Nicolas Clavel
Founder & Chief Investment Officer
Nicolas has three decades of experience in trade finance. After beginning his career with Midland Bank, he joined Citicorp Investment Bank Ltd., London in structured trade finance covering EMEA & Africa. He left as CEO of Citibank NA, Senegal after he was headhunted to start a merchant bank in Geneva focused on trade finance in Latin American & African markets.
He returned to Africa seven years later as CEO of Standard Bank’s Congo-Kinshasa subsidiary, before joining Standard Chartered Grindlays in Switzerland two years later, trading African equities.
Nicolas holds an MBA from Instituto de Empresa in Madrid, is a non-exec director of AIM-listed Symphony Environmental Technologies Plc, & served as a court magistrate in Switzerland for many years.
Chris Jenkins
Chief Operating Officer & Head of Business Development
Chris joined Scipion in September 2011, having been involved in the banking & finance industry for over twenty years. He ran the Equity Finance trading business at Bear, Stearns International Ltd in London from 1999 to 2008, covering hedge funds & inter bank financing in Europe, Asia, and Africa, developing their CFD & Swap products into a $12bn business.
Prior to his role at Scipion, Chris handled Sales &Marketing at Carrousel Capital Ltd, a London-based boutique hedge fund, & at Smith New Court, from 1994-1998 through its takeover by Merrill Lynch. Earlier in his career, Chris worked for Industrial Bank of Japan and for the Royal Bank of Scotland. Outside of the industry, Chris has been a freelance motoring journalist, writer & editor since 2000, and has designed & constructed his own sports racing car from scratch.
Anthony Kukielski
Chief Financial Officer & Head of Trade Finance Origination
Anthony has three decades’ experience in the trading & financing of commodities, their derivatives, shipping and logistics. His experience has led to him being called as an expert witness by major international shipping law firms in both litigation & arbitration matters.
Anthony joined Raphaelly International in Johannesburg in 1981. Between 1986 & 1991 Anthony held a series of senior management positions with UK trading group S&W Berisford plc; from 1991 to 1996 he was Vice President Trading Operations, at Tirtamas Comexindo - Indonesia’s largest international trading group.
From 1996 to 2006, Anthony was global head of the commodities team in the London office of Global Emerging Markets (GEM). Since 2006 Anthony has been a consultant concentrating on deal origination and structuring.
Elena Clarici, Phd
Portfolio Manager, Scipion Mining & Resources Fund
Elena joined Scipion in September 2011, and brings fifteen years’ experience in financial markets as a mining equity analyst, corporate financier and investment manager.
Elena was previously Senior Investment Analyst with Geneva based Ocean Finance SA and their Africa-focused equity fund, and before that the Managing Partner of London-based Commodity Energy Capital - CeCap LLP, a specialist natural resources investment analytics boutique.
Elena trained as a mining equity analyst and natural resources investment banker at T. Hoare & Co and ABN AMRO Bank, having earned her PhD in Mining & Environment Engineering from the Royal School of Mines, Imperial College, London. Elena is the Chairman of a company focused on farming and agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa and the Chairman of the Association of Mining Analysts in London.
