Vusal Najafov

Mr. Najafov is Managing Director and Co-Head of Cowen Sustainable Investments and oversees strategy, investment selection and portfolio construction for Cowen Sustainable Investments. He is currently on the Board of Directors of ecoATM.  Previously Mr. Najafov was a Board Observer for Proterra Inc. Mr. Najafov has twenty-two years of experience investing across sectors and asset classes, including significant expertise in energy, transport, and financial services. Since 2001, Mr. Najafov has managed capital for Enron, Goldman’s Principal Strategies Group, Highbridge, Millennium, and Indus Capital. He is experienced at developing and building risk and valuation technologies, which he has implemented at previous firms including Goldman Sachs and Highbridge to build investment businesses and manage cross-asset-class portfolios. Mr. Najafov helped to build a credit investment business at Goldman Sachs and headed Capital Structure Opportunities business at Highbridge. He focused on commercializing key macro trends including oil/commodity super-cycle (2002-2004), financial crisis and recovery (profitable in financials investing each year 2006-2010), energy infrastructure boom (2012-2013), oil collapse (2014-2015), and solar energy growth (2012-today).

Mr. Najafov has worked closely with the management of multiple private and multi billion dollar public companies as an active shareholder, including building sustainable investment efforts at Indus Capital and structuring and leading private renewable deals at Anthelion Capital, sustainable investments firm he founded in 2015. Within sustainable industries, he developed strong expertise in investing across the supply chain from private technology to public companies. Since 2012, Mr. Najafov has been studying relevant sciences and technologies and continues to actively use his computer science and data analytics expertise.

Mr. Najafov holds a BBA with honors in finance from Texas Tech University where he graduated summa cum laude at age 19. He also earned an MBA with honors from the Wharton School, the University of Pennsylvania where he majored in statistics, finance and strategic management.