The Team
The Team
Experts in their field
The Scipion team has more than 150 years of cumulative experience in banking, corporate finance, project finance, impact investing, equities and portfolio management in emerging markets.
Nicolas Clavel
Chief Investment Officer
Nicolas is Scipion Capital’s Founder and CIO. He oversees the investment processes for all of the firm’s strategies and is responsible for the development of all new products.
Nicolas has over three decades of experience in trade finance. After beginning his career with Credit Suisse in Switzerland, he worked at Midland Bank Plc’s Trade Finance subsidiary in Lausanne and London before joining Citicorp Investment Bank in London covering EMEA structured trade finance in 1984. He left Citibank in 1992 as CEO of their West Africa Head Office in Dakar having been headhunted to start DOC Finance, a merchant bank based in Geneva focused on trade finance in Emerging and Frontier Markets.
He returned to Africa seven years later as CEO of Standard Bank’s Congo-Kinshasa subsidiary, before joining Standard Chartered Grindlays in Switzerland two years later. Nicolas then spent 4 years with Barclays Private Bank in Switzerland managing a portfolio of African clients before setting up Scipion Capital.
Nicolas holds an MBA from Instituto de Empresa in Madrid, is Chairman of AIM-listed Symphony Environmental Technologies Plc, and served as a Court Magistrate in Switzerland for many years. Nicolas is also a member of the Advisory Board to Global Trade Review, a leading Trade Finance industry publication.
Stephen Kemp
Director – Trade Finance
Stephen is one of Scipion’s senior trade finance transactors and has over thirty years of experience in trade finance. Stephen began in banking at the National Westminster Bank and has spent his career at major international banks covering middle office, structured export finance, business development and global trade finance before joining Rand Merchant Bank of South Africa, in 2003 where he was responsible for creating and establishing the banks merchant banking presence in London. Before joining Scipion Stephen established the trade financing business for Europe Arab Bank plc.
Over the course of his career, Stephen has financed trades in over 100 countries around the globe, including much of Africa and the Middle East. He a respected senior member of the trade finance industry, receiving awards from his peers for innovative transactions and contributing to trade journals and conferences.
Stephen is Secretary to Scipion Capital (UK) Ltd.’s Investment Committee and Chair of its Pipeline Committee.
Paul Baker
Chief Risk Officer – Trade Finance,
British
Paul Chief Risk Officer assesses the trade finance deals that go before Scipion’s Investment Committee as well as the on-going monitoring of the current deal book. Paul also responsibility for managing a number of trades with a strong emphasis on Borrower engagement. With more than 30 years of experience in trade finance, his career has focused on identifying, structuring and closing trade facilities that meet the financing needs of commodity traders and producers.
Paul joined Scipion from Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation Europe Ltd (SMBC) where he was an Assistant General Manager in the Structured Trade and Commodity Finance Department.
Prior to SMBC he was for a number of years Director of Metals and Mining, Commodity Finance at West LB.
Paul is a senior and respected figure within the Trade Finance community, he brings to Scipion his cradle to grave experience and distinguished track record gained in a number of major international banks. He is Scipion Capital Ltd.’s Risk Officer and a member of Scipion’s Investment Committee.
Matthew JP Goddard FLD
Origination
Matt joined Scipion to focus on deal origination coming from a strong corporate finance background with 25+ years working in Trade & Export Finance; Asset Finance & Asset Based Lending sectors.
Matt was the co-founder of GMAC (UK) Asset Finance and Landsbanki Equipment Finance and co-founded and Director of Ex Works Capital’s London office, specialising in working capital bridges.
He has experience of International Asset Finance & ABL funding of corporate assets; Structured & Leverage Finance; Trade & Export Finance global facilities, including non-domestic Receivables funding and Supply Chain Finance; Restructure & Turnaround Finance; Project Finance; Corporate Auctioneering; Valuation & Asset repatriation & Disposals.
Matt is a Member of the Turnaround Management Association; London Trade Roundtable; ITFA: Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment; Institute of Export; British Exporters Association and the British Venture Capital Association.
He has held a number of Directorate positions over the years.
Matt attained his degree in Finance & Leasing Degree from London City University.
LinkedIn Profile: http://uk.linkedin.com/pub/matthew-goddard/2/791/93
Cobus Campher
Regional Head Southern Africa
Cobus is Scipion’s Regional Head for Southern Africa and Group Agronomist. Based in Gaborone, Botswana Cobus project manages Scipion’s multi-layered agri-businesses.
Cobus began his career in the early 2000s as a farm manager in the Viljoenskroon district of South Africa, where he managed both the cattle and broiler business as well as over-sighting the farms planting programme of sunflower, sorghum, soya beans and peanuts. Having gained experience at this large commercial farm, he returned to the family farm to oversee upgrades on its poultry operation, comprising 81,000 chickens and on its cereal business. The latter involved a specific focus on crop cultivation over 900 hectares.
Cobus focused on soil fertilisation and yield potential, and the growth cycle in terms of weed control, plant health and pest control. He converted the farm to a “no-till” system in 2011.
In 2015 Cobus moved to North Pretoria to manage a large-scale piggery, before relocating his family to Gaborone to take up his role at Scipion. Cobus is a specialist in: crop production, no-till precision farming, pig, poultry and dairy production, agricultural business management and project planning and management.
Cobus graduated in 2001 from Agricultural College, Potchefstroom, and in 2011 obtained B. Technologie agricultural management – Cum Laude from Central University of Technology, Free State.
Chris L Rogers
Regional Head Francophone Africa
Christopher L. Rogers is Scipion’s Regional Head of Francophone Africa and independent credit oversight officer. Based in Rabat, Morocco Chris has more than 40 years’ experience of working in Africa – having held senior positions in the banking sector and developed high profile joint venture projects in countries across the African continent. Chris started his career at Citibank as the senior country manager in Kinshasa, Libreville and Dakar, in the corporate, merchant and private banking sectors with a specific focus on public and private sector credit. At the time of his departure from Citibank, Christopher was Africa Global Market Manager, Private Banking, for Citibank’s Paris and Johannesburg operations and in total spent a total of 27 years with the Bank.
Throughout the 2000s, Chris held a number of senior private banking positions at Banque Belgolaise in Johannesburg and Credit Suisse in Geneva.
Christopher holds a Master of Science in Foreign Service from the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, and a BA in International Relations from Washington College. He is also an non-executive director of Scipion Capital Ltd. Christopher is bilingual in English-French and has working knowledge of Lingala and Wolof.
Ian McNeil
Head of Operations
Ian joined Scipion in 2017 as Head of Operations after a distinguished 30 year career in the commodity and trade finance industry. Ian has managed teams for major banks in London, Hong Kong and the Netherlands, holding various positions up to and including Global Head.
Before joining Scipion, Ian was a Senior Manager with Standard Chartered Bank in their London Collateral Management team with responsibilities ranging from Head of Europe to Global Coordinator for the Structured Inventory business. Prior to this, Ian was Global Head of Collateral Management for Fortis Bank. He previously managed their Hong Kong team for over 4 years, during which he helped to establish a unit in Shanghai.
Ian’s previous experience includes establishing a start-up middle office operation for WestLB London as well as extensive trade finance experience gained with globally recognised banks in the City of London.
Dona Mugabe
Group Financial Controller
Dona joined Scipion recently and is a chartered accountant qualifying in 2012. She has worked for a number of years as a Finance Manager in private sector Accounts Departments. Dona is experienced in bookkeeping, payroll, producing annual and management accounts and VAT returns.
Dona works closely with Scipion’s CIO and Head of Operations on the accounting and operational aspects of both the management company and investment vehicles.
Dona is a member of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants. Originally from Uganda, Dona moved to Britain in 2000 and is fluent in Luganda and English.
Mark Robertson
Head of Corporate Services
Mark is Scipion’s Head of Corporate Services. Mark is a former solicitor and brings with him over 20 years of experience in the banking, structured and trade finance sectors. Mark started his legal career at Clifford Chance before moving to White & Case acting as lead associate in the firm’s structured finance practice (both cash and synthetic transactions), traditional capital markets programmes and stand-alone issuances, repacks, future flow receivable transactions and general LMA and bespoke lending arrangements. In 2005 Mark moved to Speechly Bircham LLP where he specialised in structured finance and banking, including post-credit crunch fund restructuring, fund related litigation and security enforcement on behalf of trusts.
Mark was appointed legal counsel at Zamin in 2011, a mining and resources company, and in 2015 moved to Gerald Metals as Senior Legal Counsel where he focused on long-term structured advance payment contracts regarding copper and ferrous/precious metals. In 2017, Mark joined Scipion and served there as Senior Counsel – Trade Finance and now returns to Scipion to join the commercial team as Head of Corporate Services and Chairs Scipion Capital Ltd.’s ESI Committee.
Mark read law at Downing College, University of Cambridge.
Peter Ullmann
Investment Committee
Peter acts as an external member of Scipion’s Investment Committee. He is an experienced risk and general management professional, with an expert knowledge of international trade and commodity finance. He began his career in Lloyds Bank International, holding management positions in Brazil, the UK, Spain, the Netherlands and France. He then joined Allseas SA as a member of the management team and financial director, gaining experience in the raising of debt finance in the offshore energy industry. This was followed by a move to the Russian Federation where Peter was the managing director for AIOC Corporation, a leading US commodity and financial services house with significant presence in the CIS.
He subsequently returned to banking and risk management, holding senior executive positions in Fortis Bank and ABN AMRO, resident in the Netherlands. Experience of regulation was gained in his role as Director of Risk and Finance at The Pensions Regulator, before he again reverted to banking as a statutory Board member for Amsterdam Trade Bank, where he was Chief Risk Officer responsible for the legal, compliance , and risk management functions.
Peter read history at Queens’ College, Cambridge, and is married with two children. He speaks several European languages and is a sitting Magistrate.