Nitin Jayant Madhvani – Chairman/President
Mr Nitin Madhvani was appointed Chairman of Madhvani International, S.A. (MISA) in 2020. He has more than 45 years’ experience of leadership in international business, having started his career in 1975 as a Director of the Madhvani Group of Companies.
Educated at Charterhouse and Oxford University (MA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics), his earliest leadership challenge was in 1971 when he lost his father, the great industrialist Jayant Madhvani. When, General Idi Amin, Uganda’s dictator, nationalised the Madhvani Family’s businesses and properties in 1973, Nitin settled in Kenya where he established the region’s first bio-fuels plant in partnership with Swiss and Swedish investors. In 1979, when Idi Amin was overthrown, Nitin was the first person of Indian origin to return to Uganda and recover the family’s businesses and properties. Mobilising international support for the country, he initiated an extensive and successful rehabilitation of the Family’s industries. In 1994, MISA began development of the 250MW Bujagali hydro-power station, Africa’s first hydro IPP. MISA partnered with AES Corporation bringing the $650 Million project to financial closure. After 2006, he embarked on the programme to expand MISA’s activities to Europe.
A founder Director of Uganda’s Economic Policy Research Centre, he is also a Trustee of the Uganda Chamber of Commerce and Industry. He served two terms on Uganda’s chapter of the NEPAD Africa Peer Review Mechanism. Appointed to the IV Presidential Round Table, he led the formulation of Uganda’s policy for expanding infrastructure.
In addition to his native Gujerati, he is fluent in English and Swahili, whilst also enjoying extensive experience of the French language.
Suku Radia – Deputy Chairman
Suku Radia was born in Kampala, Uganda where is earned a distinction in his primary and secondar education. At the time of the expulsion of Asians by the dictator Idi Amin, Suku emigrated to the USA, where in 1974 he earned a Bachelor of Science degree, with Distinction, from Iowa State University. Choosing a career in accountancy he qualified as a Certified Public Accountant in 1975, when he joined international firm, KPMG. Radia was appointed as Managing Partner of KPMG in Des Moines Iowa, USA from 1993 to 2000, where he enjoyed a 25-year career.
After a distinguished tenure at KPMGand in March 2008, Suku Radia was selected to lead the Bankers Trust of Iowa. He retired at the end of 2017 as CEO, a position which he had assumed when he had joined. Prior to joining Bankers Trust of Iowa, Suku had served for 8 years as Chief Financial Officer of Meredith Corporation, a NYSE company and the nation’s leading diversified media company. He was named Best Metro Business Leader (2012-2017), Best Minority Business Leader (2012-2017) and Most Influential Business Leader (2012-2017). He remains on the Boards of distinguished NYE100 companies and joined Quasar leadership in early 2020.
Lord Valentine Cecil - Non-Executive Director
Lord Valentine Cecil is a non-executive director of Quasar Energy. Lord Valentine is the fourth son of the 6th Marquis of Salisbury and a member of one of England’s most distinguished and prominent families. His family shares centuries of history with Africa that continues today. Although primarily based in London, Lord Valentine has retained an interest in Africa for over 35 years and spends several months a year in the region, particularly Kenya and other parts of Sub-Saharan Africa.
Lord Valentine continued his family’s recognised tradition of serving his country. A career military officer with the British Armed Forces, Lord Valentine served with distinction in incrementally more responsible positions that included executive roles within NATO and the Ministry of Defence regarding Europe and Africa. He retired as a Major in 1992.
Following his distinguished military career, Lord Valentine acquired Wilken Telecommunications Limited, based in Kenya with regional business interests, as well as an interest in Tracker Security Group offering security services in Kenya and Uganda for vehicle recovery. Also, Lord Valentine was instrumental in growing AfSat into Africa’s leading VSAT and satellite ISP service operator with customers in 26 African countries, from which he divested in 2007 – now part of MWeb Africa Limited, a subsidiary of Naspers Limited, listed on the Johannesburg exchange.
Beyond his business interests, Lord Valentine is vice chairman of the Eastern Africa Association which represents the business interests of its members in East Africa.
Lord Valentine is a Graduate of the Staff College and speaks English and French fluently. He has taken a keen interest in Small Modular Reactors for over five years and supports Project Quasar to become the first c.1GW SMR power generation project in the U.K.
Michael Armstrong - Non-Executive Project Development
Mr. Armstrong’s most contemporary career was as Vice-President of AES Corporation for 14 years comprising regional responsibility for operating power generation businesses, plant and project construction and new business development across a European fleet of generation of more than 6GW. His responsibilities included work at greenfield CCG plants as well as at Drax Power station in UK.
Mr. Armstrong was also a director of a ‘wind power’ development company in the US until it was successfully sold to a large European Utility, and has advised on energy projects in Kenya and Ghana.
He is a co-founder and director of Wessex Solar Energy. The Company has developed 21 utility scale solar projects, and which are now operating in the South of the United Kingdom.
He is also Vice President of Sidero Bioscience LLC based in Pennsylvania, which is developing an iron repletion product for human beings.
Mr. Armstrong is a chartered engineer, and a graduate of Cambridge University. He also holds an MBA from Manchester Business School.
John McLaren - Project Director
John has over 35 years’ international experience in the power industry, where he has held numerous and diverse directorships and chair roles. He gained initial experience in construction, commissioning and operation and maintenance of conventional thermal and gas turbine-based power plants with the Central Electricity Generating Board and PowerGen. He then joined AES Corp with responsibility for project management and construction, before being appointed to Station Manager of AES Medway CCGT, responsible for all operational and commercial aspects of the plant. Subsequent positions included Group Manager and Regional President positions within the AES EMEA/CIS/Asia regions, as well as Vice President of AES Corp. and member of the executive team.
In 2010 John became CEO for GMR International, responsible as a board member for Intergen and the Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen International Airport during the development, construction and operational phases. Thereafter he became COO of TAQA Power and Water in the UAE focusing on domestic asset operations and business development performance. Recently John has taken on several advisory and consultancy roles in the power industry.
John is a magistrate in the UK and the deputy chair of a multi-academy trust and serves as an International MBA student mentor.
Dr. Adrian M. Simper OBE – Executive Advisor – Nuclear
Dr. Adrian Simper is a chartered mathematician and has a PhD in Chemical Physics from Cambridge University.
Dr. Simper has over 35 years experience in the nuclear industry both in the UK and the USA. Adrian’s roles have been largely technical and strategic but have also included project, finance and commercial and general leadership roles. He was most recently Strategy and Technology Director for the UK’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority and Chief Nuclear Advisor to UK government. His roles have included accountability for multi-billion pound strategic decisions, procurements and programmes.
Dr. Simper was appointed to the order of the British Empire (OBE) in 2007 in recognition of his services to the UK nuclear industry in Japan.
Stelios Vassileou - Finance Manager
Stelios has approximately thirty years’ finance and accounting experience in the independent power sector across several businesses. He has worked in both construction and operational phases of CCGT power generation, as well as ground-mounted solar development, EPC and operations, in the UK. Whilst at AES Corporation, he was a senior member of development and operational teams working in various power plant technologies (hydro, HFO, OCGT), and integrated utilities, in Central Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. He brings to Quasar project development skills geared to optimise financial models and transactions to benefit investors and partners.
Stelios is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (FCMA CGMA) and, prior to his accountancy qualification, gained a BEng (Hons) from King’s College, London.
John Clarke – Non-Executive Special Advisor
John Clarke has a degree in Chemical Engineering, is a Fellow of the Institution of Chemical Engineers and a Fellow, and former President, of the Nuclear Institute.
For more than 35 years, John worked in the nuclear sector in technical, health and safety, commercial, project management and executive leadership roles. His final role was as CEO of the UK Nuclear Decommissioning Authority. He has extensive experience in multi-billion-pound projects and programmes and of working across a range of highly regulated and politically and socially sensitive projects.
John holds a number of non-executive and advisory roles across the energy, transport, manufacturing and charity sectors. He joined Quasar Leadership in October 2020.