Shiv Shankaran NairMr.Shiv Shankaran Nair is currently the Executive Chairman of Suez Holdings Ltd, based in Malta
His background is in Financial Engineering and Government Advisory roles. He is also recognized as a leading practitioner of Conflict Resolution and Consensus Building among Sovereign states Mr.Nair has spent the past twenty years in putting together some of the most iconic infrastructure projects in Africa and Latin America, using Chinese Exim credits, so much so, that the Economist magazine once dubbed him “China’s secret weapon in Africa” As an entrepreneur he has set up, added value and sold several companies, especially in the “Economies in Transition”. He bought, developed and sold off British Borneo Petroleum, an old midcap oil company. In 1995, along with two local partners he set up the first post-soviet insurance company in The Republic of Georgia, and in 2004, when it had become the largest independent insurer in Georgia, sold it to the Bank of Georgia. He has acted as advisor on FDI, National Strategic Planning and Financial Engineering to the Governments of Nigeria, Ghana, Georgia, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Sri Lanka, Vanuatu, Mauritius, Malta, Ethiopia, Afghanistan and Ecuador As a specialist in National Conflict Resolution and Consensus Building, Mr.Nair was called upon to attend the Somali Round Table, representing a major Middle Eastern Country. He also acted as mediator between the Govt. of Niger and major Chinese Oil Company in the dispute on the Agadem block. In 2011, Mr.Nair met with President Juan Santos of Colombia, with mandates from the presidents of China Railways and China Harbour Engineering. In the meeting he conveyed a Chinese offer to finance a US$6 billion railway line connecting Colombia's Atlantic and Pacific coasts. The offer was declined after pressure from the United States. In the same year, he was involved in advising Poly Energy, a subsidiary of the China Poly Group Corporation, in an abortive takeover bid for the Kurdistan focused Turkish E&P company Genel Energy. Poly Energy's offer of US$2 billion was outbid by Vallares. In 2013, Mr. Nair was appointed advisor to the Government of Malta on FDI. He was said to have played an important behind the scenes role, that led to Malta being awarded the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) for a second time in a decade In 2013, he was appointed as Special Envoy of the Government of Vanuatu to initiate talks between Vanuatu and the Republic of Georgia on the issue of the de-recognition of the breakaway republic of Abkhazia, In 2016,The newly elected Government of Vanuatu appointed him their Trade Advisor for Europe, with a mandate to seek assistance to clean up Vanuatu’s offshore banking, gaming and shipping sectors In Feb 2016, Mr.Nair’s company Suez Capital was given an exclusive mandate by the Government of Oman to design, finance, build and operate the new container port of Sur, which is is expected to become the largest container port in the Middle East |