New appointments within STOA

Paris, October 21 , 2021

STOA, an investment holding company jointly owned by Caisse des Dépôts (83%) and the French Development Agency (17%) and dedicated to acquiring minority stakes in infrastructure and energy projects in emerging countries, continues its expansion. The Board of Directors has appointed Marie-Laure Mazaud as Chief Executive Officer and Jean-Pierre Barral as Deputy Chief Executive Officer.

These appointments, effective since October 18, 2021, open a new stage for STOA after a successful launch initiated four years ago under the leadership of Charles-Henri Malécot. The Board of Directors warmly thanked Charles-Henri for the work accomplished and the results obtained.

Over the past four years, STOA has committed 350 million euros towards emerging countries, thereby enabling the financing of high-impact development and climate transition projects worth about 6 billion euros, most often alongside French companies.

Marie-Laure Mazaud and Jean-Pierre Barral will pursue this investment strategy, emphasizing the mobilization of additional resources for upstream development of projects in partnership with industrials and local government authorities. They will also consolidate asset management activities and strengthen the company’s intervention framework for biodiversity, resilience, and impact policy.

Marie-Laure Mazaud joined STOA upon its creation as Deputy Chief Executive Officer. She has extensive experience in mergers and acquisitions, infrastructure project financing and corporate governance, developed within Citibank, Bpifrance Export, Nokia and Caisse des Dépôts.

She sits on the Boards of Directors of the logistics and transport group FM and the Wafa Assurance group in Morocco; she also chairs their Audit and Risk Committee. She is a non- executive director of Nachtigal Hydro Power Corporation (NHPC) in Cameroon and of Metro Fiber Networx (MFN) in South Africa.

Marie-Laure graduated from EDHEC Lille (France) and holds a Bachelor of Arts in Strategy and Corporate Finance from the University of Brighton (UK). She also holds a master’s degree in Financial Engineering from Lyon School of Management (France).

Jean-Pierre Barral has a long experience in public and private infrastructure financing while acquired in the French Development Agency Group, at the IFC and in the private sector.

Jean-Pierre Barral opened the New Delhi office of Proparco, then headed their infrastructure team at the headquarters, specializing in debt financing. He also worked in infrastructure project development, first as Director of Development for Africa at ContourGlobal, then in the IFC’s Africa infrastructure team, particularly on projects supported by their InfraVenture fund. He also held various positions at the French Development Agency and was responsible for the energy and digital department before joining STOA.

He graduated from Ecole Polytechnique, is Chief Engineer of Ecole des Ponts, Eaux et Forêts, and holds an MBA from INSEAD.