The Blended Capital Group has offices in London, Amsterdam, Nairobi, Toronto and Vancouver, with partner firms in Brazil and South Africa. We operate globally and complement our own resources with sustainability specialists drawn from a long standing, world-wide ecosystem.
Paul Clements-Hunt, Founder
Paul Clements-Hunt coined ESG in May 2004 and as a United Nations official delivered the UN Principles for Responsible Investment (UN PRI) for Secretary General Kofi Annan in April 2006. PRI is now backed by 5400 institutional investors representing $120 trillion in assets. Since 1991 Paul has operated globally and advised Prime Ministers, governments, corporate boards, capital markets, and civil society and community organisations on the mobilisation of finance at scale into critical sustainability challenges and opportunities. Paul’s particular interest is to scale climate finance to $ trillions.
After heading UNEP-Finance Initiative for 12 years, Paul founded The Blended Capital Group (TBCG) in March 2012. Paul is a Board Member at Global Infrastructure Basel, and Chair of the Board at Future Fit Foundation. Paul studied economics, trained as a journalist, and then created his first company, Environmental Business Group (EBG) Co., Ltd in Bangkok, Thailand in 1992. He took EBG inside the Swiss multi-national, SGS Group, the world’s largest testing, inspection, and verification agency in May 1994 to develop it as an Asia-Pacific business.
Between August 2022 and December 2024, Paul advised the Senior Board Partners of UK head-quartered law firm Mischon de Reya LLP on how to shape and drive their new sustainability business Mishcon Impact.
Global Advisory Council
Archana Hingorani
Dr. Archana Hingorani serves as an Independent Director on the Boards of Alembic Pharmaceuticals Limited, 5Paisa Capital Limited, SIDBI Venture Capital Limited, Grindwell Norton Limited, The Phoenix Mills Limited, Balaji Telefilms Limited and SBI Mutual Fund
Trustee Company Private Limited. She holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Arts from the University of Mumbai, a Master’s Degree in Business Administration from the Graduate School of Business, University of Pittsburgh, USA and a Doctorate Degree in Philosophy from the Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business, University of Pittsburgh, USA. She has 30 years of experience in financial services and private equity fund investment. She is currently
a Managing Partner at Siana Capital, an investment firm focused on technology and innovation and a Distinguished Visiting Professor for Private Equity at the Katz Graduate School of Business, University of Pittsburgh, USA. She has been the recipient of various
awards such as ‘Ten most influential women in private real estate investing’ by PERE in 2010, ‘Most Powerful Women’ in 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017 by Fortune India, ‘Most Powerful Women’ in 2011, 2012 and 2013 by Business Today, ‘25 Most Influential Women in
Asia Asset Management’ by Asian Investor in May, 2014, and ‘Distinguished International Alumnus’ in the year 2016 by the Katz Graduate School of Business, University of Pittsburgh, USA. In sum, she has over 39 years’ experience in the financial services business, teaching and research. Dr. Hingorani is also well published and her most recent contribution is to the Palgrave Handbook of Sovereign Wealth Funds, 2024.
Teresa Vernaglia
Teresa Vernaglia specializes in implementing and managing infrastructure companies with large scale and complexity. She has been working for 30 years in the sectors of public telecommunications networks, in electricity distribution networks and more recently in sanitation (water and sewage networks) and reused water for industry.
She has held leadership positions in all these specialties for more than 25 years. Regulation, design, commercialization, operation, maintenance, universalization, quality, people management, cultural transformation, innovation, results management, are themes common to all these segments.
She was President of BRK Ambiental, a leading company in the private sanitation sector, working to transform the lives of Brazilians by expanding access to water and sewage services in the country. BRK directly impacts 15 million people in 12 states and aims to expand its operations throughout Brazil
She worked for 16 years in the AES group, was President of AES ERGOS, Instituto AES Brasil and AES ATIMUS and Vice President of AES ELETROPAULO. She was Director of Engineering and Operations at Nextel. She started her career at NEC do Brasil.
Teresa has a degree in Electrical Engineering from the Faculty of Engineering of Sorocaba with an MBA in Business Management from the Instituto Técnico de Aeronáutica/ESPM.
Core Team
Michael Marais, Natural Capital Partner
Michael Marais is Partner and Environmental Lead at The Blended Capital Group (TBCG) having been with the company for over a decade. Michael has directed advisory and capital raising projects across a range of sustainability sectors including recycling / upcycling; waste to bio energy; solar and agri-tech, on to AI/ML, microfinance, gender equality, and distributed infrastructure. Michael’s passion is to support businesses and projects aligned with impact through delivery of the 17 UNSDGs.
Working with a range of the most senior policy-makers and investment executives worldwide, Michael has delivered breakthrough sustainable finance and ESG events from the World Economic Forum in Davos (2013-2020) to Tokyo and Paris (CoP21) to Johannesburg and many financial centres in between.
Michael has also assisted the Executive Office of the UN Secretary General (UN EOSG) to deliver various events and presentations, including the Cities Climate Finance Leadership Alliance (CCFLA) report on climate smart infrastructure launched at CoP21 in Paris on December 8th 2015.
Rob Karpati, Mining Partner
Rob Karpati is a long-term Finance leader. Focusing on strategic transformation and on global process optimization over 35+ years, Rob has developed a capability for integrating complex end-to-end ecosystems in ways that optimize cross-stakeholder value. Using Finance as a business improvement activator, Rob has worked cross-culturally and cross-regionally in bringing together diverse stakeholders toward common perspectives.
Rob has a strong belief in a balanced approach across multiple stakeholders, valuing the concept that sustainable development requires win/win outcomes that engage various corporate, regulatory and community stakeholders in specific aligned collaboration. Solutions that bring long-term mutually equitable value are critical for sustainable development in his mind.
As a Partner at The Blended Capital Group, Rob is currently focused on transforming the global artisanal mining sector in order to reimagine financial, social, environmental and economic value given the inherent potential of the 45 million person sector.
Roger Surridge, Branding & Communications
Roger has long experience in visual and written communications, creating graphic concepts and managing their implementation in traditional and new media. A graduate of the Central School of Art and Design, London, he has worked in educational publishing as well as in intergovernmental projects and web-based e-learning initiatives.
Between 2000 and 2012, alongside his associate Robert Hunter at the Paris design consultancy Rebus, Roger helped the United Nations define and deliver the look and language of the evolving concepts of sustainable finance and responsible investment. Rebus also created the identity of UNEP Finance Initiative and the UN Principles for Responsible Investment.
He is passionate about typography, likes to draw, and moves around Paris very efficiently by bicycle.
Team FenElpi
Building Team FenElpi
Team FenElpi is a building global ecosystem of students and young professionals keen to drive impact at scale in a world which needs a massive infusion of unconstrained “hope”.
Why?
At a time of cascading, climate-driven planetary doom, toxic global politics, deepening isolationism, and in an era of seeming autocratic ascendancy, hope is needed now as it has been at other dark moments in history.
Join The Blended Capital Group (TBCG) as an intern, a student seeking a first step into sustainable development, and or a young professional seeking experience and mentorship across the critical issues of our time. If you’d like to know more, you can sign up below – – your details will not be shared in any way outside of TBCG.
A few years back, TBCG Founder Paul Clements-Hunt was looking for a new corporate name for a planned infrastructure advisory offshoot of TBCG.
Specifically, the company’s interest would be in the provision of basic services through distributed infrastructure for First Mile communities, whether farmers in the Sahel, miners in Amazonia, or fishing communities in rural Asia.
Resilient dwellings, clean water, better sanitation, and clean energy, all provide a hopeful pathway to better health, education and a more enjoyable, productive life. So why not? See the MWEZI story as an example.
When exploring the word “hope”, Clements-Hunt came across two contrasting mythical stories:
- From Greek mythology the story of Elpis, the spirit who remained in Pandora’s Box to give humanity hope.
- From Norse Mythology the story of Fenrir Wolf, the horrifying beast whose saliva created the river of the River of Hope
So, Clements-Hunt coined ElpiFen as a possible name. Wisely, as ever, his great friend, Gordon Noble, flipped it to the much smoother and more hopeful sounding FenElpi.
So, sign up and we’ll send you a two pager covering everything you’ll need to know about what the FenElpi ecosystem can do for you and vice-versa.