About Rabia

Rabia name embodies the spiritual legacy of Rabia Aladawia, who taught of love, compassion, and oneness. The name also represents rage (Spanish meaning), alluding to the dissatisfaction with deepening injustices, and our passion and focus to address these. Our name carries the vision of ushering in a fresh approach and role for finance (Spring, its Arabic meaning). These spiritual essences inspire Rabia’s work, which was founded based on guidance from the founder’s spiritual teacher of need for caring and sharing amidst the multiple challenges the world is facing.

Founding Director and ex-banker Dr. Chantal Naidoo has drawn on her experience from more than 25 years in investment banking, development finance, and climate finance to assemble an international team and network of partners.

Rabia's advisors and senior associates bring expertise in crafting national and global climate change policies, negotiating energy-focused development finance loans, and analysing physical and transition risks to offer bespoke research. Our analysts have unique skills in financial analysis and impact investment, energy and environmental law, and geospatial mapping of physical and biodiversity risks.

Our work culminates in developing bespoke financial policy proposals, financing mechanisms for transitions, as well as building implementation and response capabilities of the institutions engaged.

We are passionate about navigating the uncharted waters of a financial ecosystem in transition. We do so with intentionality, integrity, courage, an openness to learning, and — above all — care for the future. We believe each person and institution can and should contribute towards a new era of existence, built on love and compassion, our interconnectedness to each other and to creation.

Dorah Modise is a sustainability expert with more than 25 years in different sectors including all spheres of government, the property sector, and academia. She is currently the CEO of the Paper and Packaging PRO Alliance. Dorah has served on South Africa's climate change and sustainable development negotiations teams and led the development of key policy instruments including the country’s Green Economy Framework and the National Green Fund in collaboration with the Development Bank of South Africa. She holds a Master’s degree in Environment and Development from the University of Sussex, and MBA from GIBS - University of Pretoria, a post-graduate diploma in Environmental  diplomacy from the university of Geneva as well as numerous other qualifications in the area of sustainability and leadership.

Emarie has almost 30 years of investment banking experience.  She is a Chartered Accountant with an LLB qualification with considerable corporate governance experience in a multi-national context. She is also a qualified life coach. Emarie has extensive JSE and international stock exchange listing experience. She is an executive director of a property group with interests in a number of shopping malls across South Africa.

Vikas Mehta is the Founding Executive Director of the SED Fund. The SED Fund enhances clean energy access in South Asia through strategic support and funding to communities, think tanks and enterprises. As Executive Director, Vikas manages new portfolio and capacity development, and global strategic initiatives for the Fund.

Amina has 25 years of experience in sustainable development projects and programme management, in her roles as senior consultant and government official. She has undertaken and managed research on a wide range of environmental, development, and governance topics, including for the delivery of international, national, and local strategic outcomes. She has specialist skills in social impact assessment and partnership management.

Judy Beaumont has worked in the environmental sector for thirty years, focusing on environmental sustainability, ocean and coastal management and climate change response. Apart from being an associate of Rabia, she is the part-time Director of the International Ocean Institute of Southern Africa. Before that, she worked for the South African Government in the department responsible for environmental management. In the portfolio on ocean and coastal management, Judy was responsible for programmes aimed at giving effect to marine and coastal legislation, expanding South Africa’s marine protected areas, growing South Africa’s blue economy, promoting integrated coastal management and co-ordinating the National Antarctic Programme. In the portfolio on climate change, she was responsible for providing direction and leadership on South Africa’s climate change response. Judy has also represented South Africa in various multi-lateral environmental negotiations, including the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the UN Environment Program and the UN Commission on Sustainable Development.

Kamleshan Pillay is the director of Adaptive Management and Finance, a specialist consultancy focused on climate finance based in South Africa. During his career, Kamleshan has had the opportunity to undertake climate change projects for the South African government (Department of Environmental Affairs), the Norwegian Government (Climate and Environment Department (KLD), Ministry of Foreign Affairs), International Organizations such as UNIDO, SADC, UNDP, and major donor entities such as NORAD, IKI and the IDRC. Kamleshan holds an MPhil from the University of Cambridge and is currently completing his PhD specialising in Climate Risk and Adaptation Finance from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg.

Kim Adonis is an economist that has worked as a trusted advisor to governments, regulators, companies and donors for 18 years. Kim is a passionate advocate for socio-economic development in Africa, and for the development of the economics profession in South Africa. Kim specialises in quantifying socio-economic impact in a range of sectors, including: energy, water & sanitation, transport, logistics, urban & built environment, aviation, oil & gas sectors, agriculture & agribusiness, manufacturing. She has worked on projects across 10 countries in Africa. She holds a Master’s degree in economics and is the Executive Secretary of the Economics Society of South Africa.

Matt Huxham is a Director of Climate Transition Analytics at global insurance broking and consulting firm WTW. Matt works with Rabia to support public sector partners in the SADC region on issues of climate transition risk, macroeconomics, and financial regulation. At WTW, he leads a consulting practice that provides advice to governments, central banks, and financial supervisors on climate risk. Matt’s team helps its clients identify, measure, and manage transition issues: at local level, within national economic and financial systems and in international trade and geopolitics. He is currently working with clients in Latin America, Africa and South-East Asia. Prior to joining WTW, Matt was a Principal at leading climate non-profit Climate Policy Initiative, leading research on policy, regulatory, and financing options for lowering the cost of decarbonising electricity and industrial sectors. By training, Matt is a trained accountant and credit risk specialist, with previous roles at Moody’s Investors Service and Royal Bank of Scotland. He was also a senior adviser to the UK government on electricity market reform. Matt holds an MA (Oxon) in Russian and Linguistics from the University of Oxford and an MA in Modern History from University College London.

Penny Herbst has 40 years experience in the energy sector — a large part of this in Eskom’s Treasury department. Among other duties, she managed Eskom’s foreign and interest rate risk, money and capital market investments, project finance transactions and the structuring of projects to mitigate risks associated with projects in Africa. She led the formation of Eskom’s Development Finance unit where, in the role of Development Financing Manager, she was instrumental raising, in excess of $6bn, from DFIs and related institutions. This included funding for Eskom‘s 1st two renewable projects where she facilitated the development of South Africa’s country programme for accessing the Climate Investment Fund. Following the conclusion of the renewable financing activities she formed part of the management team that established Eskom’s Renewables Unit (RU) where she worked on bridging the gap between financing and implementation of the Sere Wind Farm in Vredendal. In her role as part of Eskom’s RU she also formed part of the team that sought to implement Eskom’s Concentrated Solar Project (CSP), a project which included a storage component. This project has subsequently been replaced the Eskom Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) which RFP was launched in August of this year. She acts as independent advisor on matters relating to achieving a sustainable energy transition with a specific focus on the justness of energy / climate finance. In 2022, she served as a member of South Africa’s Presidential Climate Change Task Team.

Pierre Monnin is a Senior Fellow at the Council on Economic Policies (CEP) and a Visiting Professor in Practice at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment in the London School of Economics and Political Science. His work focuses on monetary policy, financial regulation, and their links with environmental and social sustainability. Prior to that, he was with the Swiss National Bank (SNB) in various roles for ten years – with a focus on financial stability and macroprudential policy as well as on financial markets developments. He also worked at Man Investments, developing asset allocation strategies for alternative investments, and was a Lecturer in international money and finance at the University of Neuchatel. He holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Zurich, a MSc in Economics from Queen Mary, University of London, as well as a MSc in Statistics and a BA in Economics from the University of Neuchatel.