Clare is an English qualified lawyer with nearly 25 years’ experience working in the projects and infrastructure development space, 16 years of which has been spent focusing on Africa and other emerging markets. She started her career at international law firm Norton Rose, spending 5 years in their project finance team in London, acting predominantly for lenders on the financing and re-financing of large-scale infrastructure projects in the UK. Then followed a 2 year secondment to Sumitomo Corporation in Tokyo, working as in-house counsel alongside the commercial teams on the development, construction and operation of large thermal power projects and energy efficiency projects in South East Asia (incl. Vietnam and Indonesia), the Americas and Caribbean.
Deciding to then focus her practice on Africa, she worked over 10 years for both eleQtra and the Virunga Foundation. At eleQtra (initial sole developer for InfraCo Africa), she acted as lead counsel on complex, high-developmental-impact infrastructure projects across Sub-Saharan Africa (including renewable energy (solar, wind and hydro), transport (ferries and road) and irrigation/water projects, several being deal-firsts in Africa). Her work for the Virunga Foundation (a sizeable UK charity focused on sustainable development initiatives around Virunga National Park in DR Congo) covered a range of commercial and charitable matters during a period of significant growth and challenge, including financing of run-of-river hydropower projects. Clare also served on the Board of Trustee for 4 years.
During her time in Dubai (including 5 years at AMEA Power), Clare’s focus broadened again from Africa to the Middle East and Asia, working as lead counsel on the full project life-cycle, as well as acquisitions, of solar and wind projects (including 500MW wind and 500MW solar in Egypt).
Clare brings this vast experience and familiarity with the complexities and challenges of working on a range of infrastructure projects in developing markets, as well as experience advising on general corporate, commercial and compliance matters, to Capton Energy.