We are pleased to announce appointment of Maria Balyasna as a new Associate Director for Energy Transition at Amberside Advisors.
With over 15 years in corporate finance – both in advisory roles earlier in her career and in the UK energy industry roles more recently, Maria has hands-on experience in execution of complex cross-border acquisition projects, sell-side and IPO advisory engagements as well as evaluation of organic growth investment opportunities and strategic partnerships.
Prior to joining us, Maria has had insightful exposure to rapidly changing UK energy sector while working as a Finance Partner in Centrica’s energy trading unit, playing instrumental role in the acquisition of an energy trading company in Denmark, and evaluating various capital deployment opportunities in renewable energy technologies.
Maria further expanded her knowledge in energy transition having worked at Hive, focusing on smart home energy solutions, and most recently at SNRG, a NextGen infrastructure start-up, where as an Investment Director, she led the financial workstream for the successful infrastructure investor fundraise, built business cases and evaluated commercial viability of development and operation of smart microgrids on commercial and residential sites across the UK.
Maria will be strengthening our Commercial Advisory team with her versatile investment evaluation background and she will be working alongside Mark Easter and Shivali Mathur on expanding our proposition in the decentralised energy sector.
Upon her appointment, Maria Balyasna shared her enthusiasm, stating: “I’m delighted to be working with talented and like-minded individuals at Amberside Advisors and be able to bring data to life by answering the most challenging questions, which continue to be asked both locally and globally, of defining the value in the rapidly changing energy value chain.”
Mark Easter, Head of Commercial Advisory at Amberside Advisors, said: “We are delighted to have Maria onboard. Her corporate finance expertise, combined with her sector specialism in SLES and microgrids will bolster our burgeoning Energy Transition proposition and help us successfully respond to what the market currently needs.”
Outside of work, other than looking after her 3 lovely children, Maria likes to try new sports, describing herself as a bit of an adrenaline junkie – she most enjoys off-piste skiing and has recently started playing water polo.
We are excited to have Maria onboard and we wish her the best of luck in her new role.