The Team

Investment Commitee

NIDF’s Investment Committee members collective have over 125 years’ experience in infrastructure financing, project development, financial and capital markets, both in Nigeria and around the globe.

Philip Southwell

chairman
Philip trained and qualified as an ACA with Touche Ross (now Deloitte LLP) in London in 1993 and has spent the past 25 years working in emerging and frontier markets with Deutsche Bank, EFG-Hermes and Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Philip has executed numerous transactions in these markets across a wide range of sectors, including infrastructure, energy and financial services.

He has managed and supervised large credit books in EM infrastructure, as well as raised billions of dollars in institutional capital for issuers from these markets particularly Africa.

Between 2013 and 2015, Philip was also the CEO of Exotix, a frontier market focused merchant bank, where he led the strategic growth of its business with particular focus on Africa.

Mobolaji Balogun

Fund CIO
Bolaji is the Group CEO of Chapel Hill Denham and is one of the leading deal makers by volume and value of successfully completed transactions in Nigeria, over the last decade. He has over 28 years’ experience in financial services, mobile telecommunications and infrastructure.

After spending eleven years in investment banking and securities trading within FCMB Group from 1990 to 2001, Bolaji co-founded Econet Wireless Nigeria now Airtel Nigeria, in January 2001, which was the first major private infrastructure project in Nigeria. He successfully raised USD740 million multi-currency financing for the venture, whose sale to Celtel in 2005 remains Nigeria’s single largest successfully exited infrastructure investment.

Bolaji returned to Investment Banking when he founded Chapel Hill in 2005. Over the past decade, he has worked with clients on the financing of several infrastructure projects including a 90MW captive power plant, Lekki-Ikoyi link bridge, Lagos-Badagry dual carriage way, upgrade of Ozumba –Mbadiwe road, Lagos rail mass transit project (Blue Rail) and the acquisition of the assets and liabilities of the Lekki Concession Company by the Lagos State Government.

He also advised on several Real Estate projects including Eko Atlantic, Persianas Limited’s development of the Palms Shopping Mall, Lagos and the Polo Park Mall in Enugu, amongst several others.

He is an Economics (Honours) graduate of the London School of Economics.

Anshul Rai

FUND CEO
Anshul has spent over twenty years investing in and financing infrastructure across emerging and frontier markets. A vast majority of his time has been in principal investment roles, for both equity and debt financing, during which he has built a track record of delivering strong investment returns.

During his career, Anshul has worked for some of the most well-regarded entities in the infrastructure space, including the IFC, KPMG, Veolia Water and Bank Muscat. His deal list includes dozens of projects across power, energy, utilities and transport sectors with investment value of c. USD50 billion. These projects are located in Africa, the Middle East/GCC region and across Asia.


Between 2006 and 2011, Anshul was the founding team member and MD of MENA Infrastructure Fund, where he built and managed a USD200 million investment portfolio of infrastructure assets across the MENA region.
Throughout his career, Anshul has led and managed cross-disciplinary teams on transaction structuring, due diligence, financial modelling, negotiations and documentation. In infrastructure debt, he has had extensive involvement both senior and subordinated debt transactions in different sectors, across a number of jurisdictions. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering and an MBA in Finance.

Advisory board

Funmi Ekundayo

Chairperson/CEO, STL Trustees Limited
Joint Trustees

Eguarekhide Longe

CEO
AIICO Pensions

Eric Fajemisin

CEO
Stanbic IBTC Pensions

Joy Ojokavo

General Manager
Progress Trust CPFA

Richard Eckrich

Head, Infrastructure FunD
Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority