CEPA: Our Vision

Rosemary Hopkins - Principal
Paul Smith - Principal
Pritha Venkatachalam – Principal
Gabriella Bazzano - Managing Consultant
Chris Isaac - Senior Consultant

Mark Copley - Senior Consultant

Oliver Hogan - Senior Consultant

Thea Hutchinson - Senior Consultant

Hylton Millar - Senior Consultant
Nebojsa Novcic - Senior Consultant

Alan Rennison - Senior Consultant

Rebecca Gough - Consultant

Kaveri Kumar - Consultant

Stefan Rattensperger - Consultant
James Doree - Economist

Michael Obanubi - Economist
Patrick Taylor - Economist

Rosemary Hopkins
Rosemary is a Principal at CEPA. She has wide and varied experience of advising public sector entities and private sector bidders on the financial aspects of complex capital investment projects, gained during her ten year career in economic and financial consultancy. Prior to joining CEPA, Rosemary spent six years in KPMG’s Corporate Finance practice, where she was involved in the development and implementation of a number of ground-breaking UK PPP initiatives including NHS LIFT, Building Schools for the Future and the Independent Sector Treatment Centre programme for the Department of Health. Rosemary previously worked in the investments team at Atkins where she was the financial adviser on a number of successful education PFI deals. Rosemary has a degree in Economics from Manchester University and a postgraduate degree in Transport Economics from Leeds University. She is also a member of the Association of Corporate Treasurers.

Paul Smith
Paul is a Principal at CEPA. He has extensive experience applying economics to regulatory issues. At CEPA Paul has advised the Irish energy regulator on its price review of gas transmission and distribution, Ofgem (the UK energy regulator) on gas distribution issues, the Dutch energy regulator on the economics of a proposed electricity interconnector and the Irish aviation regulator on capex incentives. Paul is currently advising Severn Trent in preparation for PR09, Royal Mail, the Department for Transport on aviation issues and the Belgian gas regulator on a market review. Prior to joining CEPA Paul worked at Postcomm (the UK postal services regulator) leading the work for the new Royal Mail price and service quality controls, which came into effect in April 2006. Previously Paul worked for over 5 years at Ofgem. Paul worked on a wide range of issues at Ofgem including security of supply policy, wholesale market surveillance, retail competitive market reviews, a price control review of British Gas’ supply business and the development of competition in metering services. Paul has had three joint articles about postal services issues published. Paul has a degree in economics and politics from Bristol University.

Pritha Venkatachalam
Pritha is a financial specialist by background and a Principal at CEPA. Since joining CEPA in 2005, she has been involved in infrastructure PPP policy and transaction advisory work for government departments in the UK, multilateral donors, and emerging market governments in Asia and Africa. Her prior experience includes over six years of management consulting with Accenture in India and the UK. Pritha has worked across industries, advising clients in the private and public sectors on policy formulation, growth and portfolio diversification strategies, financial and risk analysis, and business restructuring. Pritha has also been a financial consultant to the World Bank on municipal infrastructure projects in Mongolia and India, and is currently working with the London School of Economics on assessing municipal finances and structures in selected cities in Africa. She has published two papers on municipal infrastructure financing. Pritha has a first class MBA degree in Finance from the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, and a first class Masters degree in Development Management from the London School of Economics, where she secured the ‘Best Overall Performance Award’.

Gabriella Bazzano
Gabriella is a financial advisory specialist who joined CEPA in 2006, where she is currently a Managing Consultant, working on regulatory projects, which require strong financial background. She has previously worked in the Transaction Advisory Services team of a big five accounting firm in both Italy and the United States. Gabriella has over seven years experience in advising private sector clients in business transactions, such as mergers and acquisitions, and public sector clients in privatization, public-private partnerships and project financing. She has significant experience in assisting clients in developing the optimal solutions for their transaction with the support of financial modelling and traditional corporate finance valuation techniques. Gabriella has experience across a range of industries including utilities, manufacturing, retail and infrastructure. She began her professional career in audit where she spent three years gaining a valuable grounding in financial accounting. Gabriella has an undergraduate degree in Business Economics and a Masters in Development Management (first class) from the London School of Economics.

Mark Copley
Mark joined CEPA as a senior consultant in July 2007 and is engaged in a range of work across the Regulatory Economics and Competition practice area. Mark is currently advising a wind developer on regulatory issues and working with the Scottish Executive to identify opportunities for the development of renewable generation. Prior to joining CEPA Mark gained extensive experience of applying economics to regulatory issues during 4 years with Ofgem (the UK energy regulator) in which he led projects to reform electricity network access arrangements and connect the islands of Scotland to the transmission network. He also has experience of price control and incentive design, wholesale market monitoring and network charging. Mark has an undergraduate degree in Economics from Exeter University, an honorary degree from a leading Ukrainian University where he taught English and Economics, and earned a distinction in his postgraduate studies in Economic Regulation and Competition Policy at City University.

Chris Isaac
Chris joined CEPA as a Senior Consultant in January 2008. Chris has eight years’ experience as an economist and consultant in the private and public sectors. Chris started his career in corporate finance with Arthur Andersen where he worked on regulatory and competition projects for a range of clients including Ofgem (the UK gas and electricity regulator), Sainsbury’s, the International Air Transport Association and the mobile telecoms company One2One (now T-Mobile). After his Master’s degree, Chris spent more than four years’ working in international development, initially as Senior Economist in the Ministry of Finance in Namibia (Overseas Development Institute Fellowship), and then as Economic Adviser at the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID). At DFID Chris advised on international debt relief and private sector development issues. He also helped shape UK policy towards the Global Fund for Aids, TB and Malaria; the International Finance Corporation; and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. Chris has a Masters degree in Economics from the London School of Economics and a Bachelors degree in Politics, Philosophy and Economics from University College, Oxford. He also holds a postgraduate qualification in Investment and Project Appraisal from the University of London.

Oliver Hogan
Oliver joined CEPA as a Senior Consultant in October 2007. Oliver has eight years’ experience as an economist working in regulatory and consulting environments. At Booz Allen Hamilton, Oliver advised the US Federal Aviation Administration on regulatory governance, the World Bank on private sector participation in air transport infrastructure and the European Commission in a number of economic impact assessments of air transport liberalisation. In his senior advisory role at the Irish Commission for Aviation Regulation, Oliver helped develop price cap regulation in the Irish airport industry. He specialised in efficient charging and incentive structures and developed experience with issues like corporate governance, cost of capital, airport service quality and company financeability. As a junior associate of the Irish Commission for Communications Regulation, Oliver assisted in the first Significant Market Power (SMP) designations, whilst working with his European counterparts towards a harmonised approach across EU Member States. Oliver influenced policy at the operational level in network interconnection for wired Internet, whilst advising on price regulation at the network and service levels of fixed and mobile voice communications. Oliver holds a Masters degree in economics from Trinity College, Dublin and a postgraduate diploma in EC Competition Law from King’s College, London.

Thea Hutchinson

Thea is a Senior Consultant at CEPA. Since joining CEPA, she has concentrated on Regulatory Economics and Competition practice, and has worked on projects for the Irish Commission for Aviation Regulation, the Irish Commission for Energy Regulation, the Belgium Commission de Régulation de l’Electricité et du Gaz, Northern Ireland’s Strategic Investment Board, Royal Mail, British Airways, Ofgem, the Office of PPP Arbiter, Centrica and Department for Transport. Thea has developed specialist skills in competition analysis and quantitative techniques, including econometric and frontier based approaches. However, she has experience of analysing a broad range of regulatory interventions, government policies and competition impacts from working in the public sector in Australia as well as the UK. Thea has a Masters of Economics from Australian National University, for which she was top of her year, and a degree in Economics from Cambridge University.

Hylton Millar

Hylton is a Senior Consultant at CEPA. He has advised clients on a range of regulatory and competition issues in the UK and Europe. Clients advised have been drawn from both the private and public sectors and include British Airways, Centrica, Severn Trent, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, Office of Rail Regulation, Commission for Aviation Regulation (Ireland), Commission for Energy Regulation (Ireland), Commission de Régulation de l'Electricité et du Gaz (Belgium) and Netherlands Competition Authority. Hylton’s sector experiences ranges from gas and electricity to aviation, water, health and broadcasting. His particular expertise include cost of capital, regulatory incentives and balance sheet restructuring. Hylton joined CEPA in 2005. Prior to this, he worked in strategy for two FTSE 100 companies and as an economist with the New Zealand Treasury advising on the privatization and corporatisation of state owned enterprises.

Nebojsa Novcic
Nebojsa is a Senior Consultant, having joined the company in 2002 after his postgraduate studies at the University of Cambridge. He has more than seven years experience working as an economist, consultant and banker. He is a particularly skilled project manager, quantitative analyst and financial modeller, with considerable experience of applying these expertise within the context of public services delivery, both in the UK and internationally. His engagements have included structuring, implementing and evaluating public-private partnerships in a range of sectors and countries, providing support to economic regulators of infrastructure services and advising on health economics and financial impacts of clinical service reconfigurations. Nebojsa has also been closely involved in the implementation of numerous donor supported infrastructure finance initiatives and the development of Output Based Aid (OBA) subsidy mechanism. He has worked on and led studies related to public private partnerships in developing and post-conflict countries (including lecturing at Cambridge University on the subject), reform of international financial institutions and on climate change issues. Prior to joining CEPA, Nebojsa worked at a trade finance bank based in Russia.

Alan Rennison
Alan is a CEPA Senior Consultant. He joined the company in 2004 following his postgraduate studies in Development Economics at Oxford University, prior to which he was an analyst with Deloitte Consulting. Alan specialises in structuring, modelling, and analysing agricultural development and infrastructure sector interventions in which public policy objectives are delivered by or in partnership with the private sector, donors or foundations. His major assignments have included: the development of a business plan for the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa’s (AGRA) seed systems program; the development of the agricultural extension strategy in Africa for a major international foundation; financial and economic impact modelling during the development of various crop production, crop disease control and market value chain strengthening interventions for major international foundations including the Rockefeller Foundation, as well as the Cornell University; the feasibility and design of an Asian Private Infrastructure Financing Facility (for the PIDG group of donors) and a West African SME agribusiness investment fund (for AGRA). Alan has delivered a lecture on public-private partnerships at the University of Cambridge, and has presented at a conference on African agriculture. He has a First Class undergraduate degree in Economics and Management Studies.

Rebecca Gough

Rebecca joined the CEPA team following the completion of her postgraduate studies in Economics at Oxford University. Before undertaking a masters in economics, Rebecca worked as a consultant at the Centre for International Economics (CIE), Sydney. Whilst at the CIE, Rebecca conducted a number of economic analyses both of a quantitative and qualitative nature for private and public sector clients. In addition to her private sector experience, Rebecca has worked within the Economic and the Government Divisions of the Australian Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. This involved the provision of policy advice on taxation, pensions, workplace relations and access to government records. The role also involved consultation with the Australian Treasury, the Department of Finance and the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations. In addition to her postgraduate studies, Rebecca has a first class degree in Economics and a degree in Law from the University of New South Wales.

Kaveri Kumar

Kaveri is a Consultant at CEPA, having joined the firm in 2006. She has experience in economic and developmental research and analysis as well as research project management. At CEPA, Kaveri’s work has focused on the emerging markets practise area, including both agriculture and infrastructure sector projects. Previously, Kaveri has worked with the Asian Development Bank, India Resident Mission, where she was involved in a technical assistance to the Government of India on policy reforms in the areas of macroeconomic management, government finances, social service delivery, agriculture and rural development, trade policies, private sector, and transport and energy infrastructure development. She also worked on economics research projects on inter-regional variations in poverty and human development in India, urban development indicators of select Asian and African cities, agribusiness development in India and Africa, among others. Kaveri holds a first class M.Sc degree in Development Management from the London School of Economics, an M.A. degree in Economics from the Delhi School of Economics, India and a Bachelors degree in Economics from St. Stephen’s College, India.

Stefan Rattensperger

Stefan is Consultant at CEPA. He has experience in financial and economic advisory work across a range of infrastructure sectors. Since joining CEPA, Stefan has applied his knowledge in the emerging markets area focusing on public private partnerships and municipal infrastructure finance. He previously worked as a consultant for the World Bank's Infrastructure team, where he was involved in projects on urban development, municipal finance and infrastructure provision. His project work also included financial analysis and modeling for the appraisal of water utility investments. Prior to this, Stefan has gained experience in financial due diligence and poverty assessment of microfinance projects at KfW in Peru. During his studies he ran his own consulting business with a focus on market research and financial consulting services, worked in management accounting with a global manufacturing company and held a number of economic research assistant positions. Stefan has degrees in Economics and International Business and a postgraduate degree in International Economics and Development from Johns Hopkins University, School of Advanced International Studies.

James Doree

James joined CEPA in September 2007 having completed a Masters Degree in Development Economics from Oxford University. Previous to this, James worked with the Corporate Finance team at Pricewaterhouse Coopers in Nairobi, where he gained experience of infrastructure financing projects, including unbundling, liberalisation and Private Sector Participation (PSP) schemes, as well as a railway concession. He has previous experience with Africa-specialised firms based in London, including the African Investment Advisory, where he led a project to establish an SME Private Equity fund (financed by Africans in the Diaspora). His graduate research, which achieved a distinction grade, focused on developing a new approach to considering the effects of deficient infrastructure on African firms, specifically unreliable electricity-grids. This involved using micro-econometric techniques to analyse new survey data, as well as looking at the incentives of firms created by conventional regulatory tariff structures. As an undergraduate, James obtained a first-class degree in History and Economics at Balliol College, Oxford

Michael Obanubi

Michael joined CEPA in 2008 as an Economist. Prior to joining CEPA Michael has gained wide ranging experience working as a micro economist, including experience gained from working at HM Treasury as an economist on both public finance issues and on financial sector issues. Prior to working at HM Treasury Michael completed two roles gained through the ODI Fellowship; working as a Senior Economist for the Federal Ministry of Finance in Nigeria for a year and as a Senior Economist for the Ministry of Trade in Uganda for two years. Michael’s work in these positions included the management of an investment appraisal project and the provision of advice and analysis on both private sector competitiveness issues and the impact of trade policy reform on both the private sector and the public finances. Michael holds a degree from Warwick University and a Post-graduate degree from the University of London both focused on economics; in addition he holds qualifications in advanced econometrics and public finance from the LSE.

Patrick Taylor

Patrick joined CEPA in 2007 as an Economist after completing his postgraduate studies at the University of London, where he specialised in applying quantitative methods to emerging markets. Patrick’s Masters thesis contained detailed econometric modelling of the oil market and he has also produced a large piece of statistical research examining the relationships between emerging market stock exchanges using VAR and error-correction modelling techniques. Since joining CEPA, Patrick’s work has been focused in the Regulatory Economics and Competition practice area. He has assisted the Irish Commission for Energy Regulation (CER) build gas transmission and distribution revenue control models, benchmarked different regulators’ price control coverage for Royal Mail and contributed analysis to CEPA’s report to Ofgem on cost of capital and financeability issues in the UK gas distribution sector.