 2026.
To ensure fairness, judges abstain from voting in categories where conflicts of interest arise – for instance, lawyers refrain from voting on legal advisers, and bankers have no influence on the MLA category.
To access the IJGlobal Awards 2025 submissions portal, click here...
The judges for Asia Pacific Judgment Day are:
- Christopher Ang – UOB
- Isabel Chatterton – ADB
- Rachel Chia – Deutsche Bank
- Cyril Dissescou – Nexif Ratch
- Carine Galtier – Credit Agricole CIB
- Sajal Kishore – Fitch Ratings
- James Lok – AIIB
- Jean Monson – MUFG
- Ganesh Padmanabhan – DBS Bank
- Ramakrishna Pataballa – BNP Paribas
- Sophea Seng – Clifford Capital
- Yash Shah – SMBC
- Krishna Suryanarayanan – ING
- Shivesh Tyagi – Alvarez & Marsal
Christopher Ang
UOB
Christopher is group head of infrastructure & project finance within UOB’s Group Investment Banking division. He has responsibility for origination, structuring and execution of specialised industry and project finance opportunities across the Singapore-headquartered Group’s footprint and geographies.
He is our first time judge but in the industry he has over 25 years’ experience in the structured, specialized asset and project finance sectors.
Christopher’s focus areas include complex, non-recourse cashflow-centric projects, including but not limited to power & renewables, energy transition, infrastructure & PPPs, natural resources and extractive industries and across various roles as advisor, structurer, financier and sponsors’ developer.
He holds a Master of Engineering and a Bachelor of Engineering from the National University of Singapore, and is fluent in English, Mandarin and French.
Isabel Chatterton
ADB
Isabel is the Director General of the Asian Development Bank’s Private Sector Operations Department (PSOD), a role she took on 1 October 2025.
She leads the department’s strategic direction to catalyze sustainable private investment across APAC. Her mandate includes strengthening innovation, scaling development impact, and deepening collaboration with the private sector and key partners to accelerate progress toward inclusive growth and climate resilience.
Isabel has more than three decades of global experience in infrastructure, private sector development, and international development finance. She has held a succession of high-impact leadership roles at the International Finance Corporation (IFC), World Bank, including leading IFC’s infrastructure investment platform across Asia, overseeing a team of 100 professionals, and delivering significant growth in private capital mobilization across emerging markets.
She is a repeat judge, having represented IFC on the judging panel earlier.
A dual national of Spain and Colombia, her global perspective is grounded in over 12 years of leadership experience in Asia, including extended tenures in Singapore and India, where she helped position IFC as a leading partner in infrastructure finance.
Isabel has also held key roles across World Bank Group operations in the Middle East, Latin America, and South Asia, as well as in subnational finance and in the private sector as a Senior Consultant with WS Atkins in the UK.
Rachel Chia
Deutsche Bank
Rachel is managing director, head of project finance, Asia Pacific for the German lender. She is a repeat judge, having featured for the first time on our panel last year (2024). Since then, she has further expanded her growing team, sealing significant project finance deals with a sharp focus in Australia.
Rachel has more than 18 years of industry and project finance experience, especially in the renewables space, where she has led and closed more than 8GW of renewables transactions, and numerous PPP infrastructure transactions in APAC.
She is based in Singapore. Prior to joining Deutsche Bank, Rachel was a director with Norddeutsche Landesbank Girozentrale (Singapore) Structured Finance APAC team for 5.5 years and worked in the General Electric Company across United States, Singapore, China, UK, Canada in various finance positions for 9 years.
Cyril Dissescou
Nexif Ratch
Our first time judge, Cyril is the chief executive officer of Nexif Ratch Energy, a Singapore-headquartered renewable energy platform jointly owned by Nexif Energy (51%) and RATCH Group of Thailand (49%), with operations across the Philippines and Vietnam.
Under Cyril’s leadership, Nexif Ratch has achieved rapid growth and strategic milestones, including delivering COD for the 74MWp Calabanga Renewable Energy (CARE) solar project, its first operational project in the Philippines, reaching Financial Close and starting construction of the 145 MWp NPSI solar project, becoming the first international investor to sign a PPA under Vietnam’s transitional regime for the 80MW Ben Tre Wind Power project, and advancing its 500 MW San Miguel Bay nearshore wind farm by obtaining CEPNS (Certificate of Energy Project of National Significance) status. The San Miguel Bay project is also preparing to participate in GEAP 5, the Philippines’ next Green Energy Auction Program.
Today, Nexif Ratch manages 378MW of operating, under-construction, and ready-to-build projects and has built a development pipeline of nearly 3GW.
Before joining Nexif Ratch at the beginning of 2024, Cyril spent 20 years at BNP Paribas Investment Banking, including 15 years in Singapore. He served as managing director in the Low Carbon Transition Group, leading M&A and capital-raising transactions in renewables, energy infrastructure, and transition metals across Asia Pacific.
Carine Galtier
Credit Agricole CIB
Also our first time judge, Carine is managing director within Credit Agricole CIB’s Energy and Infrastructure Group. She has been driving the coverage for offshore wind for the French lender in APAC.
Carine joined Credit Agricole in 2001 and has over 20 years of experience in structured and project finance. Based in Hong Kong since 2010, she has been focusing on renewable energy and infrastructure.
Carine has significant experience in lending and advisory, successfully leading the structuring and debt raising for numerous OWF projects in Taiwan and Korea. She holds a master’s degree in finance from HEC Paris.
Sajal Kishore
Fitch Ratings
Sajal has adjudged APAC awards before in his previous capacity at Fitch Ratings. He has recently taken a wider mandate and now is managing director and head of Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia-Pacific, Infrastructure & Project Finance Ratings.
He manages teams in London, Madrid, Milan, Mumbai, Singapore, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Sydney. The Infrastructure & Project Finance group delivers credit ratings for a diverse range of issuers, including the owners of airports, toll roads, seaports, terminals, rail infrastructure, public-private partnerships, availability-based projects, data centres, fibre networks, telecom towers, social infrastructure, and other alternative or non-core infrastructure assets.
Sajal joined Fitch in Sydney in 2007, advancing to head of Energy & Utility ratings for South and South-East Asia in 2015, and then to head of Asia-Pacific Infrastructure & Project Finance ratings in 2018.
Before joining Fitch, Sajal built expertise in relationship management and credit roles at leading commercial banks, including ANZ Banking Group in Sydney and HSBC in India. He brings over 20 years of experience in ratings, research, advisory, and corporate client management across a wide range of industries and sectors.
James Lok
AIIB
A first time judge, James is manager of Project and Corporate Finance Clients Department, Global, overseeing Global Project Finance in Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) – the Beijing headquartered lender.
James mandate expands to covering energy, transport, water, urban, social infrastructure, digital infrastructure, and other productive sectors.
James is involved in successful financings for projects with total project costs exceeding $45 billion, including: Meizhou Wan Power (China); Ilijan Power (the Philippines); Gangwon Wind Power, Uijeongbu Light Rail Transit (S. Korea); Nam Theun 2 Hydro Power (Laos); PTT's HMC Petrochemical, Dow's HPPO Petrochemical (Thailand); Senoko Power Acquisition, Jurong Aromatic, SportsHub Stadium (Singapore); DP World-SPCT Container Port, AES Mong Duong 2 Power (Vietnam); Measat 3b Satellite (Malaysia); Ausgrid Acquisition, Endeavour Energy Acquisition (Australia); Google-Facebook-PLDC Hong Kong to Los Angeles subsea fibre optic cable (Hong Kong).
Jean Monson
MUFG
An established figure in the Asia Pacific banking community and a repeat judge for us, Jean traces her career back to the solid foundations of a legal training, having started work in London as a lawyer at Freshfields.
By the start of 2019, she had switched to MUFG where she has since built an impressive career joining as a project finance director with a key focus on ESG and – earlier this year – being promoted to head of infra PF for Asia.
When it comes to banking, Jean’s primary focus is the origination and execution of project finance lending and advisory in the renewable and infrastructure sectors, as well as ESG finance.
Jean is an experienced UK-qualified lawyer and investment banker having advised clients in the UK and the Asia Pacific regions over the last 14 years.
She has executed financing transactions in the international debt capital markets – both loans and bonds – and worked on numerous award-winning transactions in PF and ESG.
Jean is considered a thought leader in renewable energy, data centres and ESG and has garnered a degree of fame as a regular podcaster for MUFG.
Ganesh Padmanabhan
DBS Bank
Another repeat judge and a well-known figure in the infra space, Ganesh is the managing director, head of the project finance institutional banking group at DBS Bank, Singapore’s largest lender.
Ganesh has been with the Singaporean lender since 2014 in different leadership roles and has led the project finance team since 2023.
He has more than 22 years of banking experience, having worked in advisory and arranging capacity on deals in the power, telecom, ports, and O&G sectors and across geographies.
Ganesh is currently leading clients in project/structured finance for renewable energy (solar, onshore wind, battery storage, offshore wind and hydro), LNG-to-power, O&G midstream and transmission infrastructure projects in the Asia Pacific region.
Prior to DBS, he worked at Standard Chartered.
Ramakrishna Pataballa
BNP Paribas
Also a repeat judge and an industry veteran, Ramki is managing director and head of project finance and advisory at BNP Paribas.
Based in Singapore, he is member of the bank’s global Low Carbon Transition Group (LCTG), Ramki is also responsible for developing and implementing bank’s strategy in providing advisory and financing services for clients in power, oil and gas and infrastructure sectors in Asia, where the group focuses extensively on assisting clients in energy transition by investing in renewables and clean energy sectors.
He has been with BNP Paribas for over 22 years and has worked on some marquee projects across the region.
A trained engineer, Ramki started his banking career with ICICI Corporation in India, where he spent 5 years before joining the French lender in April 2002.
Sophea Seng
Clifford Capital
Sophea is a managing director and head of Energy & Utilities at Clifford Capital Group in Singapore.
Her team is responsible for client coverage, originating, structuring and executing all types of debt transactions in the Energy and Utilities sector for the platform.
Sophea over 17 years of experience in the energy sector. Prior to joining Clifford Capital, she led Societe Generale’s energy financing practice for South and Southeast Asia. She has worked across Australia, Hong Kong, and Singapore.
Sophea holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree from University of New South Wales, Australia. She is also a CFA charter holder.
Yash Shah
SMBC
A first-time judge, Yash is managing director, and head of energy Asia, ex-Japan and Australia at SMBC in Singapore.
He has over 17 years of financial advisory experience including loan structuring, arranging financings in renewables, power and infrastructure.
As a PF banker, he would have advised nearly 100 significant transactions, including some award-winning deals such as the Monsoon Wind Project in Laos, Cirata Floating Solar in Indonesia, ReNew’s RTC project in India, Adani’s Emerald 2 & 3 projects in India, the Bulacan Airport Project in Philippines and the Oyu Tolgoi Copper Mine in Mongolia.
Yash has been with SMBC for 14 years. He started his banking career in India with Kotak Mahindra Bank and ICICI Bank.
Krishna Suryanarayanan
ING
Krishna heads ING’s Sector Coverage Team Asia Pacific for Telecoms, Media, Technology and Healthcare and has been with the lender since 2008.
Krishna has worked closely with a number of regional and global corporate and financial sponsor clients in the TMT and Healthcare sectors and has led the origination and execution of numerous transactions in the Asia Pacific region while developing successful client franchises, across various sub-sectors, geographies and products including corporate and structured financings, leveraged buyouts and corporate acquisition facilities, project and structured export finance, debt capital markets issuances, M&A advisory mandates, financial markets and working capital solutions.
Prior to ING, Krishna was with ABN AMRO where he was the head of Asian Telecom & Media finance. Krishna also worked for 7 years in the telecom equipment industry with Nortel’s regional Structured Finance team and led structured financing initiatives for Nortel in Asia.
Krishna spent the first 5 years of his career in investment banking in India with DSP Merrill Lynch Limited and SBI Capital Markets Limited.
Shivesh Tyagi
Alvarez & Marsal
Shivesh is also our first time judge. On 17 November, he moved into a bigger role in the region as managing director at Alvarez & Marsal to lead its infrastructure advisory services.
In his career, he has worked on all sides of the energy transition journey: as a developer, consultant, advisor, and policy planner. Shivesh’s background is predominantly in the energy sector across the region, where he has advised on complex M&A buy and sell side transactions in the infrastructure space, covering everything from waste-to-energy, renewables, hydrogen, water, and biofuels across the Asia Pacific region.
Shivesh has also worked closely with various government agencies on key energy advisory topics in the southeast region.
He was with AFRY till recently, and have also worked at Arup.
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