UAE’s leading district cooling provider Tabreed has announced two key appointments - Nadia Bardawil as the chief legal counsel and Philippe Coquelle as chief development officer - effective May 1.
Lauding the appointments, Tabreed said Bardawil, who succeeds Hamish Joost, is the first female member of Tabreed’s executive management team, while Coquelle takes over from Francois-Xavier Boul, who joined as the company’s chief development officer in September 2017.
A senior lawyer, Bardawil has more than 15 years of experience in working on the development and financing of energy and infrastructure projects in Mena and Europe.
She spent 12 years at global law firm Shearman & Sterling before joining Masdar as General Counsel, where she won numerous awards for leadership and promotion of diversity and inclusion and was named as a Chambers GC Influencer on their 2019 UAE list.
Her most recent role was Senior Legal Advisor to Mubadala, where she was responsible for managing some of the group’s largest global assets.
Coquelle joins Tabreed from Engie, where he has performed numerous roles in project management, business development, project finance and mergers and acquisitions (M&A) worldwide since joining in 2001, most recently as corporate M&A director at the group’s Paris headquarters.
For more than 20 years he has operated within the international energy sector, having worked in Paris, London, Brussels, Panama and Dubai, said the statement from Tabreed.
He spent four years in the UAE between 2014 and 2018, focusing on the development and project financing of power and water infrastructure across the Middle East, is fluent in French, Spanish and English, and has a Master in Energy and Environment from University of Brussels (Brussels, Belgium), and a Master in Finance from the London Business School (London, UK), it added.
Welcoming the duo into the fold, CEO Khalid Abdullah Al Marzooqi said: "This is a company built on operational excellence and, as such, it is vital that our Executive Management Team is diverse, like the rest of our people who make Tabreed such a success. So, it is a privilege to be able to welcome Bardawil as our first female C-Level Officer – her breadth of experience will benefit us enormously."
"This appointment proves that gender is no barrier to success within progressive and inclusive companies such as this," he added.
"Coquelle will also be a huge asset to Tabreed as we establish the company’s presence in new, international markets while growing the portfolio in existing territories. His predecessor, Francois-Xavier Boul, was highly instrumental in the exceptional growth Tabreed has seen in the past six years, so while Philippe has big shoes to fill, he is also joining us at a time when we’re really getting into our stride, with new opportunities constantly opening up," he added.
