Nelson Ashitiva is a lawyer, business leader and project finance expert with more than 15 years’ experience. He leads three business advisory firms in the sector of law, energy and structured finance. His expertise includes energy-projects and infrastructure, mergers & acquisitions, capital markets, corporate/ commercial transactions and investments in each of which fields he is an acknowledged leading professional. He regularly advises private and public companies on project structuring, capital raising, corporate governance, business strategy and regulatory compliance.

LEADERSHIP ROLES

• Senior Partner and founder, Ashitiva Advocates LLP, a commercial corporate law firm focused on three key pillars of legal practice; energy law, financial services law and technology law. This year the firm was ranked as a top tier firm by Chambers Global while last year it was ranked as a leading law firm in Africa at the Africa Legal Awards. In 2018 it was declared as the law firm of the year by the Chief Justice of the Republic of Kenya.
• Director and founder of Energy Solutions Africa Limited (ESAL). ESAL is a leading consultancy firm in the energy and extractives sector with expertise in energy policy, exploration and production, upstream licensing, contract negotiation, work program and expenditure monitoring, stakeholder engagement, downstream logistics, energy economics, energy business strategy and organizational management. ESAL has led a number of high-profile projects both in the private and public sectors in Kenya and has thus shaped the architecture of the energy sector in Kenya.
• Founding director Third Avenue Capital, a structured finance and transaction advisory firm. TAC advises corporations, commercial banks, micro finance institutions, investment banks and state corporations on public and private term financing deals across different asset classes. TAC is well versed in virtually all types of collateral underlying these transactions, TAC’s structured finance experts negotiate, structure and document complex financing transactions to tailor solutions to a client’s specific needs. From straightforward, small-ticket debt to highly sophisticated and complex capital markets transactions while effectively and efficiently balancing different stakeholder interests.

• Member of the Board of Jipay. Jipay is a financial services firm that facilitates users of its digital platform to build a saving culture through automatic deposits into a savings account. It enables users to choose to save a pre-determined percentage of all their mobile money remittances for investment or for future emergency needs.
• Chair of the Kenya Christian lawyers Fellowship (KCLF), a professional association of Christian lawyers who champion the Christian agenda among professional colleagues and also advocates for public interest founded on Christian values at the National level.
• Member of the board of Cornerstone Preparatory. Cornerstone is a not-for-profit school that supports children from impoverished families in Mahi Mahiu in Nakuru County. Cornerstone targets children facing numerous challenges such as fatherlessness, parental substance abuse, sexual and physical abuse, abandonment, malnutrition, untreated illnesses and offers them access to transformational world class education beginning as early as the prenatal stage.
• Member of the board of Nafisika Trust, a charitable organization working in the Kenyan prisons to empower inmates with life skills and legal representation. It also empowers prison officers with management, entrepreneurship and leadership skills in order to reduce the rate of recidivism among inmates.
• Member of the board of Alternatives Africa. A.A offers business development services, financial services and affordable marketing services to youth-led micro and small enterprises for economic growth and job creation.