David is the director of Water, Environment and Business for Development (WE&B). WE&B is a specialised environmental consulting company that has tapped into international financing to implement consultation projects in countries across the globe with particular focus in Europe, Africa and Latin America. In this training course, David will provide the practical experience to the theoretical knowhow of how WE&B has implemented projects financed by the World Bank, InterAmerican Development Bank, United Nations Industrial Development Organization, Global Green Growth Institute, amongst others. The practical examples will provide insights into how the financing works, the pitfalls to working internationally, the benefits and the potential company barriers to tap into this financing.

Gaëtane holds 25 years of experience in the water sector. She is currently Managing Partner of a European advisory company and Co-Founder of the European Water Tech Accelerator. She cooperates with different VC funds in Europe and in the US. She acted as Venture Advisor to Aster Capital, an international venture capital fund. Gaëtane was a member of the Investment Advisory Committee of the seed fund within SOFIMAC Innovation. She worked in collaboration with international private equity and infrastructure funds when she was respectively Managing Director of a French Innovation Cluster and Director of European Affairs at WATER UK.

Marco has more than 15 years of experience and a specific expertise in exploitation related activities, awareness raising on entrepreneurship, innovation management and critical analysis of economic factors of the market definition of new markets and new customer segments. Marco graduated from the University of Studies of Naples – Federico II, Faculty of mechanical engineering (energy). He achieved his Doctor’s Degree (PhD) in territorial advanced and composite materials. Since 2008, he is Project Manager and Business Developer in ENCO srl (Naples office) a consultancy company specialised in EU project development and innovation strategy. He is expert for the FOOD – CIRCULAR ECONOMY – RAW MATERIALS – ENVIRONMENTAL – CLIMATE CHANGES to help SMEs in the exploitation activities.

Mark is engaged by the EU Commission and United Nations as an expert in the fields of access to finance and environment and is a member of the Board of Directors of the European Investment Fund.   To-date Mark has tapped into both EU and National guarantee funds mobilising over €500 million in bank lending for SMEs.  In this training course Mark will provide insights on when borrowing is the right source of funding, barriers in accessing lending and possible solutions to ease access to lending.