Team

Betty is managing director of AB5 Consulting, a consulting company based in UK specialised in high technological sectors, including satellite, telecommunications, transport and nuclear. AB5 Consulting develops winning strategies and innovative technical solutions, within a managed ecosystem, in order to open new markets. Betty works with the industry, regulators and UN Agencies, in due diligence, system assessment, business development, regulatory and licensing. Betty is an award winning chartered engineer. Her experience includes the management of complex international projects in the defence, nuclear, transport of dangerous goods and aerospace sectors. She holds two Masters in Science in aeronautical and space engineering, a diploma in international nuclear law and a MBA. She attended ISU'93 and '94.

Betty is member of the Women in Engineering and Science (WES) Council in the UK, chair of the UK Chapter of the Society of Satellite Professionals International (SSPI), a founder of Women in Nuclear UK and ex-Vice-President, and board member of the International Women in Engineering and Science (INWES) Europe.

Betty is also involved in her community as she is the chair of the HR, finance & premises committee, part of a governing body for a large State secondary school with a budget of over £11M.

She regularly visits local schools to promote STEM subjects.

Nick Swinburne is a partner in the London office of Milbank LLP and is a member of the firm's Transportation Finance Group.

Primary Focus & Experience

Nick focuses on corporate finance work in the transportation sector. 

He advises arrangers, financiers, equity investors, leasing companies and operators on aircraft, marine and other asset-based and receivables-backed finance and leasing transactions.  He also advises on acquisitions and disposals of assets, asset portfolios and transportation-related businesses.

His experience encompasses a wide variety of leveraged debt, capital markets, tax-enhanced, risk participation and intercreditor structures, and includes pre-delivery financings, Islamic financings, securitisations and other rated and unrated asset portfolio financings, as well as transactions involving export credit or other governmental support.

As well as advising on the structuring and execution of such transactions, he advises on trading and repackaging them.  He has extensive experience of advising on restructurings (including security work-outs and asset repossessions). 

Nick’s experience includes advising:

·        SMBC Aviation Capital on the combined pre-delivery financing/sale and leaseback of five Boeing 787 aircraft to be operated by Air Europa;

·        A major European financial institution as arranger on a number of structured operating lease financings, including of four Sikorsky S-92 helicopters for Avincis, of three Boeing 777-300ER aircraft for Singapore Airlines and of two Boeing 777-300ER aircraft for Cathay Pacific;

·        Amedeo on its US$8.3billion acquisition of 20 Airbus A380 aircraft and associated capital arrangements;

·        The Equity Arrangers in relation to British Airways’ US$929 million EETC;

·        Avolon on its US$636 million rule 144A securitisation of 20 aircraft operating leases;

·        Kenya Airways in relation to its US$2 billion PDP and long term financing of Boeing and Embraer aircraft (utilising a combination of Ex-Im Bank guaranteed debt with capital markets options and senior and junior commercial debt);

·        SMBC Aviation Capital in its merger with SMFL Aircraft Capital Corporation B.V. and Sumisho Aircraft Asset Management (SAAM), following the disposal of the SMBC Aviation Capital business by RBS, creating a combined entity valued at over US$10 billion;

·        Various financial institutions on numerous portfolio financings of aircraft, including  Nord/LB and DVB on a US$425 million operating lease portfolio financing of 13 aircraft for Investec funds;

·        ING Capital on Ethiopian Airlines’ PDP financing of 10 Boeing 787 aircraft;

·        Financial institutions including Citi, HSBC, ING and TD on numerous Ex-Im Bank guaranteed financings with capital markets take out options;

·        Various aircraft operating lessors, including Avolon, AWAS and RBS Aerospace (now SMBC Aviation Capital), on their ECA-supported financings;

·        Credit Agricole CIB as arranger on the structured operating lease financing of six ATR aircraft for Jet, utilising export credit debt supported by COFACE and SACE and commercial debt provided by Investec;

·        Various equity arrangers and lenders on numerous Japanese operating lease (JOLCO) aircraft financings, involving airlines such as Air China, Air France, British Airways, China Eastern, China Southern, easyJet, Iberia, KLM, Lufthansa, TAM and Turkish Airlines, as well as advising  AWAS on its first operating lessor JOLCO financing, and subsequent similarly-structured transactions;

·        The arrangers on the first ever Spanish Operating Lease (SOL) aircraft financing (of five Airbus A340-600 aircraft for Iberia), and subsequently the  equity arrangers and/or lenders on a number of subsequent SOL aircraft financings, some of which involved debt supported by the European, Brazilian and Canadian ECAs;

·        Several airlines on landing and take off slot acquisitions, disposals and leases at airports including London Heathrow and Frankfurt;

·        Bahri on the US$1.3 billion acquisition (utilising cash and shares) of Saudi Aramco’s very large crude oil carrier fleet;

·        BNP Paribas, HSBC and a syndicate of lenders in relation to the US$530 million K-Sure supported financing of seven large ore carrying vessels for Vale;

·        A multinational banking and financial services corporation on the US$147 million structured lease facility in respect of four Aframax Tankers for BP;

·        Various lenders on export credit-supported financings of cruiseships for Carnival

·        A major US financial institution on the structured acquisition of a US$1.5 billion portfolio of export credit backed aircraft, marine and project finance loans;

·        Barclays as arranger in connection with £3.5 billion liquidity and working capital facilities supporting Network Rail’s £20 billion bond issuance programme; and

·        Various Lenders and ECGD in relation to the insolvency of Sabena and the related restructurings and/or security work-outs of 28 aircraft financings.

Recognition & Accomplishments

Nick is ranked in the ‘Top Tier’ of asset finance lawyers in the UK by Chambers & Partners 2017.

He is also recognised as a leading lawyer for asset finance and leasing, transportation, trade finance and capital markets work global-wide by Chambers & Partners. 

The Chambers Global legal directory describes him as a "very quick-witted, very good negotiator".  Chambers UK has noted his strength in both aviation and shipping finance, and praised “his energetic approach to matters”, his “combination of commercial and technical skill and his “analytical, calm and collected” style.  Legal 500 has remarked on his ability “to handle complex structures in a very professional manner”, recommending him for asset finance and leasing, as well as for trade finance.  Who’s Who Legal cites his aircraft and marine asset-backed expertise, describing him as “dedicated and intelligent”. 

In 2014, he was named by Dow Jones Financial News as one of the "40 Under 40" most influential lawyers working in European debt and equity capital markets.

Tony Azzarelli is CEO and founder of Azzurra Telecom Ltd, a consulting firm offering international Regulatory and Government Affairs’ assistance to telecommunications companies around the globe.

Tony comes with 25 years of experience in the field of telecommunications and the space sector, having held senior positions at OneWeb, UK regulator Ofcom, The Boeing Company, ICO Global Communications and Inmarsat. He represented internationally the European Space Agency, Orange UK and other entities at his prior consulting role. He held leadership positions at European international committees leading to the ITU World Radio Conference 2015.

He is a Fellow and a Chartered Engineer of the Institute of Engineering and Technology and a Fellow of the Institute of Royal Society of Arts. He holds a Doctor’s degree in Electronics, a Master Business Administration and attended Air and Space Law (LLM) courses at the International Institute of Legal Studies in Leiden, the Netherlands.

Tony has always strived to initiate, develop and promote global harmonised spectrum and licensing policies for space and terrestrial wireless technologies, as well as pertinent outer space policies and believes that this is necessary for the proper economic and societal growth and development of a country and its industry.

Irina Petrov, Vice President MarCom & Membership, GSOA

Irina is a senior satellite industry executive with vast experience and expertise in marketing, public relations, business strategy and planning, having worked for non-profit, start-ups and blue-chip companies.

Following the combination of GSOA and GVF, Irina maintained her role, heading marketing, communications, and membership services in the only global satellite industry association, with members from the entire industry ecosystem. She has led many of the association’s successful initiatives – branding and online strategies, including the highly acclaimed Webinar Series, enabling GVF to notably increase the services offered members, growing it into a stronger satellite community.

Prior to joining GVF, Ms Petrov was the Vice President, Marketing for Onlime Group, a global service provider of premium business communications. She has also worked with the several satellite operators in various marketing positions – Avanti, Intelsat, PanAmSat and Europe*Star.

Irina started her career in satellite as a journalist/editor in the industry magazine, after serving with the United Nations Military Observers as an interpreter and language assistant, wounded in the line of duty.

Colin is Director for Technical Advisory and Market Access with Access Partnership.

Access Partnership analyse global trends for the risks and opportunities they create for their clients, drawing on long experience of technologies new and old, and international public policy.

Colin provides support to wireless network operators, systems integrators, equipment vendors, governments, and investors to ensure the swift delivery of compliant best-in-practice services to market.

His work includes the development of market access authorisation processes for new wireless technologies, and adjustment of regulation to ensure that clients’ service offerings are compliant with international and national regulatory requirements, in addition to providing technical, market and regulatory due diligence in support of lenders and investors, making sure that their investments are protected.  Colin is active in a number of ITU and CEPT working groups.

Andy Fry is the Customer Development Director  and Director of Goverment & Regulatory Affairs at Infostellar, a space communications infrastructure company, developing the world’s only cloud-based satellite antenna sharing platform "StellarStation".

Andrew has over 30 years experience of Government and Business Relationship Management and Stakeholder Engagement gained in the international marketplace whilst working for Infostellar,  OneWeb, Avanti Communications,  the British National Space Centre (BNSC); The European Space Agency (ESA), the UK's Trade and Industry (DTI)  and United Kingdom Trade and Investment (UKTI) and their successor departments.

Sameer is a qualified solicitor of the Senior Courts of England & Wales. He completed his training at Linklaters LLP, spending six months in the firm’s Hong Kong office before qualifying into the mainstream corporate department in the Linklaters London office. During his time at Linklaters he advised on a range of matters, including public and private M&A, private equity, intragroup restructurings, joint ventures and equities and represented high profile financial, mining and energy clients. He also undertook secondments at British American Tobacco p.l.c. and Morgan Stanley.

After Linklaters, Sameer moved in-house to Centrica plc, a FTSE 100 listed company. At Centrica, Sameer provided legal support to Centrica's corporate centre which includes Group Projects, M&A, Treasury, Tax, Finance, Investor Relations, Secretariat and Compliance teams. He advised on both the business and legal ramifications of significant commercial strategic projects, including the negotiation and structuring of joint ventures and other possible investments, financing, projects and acquisitions.

Sameer has recently joined OneWeb as Senior UK Counsel at their new London headquarters where he provides corporate, commercial and financial legal advice to the group and works closely with senior executives and the board.

Outside of work, Sameer is very passionate about pro bono work and was responsible for running The Lawyers in Schools programme in Centrica which aims to build young people’s awareness and understanding of the law. He has also been a school governor of a local primary school in London and provided free legal advice at the Mary Ward Legal Advice Centre in Holborn, London. He is also a very keen runner and skier.

Nick has over 20 years experience acting in senior advisory and lending roles across the spectrum of communications, technology and satellite sectors. He previously held senior roles at the Royal Bank of Scotland, PricewaterhouseCoopers and, most recently, as Head of Telecoms for the Project & Export Finance team at HSBC.

His recent corporate clients include OneWeb, Kacific, Effective Space, Seaborn Networks, O3b Networks, Skybox Imaging, Cable & Wireless, Indosat, Yahsat, Etisalat, Huawei and Digicel.

Nick’s recent Government clients include the Ministry of Communications of Azerbaijan (Azerspace), the Welsh Government (Next Generation Broadband Network),  the UK Department of Health (Ambulance Radio), UK Foreign Office (Global Telecom Network), Norwegian Ministry of Justice (Tetra project), the European Commission (Galileo Satellite Navigation project) and the European Space Agency (GMES, Satellite Broadband).

Nick has a BA (Hons) in International Economics and a Maitrise in International Commerce. He is also an associate of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (ACMA, CGMA) and a regular speaker on the telecom & satellite sector conference circuit.

As a member of Milbank’s Transportation and Space Group, Mark focuses on corporate finance transactions in the transportation and satellite sectors. He acts for principal transportation and asset financing banks, equity investors, leasing companies and operators on a range of cross-border financing, leasing, and M&A transactions. 

Mr. Rémi Challamel (TAS-UK) graduated from “Ecole Nationale Supérieure de l’Aéronautique et de l’Espace” (France) in 1993, where he specialized in Information&Telecommunication technologies. He started his career as he was system engineer on a Geographic Information System project dedicated to the merge of digital maps with satellites images. He was then successfully system engineer and “satellite tracking system” project manager on many major telecom satellite programs. He became responsible of LBS (Location Based Services) business development in Alcatel Space in 2001, and Project Coordinator of LIAISON (LBS oriented towards enterprise applications – 34 partners project under FP6 IST 2nd Call) between 2004 and 2008. He was also during 5 years Manager of TAS-F (Thales Alenia Space France) Application and Services department for European GNSS R&D projects. He then became in 2009 the head of Maritime Data Collection system unit in TAS, and responsible for Navigation satellite On-board activities (project, bid) in 2012. He is now in charge of business development for satellite navigation and telecommunication, in TAS-UK since mid 2016, and joined the UK SSPI chapter board in November 2016.

Andrew Faiola, Commercial Vice President, Astroscale

Andrew joined Astroscale team in January 2023 with a vision to secure the safe and sustainable development of space for the benefit of future generations. Prior to that he was VP EMEAAP Sales at ALL.SPACE, leading sales and business development for all commercial and global government segments.  Previously he was Head of Mobility at ST Engineering iDirect, where he led a team responsible for market development and the company’s strategy for aviation, maritime, and land mobile. 

Andrew also spent over 15 years at Intelsat, one of the world’s leading satellite companies, in a number of different direct account management and sales leadership positions, including leading the Mobility Solutions sales team for Europe, Middle East, and Asia.  He also held various sales and marketing roles at NewSkies Satellites, and at an independent teleport in the USA called ESATEL Communications. 

Earlier in his career he performed research and project development work at the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS), the Embassy of Mexico in Washington, DC, and at NASA, which involved the provision of Internet service and remote sensing for environmental purposes.

Andrew holds a BA in Economics from Washington University in St. Louis, and an MA in International Affairs from The George Washington University in Washington, DC.

Founder and Chief Executive of ICP Search, Gary is described an energetic entrepreneur and business leader who translates ideas into actions without any fuss whatsoever.

Gary founded technology search specialists ICP Search in 2001 to provide world class recruitment solutions to the advanced technology markets and has since established ICP as a global leader within the Satellite, Space, Electronics and Media Broadcast industries worldwide.

In addition to having a passion for the markets he serves, Gary is widely recognised for being absolutely committed to unlocking the full potential of our future generations. By working tirelessly behind the scenes Gary and the team inspire thousands of young people annually into STEM orientated careers, both locally and internationally. Gary also loves to utilise his energy and experience from within the recruitment industry to strengthen communities and economies at grassroots level – increasing employment opportunities, enhancing education participation and raising aspirations of our future generations, inclusive of all academic abilities.

Gary has a huge passion for what he does and has been recognised locally and nationally at various awards for 'Greatest Contribution to the Community' and 'Entrepreneur of the Year' to name but a few

Matthew Perren is Head of Future Programmes for Airbus Defence and Space’s Earth Observation, Navigation and Science business division in the UK. He started his career in Telecommunications satellite payload system and equipment design at Matra-Marconi before becoming Galileo Navigation Payload Manager at Astrium.  He was appointed as Head of Engineering for the UK Earth Observation, Navigation and Science Division of Astrium before moving on to a role as  Head of Innovation for Astrium Corporate offices in Paris, investing in technologies and future concepts for both satellite, launcher and service business segments.  He held the post of Head of R&D and Innovation for Astrium Services developing technologies and service concepts exploiting Astrium’s space based infrastructure in communications and Earth Observation. Prior to his current role he was Head of Research and Technology Key Account Management for Airbus Defence and Space as the interlocutor between company technology strategy and external stakeholders.

David has 40 years’ experience in the international satellite communications sector gained through line and consulting positions in engineering, project management, sales and general management, with blue chip employers like Marconi, ESA, British Aerospace and Telenor.  Since 2008, David has been a consultant to several existing and would be satellite operators and service providers, including the Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh, as well as co-founding new starts GapSat in 2011, and Methera in 2015.  He has more than a decade’s lay leader and charity trustee experience in the voluntary sector, as well as being a trained mentor.

Harry is the founder and managing director of Cicero & Friends Communications Consulting.  Based in London, he combines 20 years of in-house and agency experience in the IT, Telecoms and Space sector with a great passion for the latest technology.

Harry has advised startups and large brands on their communications including Virgin Galactic, OneWeb, Skyrora, NanoAvionics, Lacuna Space, Qualcomm, BT, NEC, CA Technologies, Vanco, Nvidia and Micromuse. Harry also spent two years as an industry analyst in the networking/telecommunications industry with clients such as Cisco, HP, Dell, Alcatel and Linksys. He has a master's degree in communications and media science from Leipzig University.

Outside the office Harry is a passionate photographer and tennis player. When he isn't trying to hitch a ride on a rocket, he will be running after a fuzzy green ball or trekking with his trusted camera through rainforests, looking for lemurs or orangutans.