Team
Nav Kumar
Managing Director
Nav is Managing Director and Co-Founder at Meridian, set up as a strategic Merchant Banking firm supporting financial stability and economic prosperity globally. Nav is a graduate in Architecture (MA Hons) and Civil Engineering (MSc), studying at University of Cambridge and Cardiff University respectively, where his specialty was post-conflict reconstruction and redevelopment, including rapid coastal urbanisation. He practiced as an Architect following graduation, designing hospitals in the UK and Sri Lanka, a mosque in Doha Qatar, schools in the UK, mixed-use developments in Sri Lanka, before moving to Sri Lanka to focus on direct post-conflict redevelopment after the end of the 30-year civil war, contributing to internally displaced people’s housing design, going on to focus on Development Finance through his founded company P1F Limited, raising c.$250m between 2015 and 2019 for development in Sri Lanka. He has presented at the World Economic Forum, UK Government events as part of Belt & Road initiatives in China, and actively advises both private and state-owned enterprises engaged in frontier-market investment and development. Nav has received awards from the Royal Institute of British Architects, and is a member of the Worshipful Company of Chartered Architects.
Following the terrorist attacks on Easter Sunday 2019 in Colombo Sri Lanka, he went on to found Meridian as a globally diversified financial firm focused on financing economic and civil stability and economic prosperity. Meridian is now regulated as an Appointed Representative by the FCA in the UK, and 15a-6 Chaperone by the SEC in the US permitting arranging, advisory and mergers and acquisitions regulatory services in the US and UK.
Privately, Nav is a violinist, pianist, painter, enjoys long-distance running, is a private pilot (SEP VFR with the CAA), speaks English and Chinese (Mandarin), and is passionate about using capitalism to support civic stability and economic prosperity.
Christopher Nixon
PPP & Project Finance Senior Advisor
Chris Nixon is a Project Finance and Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) specialist with over 20 years of experience in global banking, central government and sovereign wealth, having held project finance leadership roles at Mizuho, WestLB, Samba Financial Group, and serving as Director at National Center for Privatization & PPP and the Public Investment Fund (PIF) of Saudi Arabia. He has also contributed pro-bono to the World Association of PPP Professionals (WAPPP) serving as Co-Chair of the Finance Chapter.
Chris brings his wealth of experience and expertise to Meridian Universal in advising on our project and infrastructure finance activities across all Meridian’s strategic sectors and programs, including scrutinising our solutions and transactions in public-private-partnerships at the corporate and government level.
Chris is a Certified PPP Professional (CP³P), a Climate Resilient Infrastructure Officer (CRIO), holds the CFA Certificate in ESG Investing, the LSE Certification in Real Estate Finance & Economics, and gained a Distinction from the World Bank on Unlocking Investment and Finance in EMDEs. Before entering the world of finance, Chris studied Classics at the University of Oxford. He is semi-fluent in French, Bahasa Malay, Bahasa Indonesia, and has a good understanding of Arabic. Chris is a keen long-distance runner having run over 8 marathons. He is also a PADI Rescue Diver.
Maximilian Johnson
Asia Regional Lead
Maximilian Johnson leads our Asia infrastructure strategy. His vast diplomatic and international banking experience has helped Meridian to originate new opportunities, support in sponsor negotiations, and general geo-economic strategy in the Asia region.
Maximilian Johnson has spent 17 years in Asia. After graduating in 2009 from Tsinghua University, Beijing, with an MBA (the first British citizen to do so), Max spent 3 years in China working as the business development manager for a British metals trader. He then spent four years at Goldman Sachs in Hong Kong as an investment banker, working on a wide range of transactions across many industries, before moving into boutique advisory work.
Max was the youngest vice chair of the British Chamber of Commerce in China, a Leading Light for the British Council China, a founding member of China Britain Business Council's C2 China Committee, and Asia Society Next Generation Fellow. He was educated at Eton College (1998-2003), has a bachelor’s with honours in Modern Languages, Russian with Polish from Christ Church College, University of Oxford (2003-2007); an MBA from Tsinghua University in Beijing (2007-2009), and a certificate in management from MIT (2007-2009). He holds a black belt 1st Dan in Taekwondo.
He won a scholarship in 2005 to study Polish at Krakow's Jagiellonian University and in 2007 he came 1st in global Russian Language Essay competition. Max is semi-fluent in Mandarin Chinese, Russian, Polish, French and native English.
Lavinia Geraldo
Administration Officer
Lavinia acts as Meridian's Administrative Officer having been at the firm for over 2 years. She has been instrumental in the structuring and organisation of the business as it has grown, responsible for business management, compliance requirements and liaising between the executive and deal-teams on transaction-related requirements across our global portfolio. She is a She is a graduate in Law, Economics and Management, and has completed certificates in Banking, Corporate Finance and Securities Law at the Chartered Institute for Securities & Investments (CISI). Lavinia also speaks three languages, including native French and English.
Kush Ganatra
Analyst
Kush is an up-and-coming analyst and international finance professional, having completed CFA I, II, and III (certification pending) and with direct fund management track record and experience having managed the family business estate post-graduation in India. At Meridian Kush works across the wide-array of infrastructure finance and corporate finance transactions, with previous experience on power, transport, and social infrastructure transactions. He is currently based in London, having completed his MSc Accounting and Finance at LSE with Distinction, and speaks over 5 languages.
Anand Darambazar
Analyst
Anand is a highly experienced Banker based in Ulaanbaatar Mongolia, and recently joined Meridian to support Meridian's infrastructure financing transactions based in Mongolia. Anand has worked in project finance at Mongolia's leading commercials banks including Golomt Bank, and has been active in power and renewables energy infrastructure development in Mongolia. Anand is fluent in English and Mongolian, and has conversational language skills in Chinese (Mandarin).
Cameron Thomas
Junior Economist
Cameron is an Economics finalist at Girton-College Cambridge, and a future leading light in Economics and Central Banking. Cameron has successfully interned having won awards at the Bank of England, and at Meridian has been instrumental in some of our most innovative and forward-thinking economics research and intelligence development, in particular focused our emerging-market sovereign debt sustainability and infrastructure finance in support of prosperity and civic stability.