Melinda Yee Partner, M&A Transaction Services Deloitte

Melinda, a partner with Deloitte & Touche LLP, is a leader in Deloitte’s Oil & Gas Merger & Acquisition Services practice. She has more than 25 years of public accounting experience with Deloitte, serving both corporate and private equity clients. Melinda has led numerous M&A teams, both foreign and domestic, on various acquisition and divestiture transactions of varying sizes and complexities, and has experience across the energy spectrum.

Grant Davis Managing Director First Avenue Partners

Mr. Davis is a Managing Director with First Avenue Partners (“FIRSTavenue”). FIRSTavenue is a leading global private funds placement agent and investment advisory firm. Mr. Davis is Global Co-Head of FIRSTavenue’s private placement business, working with developers, management teams, spin-outs and corporate clients in raising equity capital. First Avenue works extensively in the energy, infrastructure and renewables sectors.

Mr. Davis has over 35 years of experience in private equity, project finance and development, and corporate finance. Before joining FIRSTavenue, he was the Managing Partner of Infra-Energy Capital Advisors, where he advised institutional investors and strategic clients in sourcing, structuring and managing real asset investments in the North American energy and infrastructure sectors. Previously, Mr. Davis was a Managing Director for six years with Tenaska Capital Management, an energy-focused private equity fund manager with over $3.2 billion of partner commitments and investments exceeding $6.5 billion.

Prior to joining Tenaska, Mr. Davis was a Managing Director with Abatis Capital in New York, a private equity firm targeting the energy sector.  Mr. Davis also spent ten years with New York Life Investment Management, where, as a Managing Director, he managed the private placement and energy portfolios, including investments in private equity, mezzanine, senior debt and tax equity.

Mr. Davis graduated from Colgate University with a B.A. in Economics and the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth with an M.B.A. in Finance.

Ari Pribadi Senior Managing Director Marathon Capital

Ari Pribadi is the Senior Managing Director, Co-Head of D&I Committee, and Head of Marathon Capital’s Chicago office. He is a corporate finance, project finance, and M&A specialist with more than 28 years of experience in the power sector. At Marathon, Mr. Pribadi advises clients on M&A transactions, debt, equity, tax equity capital raise transactions, and strategic consulting engagements.

During his 18 years with Marathon, Mr. Pribadi has worked on more than 30 successful transactions including advising TC Energy on its energy transition strategy and execution, advising Nestle on its RE-100 compliance efforts, the sale of ib Vogt, which is the largest global independent utility-scale solar company, the sale of New Jersey Resources’ four operating wind farms to Skyline Renewables ($209 million), Innogy’s acquisition of EverPower’s development platform and 2GW of pipeline from Terra Firma, CMS Enterprises’ renewable market entry strategy, the capital raise for Landmark Infrastructure’s renewable assets ($200 million facility), the sale of Wind Capital Group’s 351 MW operating wind farms to Pattern Energy ($242 million), the sale of FirstWind to SunEdison ($2.4 billion), the preferred equity raise for Edison Mission Energy ($560 million), the sale of Allco’s Alta 1,500MW wind development projects to Terra-Gen ($325 million), and the sale of Babcock & Brown’s development subsidiary to Riverstone to become Pattern Energy.

Before joining Marathon Capital, Mr. Pribadi held senior positions in power plant design engineering, project management, and project finance with ABB Power Generation and Alstom Power. During his association with ABB and Alstom, Mr. Pribadi led a design engineering group within the Power Generation Division, followed by a stint as a manager of a product management team for a large combined-cycle gas power plant.

Mr. Pribadi received his BS in Chemical Engineering from the University of Washington and his MBA with concentrations in Finance, Accounting, and Entrepreneurship from the University of Chicago. Mr. Pribadi holds his Series 7 and 63 licenses.

Kim Hicks Partner Kirkland & Ellis

Kim Hicks is a founding partner of the Austin office of Kirkland & Ellis. Kim’s practice focuses on public M&A, take private transactions, private equity investments, joint ventures and corporate governance matters in the technology, energy, and infrastructure industries. She has extensive experience with both public and private transactions across the oil and gas, power, infrastructure, and technology sectors.

Kim was recognized by The Deal as a 2020 “Top Woman in Dealmaking” for Private Equity and as “Energy, Power & Utilities Dealmaker of the Year” by The Deal Awards Middle Market in 2019.

Brendan Bell Chief Operating Officer and Managing Director Aligned Climate Capital

Brendan Bell is the Chief Operating Officer and Managing Director of Aligned Climate Capital LLC, an asset manager that invests exclusively in the companies and real assets that are decarbonizing the global economy and its infrastructure.

Previously, he was appointed by the Obama Administration to serve as the Director of Strategic Initiatives for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office (LPO). In this role, Mr. Bell served as a senior advisor to the Executive Director and managed business development and external affairs for the LPO’s $32 billion loan portfolio in renewable energy, energy storage, advanced automotive technologies, and other low carbon technologies.

Prior to working at the Department of Energy, Mr. Bell was a Legislative Assistant for U.S. Senator Frank R. Lautenberg (D-NJ), which included staffing Senator Lautenberg as Chairman of the Subcommittee on Superfund, Toxics, and Environmental Health of the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. Prior to his government service, Mr. Bell worked on public policy issues related to climate change, clean energy, and automotive fuel efficiency for the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Mr. Bell is a Director of Summit Ridge Energy, a distributed solar developer based in Arlington, VA, and Swell Energy, a residential energy storage company based in Los Angeles, CA. He also serves as the Treasurer of Anam Irish Culture and Arts, a non-profit dedicated to promoting traditional Irish music and arts in Southern California.

Mr. Bell is a graduate of Macalester College and the University of Maryland’s School of Public Policy.

Todd Bright Partner, Head Private Infrastructure Americas Partners Group

Todd Bright is Head of Partners Group’s Houston office and Head of Private Infrastructure in the Americas, as well as sitting on the Private Infrastructure Investment Committee and the Global Investment Committee. He is also a member of the Board of Directors of the firm's portfolio companies Seabras Group and Superior Pipeline Company. 

Todd has been with Partners Group since 2014 and has 29 years of industry experience, which included roles such as Managing Director of Power and Renewables investments at Denham Capital, Vice President of Structured Transactions at Conectiv Energy and Director of Business Development at Statoil. He began his career after receiving his MBA as an energy project developer at Enron. 

He holds an MBA from George Washington University, Washington, D.C., USA.

Dennis Tsesarsky Managing Partner Onpeak Capital

Dennis Tsesarsky is the founder and Managing Partner of Onpeak Capital. Prior to founding Onpeak Capital, Dennis headed renewable energy investment banking at Morgan Stanley, where he started his investment banking career in 2006 in the Global Power & Renewables Group. Dennis has extensive investment banking experience in the sector, having led numerous notable transactions. Dennis earned his MBA from the Yale School of Management.

Tom Davidson Assistant editor Mergermarket

Tom Davidson is Editor for Acuris Studios, the sponsored events and publications division of Acuris. He focuses on event content and special features. Tom joined Creditflux in 2005 and moved to New York in 2012 to setup the Creditflux US office. After Creditflux was acquired by Acuris Global, he moved to the Studios team. He graduated from Cambridge University with an MSci in Natural Sciences.

Grant Butkus Managing Director RBC Capital Markets

Grant Butkus is a Managing Director with RBC Richardson Barr where he leads corporate and asset transactions including joint ventures and structured investments. His experience includes all of the major basins in the Lower 48 for both public and private clients. Prior to RBC Grant was Head of A&D for Macquarie Capital and held several senior technical positions at ConocoPhillips. He has a Bachelor’s of Science from The University of Oklahoma and an MBA from Rice University.

Edward Geiser Managing Partner Juniper Capital

Mr. Geiser is the founder and Managing Partner of Juniper Capital Advisors and the head of the firm’s Investment Committee. Juniper, along with its affiliates, provides private equity capital to U.S. middle-market oil & gas companies and currently owns assets located in several key basins/plays. Juniper has raised over $1.2Bn in private capital since 2015 and is actively deploying that capital across its existing investments and seeking new investments. 

Prior to Juniper, Mr. Geiser was a Managing Director at Och-Ziff Capital Management where he oversaw Och-Ziff’s private investing activity in the upstream and midstream oil & gas industries in the U.S.