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Johana Afenjar

Former Senior Director of Capital Markets, Clearway Energy Group

2021 U.S. C3E Law & Finance Award Winner

Johana Afenjar is an engineer by training and a project finance professional by experience. She is passionate about financing the real economy and attracting today’s capital to impact projects, and she has applied that passion to a career in the infrastructure and energy industries in the United States, Latin America, and Sub-Saharan Africa.

Afenjar was most recently Senior Director of Capital Markets at Clearway Energy Group. During her seven-year career at Clearway, the company grew from a 25-person team of renewable energy professionals within the company NRG Energy to an independent enterprise with more than 700 employees that developed, financed, built, and continues to operate over 6 GW of wind and solar projects. Afenjar was instrumental in building the team of young professionals that raised over $6 billion of debt and equity investments to finance Clearway’s projects. She is proud of these achievements, and of her role creating a community of talented and passionate people driven by an impact mission.

Before joining Clearway in 2014, Afenjar worked for the French bank BNP Paribas in New York, first as an Interest Rates Trader and then as a Project Finance Associate. While at BNP Paribas, she helped advise and finance infrastructure and energy projects in Latin America, including the first subway line in Lima and the Oaxaca Wind Farms in Mexico. This experience grew her interest and drive to work on projects that have a positive impact on people and the planet.

Afenjar earned an MS in Applied Mathematics from Harvard University, and an MS in Engineering and a BS in Applied Mathematics from École Centrale Paris, a partner institution of Paris-Saclay University.

+ Learn More About Johana Afenjar's Clean Energy Journey

Bringing Energy to Finance—and Finance to Energy

Johana Afenjar began her finance career on the trading floor. Working for the French bank BNP Paribas in New York, she used her master’s in applied mathematics to create models of financial instruments in financial markets. “But I quickly realized that something was missing,” says Afenjar. “I needed to have a positive impact on the rest of the world, and the work was not addressing that need.”

Afenjar was the child of North African immigrants in France, an upbringing that instilled in her a global perspective and an appreciation for diverse cultures. She now speaks five languages and is a global citizen who applies intelligence and heart to the field of finance.

Afenjar moved into BNP Paribas’s project finance department, where she raised funding for big infrastructure and energy projects. She facilitated the construction of the first subway line in Lima, which reduced the capital city’s congestion. She also helped finance Oaxaca Wind Farms, one of the first wind power stations in Mexico.

From BNP Paribas, she moved to Clearway Energy Group, where she recently served as senior director of capital markets. Afenjar was instrumental in building the team of professionals that raised over $6 billion of debt and equity investments.

During her tenure at Clearway, Afenjar supported Hawaii’s goal to transition to 100% renewable energy by 2040. HECO, the Hawaiian utility, launched an effort to build more renewable facilities across the archipelago. The islands are rich in sun and the wind, whereas importing fuel to generate electricity is costly and entails a large carbon footprint. Afenjar was the transaction lead, raising over $500 million in capital for Clearway’s 140 MW Hawaii portfolio—the first such undertaking of this scale in Hawaii.

Afenjar was also instrumental in bringing new capital providers to an emerging asset class: community solar. She led the Clearway team in raising close to $1 billion in financing for over 500 MW of community solar assets. Her efforts also helped accelerate California’s transition to solar power through projects such as Rosamond, a 192 MW solar farm that provides clean power to Palo Alto and the East Bay, and the Blythe Mesa Solar Power Project, a 235 MW power plant in Riverside County.

In addition to her professional portfolio, Afenjar is a pro bono financial advisor to Next Renewables Generation, a South African startup grid operating company. Through NrG, Afenjar is working to bring solar energy to sub-Saharan Africa. “Sub-Saharan Africa is an area of the world where there are tremendous opportunities to deploy renewables,” says Afenjar. “We need people to invest in that region and in emerging markets in general.”

Afenjar is passionate about enabling energy infrastructure projects that make real impacts in people’s lives.