What do we do?
We advise, train and coach clients in navigating complex financial transactions. We help individuals and organizations to develop real-world deal skills, with an emphasis on financial modeling and analysis.
Using an innovative approach with proprietary online content, our training courses are able to cover more material in less time.
Pivotal180 offers public courses, online training, and in-house workshops which can be custom-tailored to fit the specific needs of a client. We are able to provide instruction and guidance on topics as diverse as governance, compliance, local law and tax regulations in almost any jurisdiction.
We are also committed to serving non-profit organizations as well as public institutions and government ministries, including human capacity building in Sub-Saharan Africa and elsewhere in the developing world.
We don’t just teach how to model. We teach how to do deals. Including:
Contracts and project documentation
Legal structure
Tax optimization
Commodity markets
Risk management
And even some of the underlying engineering, science and technology necessary to quantify risk and forecast financial performance.
Our Team
Daniel Gross
Founder & Instructor
Daniel Gross is a founder and instructor at Pivotal180 and a private equity investor focused on renewable energy, infrastructure and socially responsible impact investing. Dan develops content for courses, teaches classes, and provides advisory services and transaction coaching to clients globally.
Read more about Daniel
Founder & Instructor
Daniel Gross is a founder and instructor at Pivotal 180 and a private equity investor focused on renewable energy, infrastructure and socially responsible impact investing. Dan develops content for courses, teaches classes, and provides advisory services and transaction coaching to clients globally.
Dan has served as a Managing Director at Oaktree Capital Management and was one of the founding Partners of Hudson Clean Energy, a private equity firm with over $1 billion in assets under management. He has served on the board of directors of multiple companies, both private and public. While in the U.S. alternative energy investment group at Goldman Sachs, Dan headed efforts to invest in photovoltaic solar, including private investments in First Solar and SunEdison. He also founded the renewable energy investment business at GE Capital's Energy Financial Services unit, where he closed over $1 billion of principal investments in energy-sector loans, leases, mezzanine, common/preferred equity and tax-driven partnerships. In recent years, Dan has provided advisory services, coaching and training to family offices, private companies, non-profits, investment funds, development finance institutions, as well as government ministries and state-owned utilities In the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa.
Dan lives in Brooklyn, New York and enjoys practicing his smattering of obscure language skills with anyone who will indulge him, most notably the kitchen staff at Thai restaurants. He is an Adjunct Professor at Columbia University and holds an appointment as a Lecturer at Yale University where he teaches on Renewable Energy Project Finance. His favorite Excel function is OFFSET, even though it should NEVER be used in a best-practice financial model.
Qualifications
- Fulbright Scholar
- Masters in Environmental Management, M.B.A. and B.A. (Phi Beta Kappa), Yale University (USA)
Alison Leckie
COO & CFO
Alison is a founder and the COO & CFO of Pivotal180. She is responsible for managing business and finance related tasks. Alison will also be leading courses related to FP&A and providing coaching to accountants and FP&A managers.
Read more about Alison
COO & CFO
Alison is a founder and the COO & CFO of Pivotal 180. She is responsible for managing business and finance related tasks. Alison will also be leading courses related to FP&A and providing coaching to accountants and FP&A managers.
Alison has extensive technical accounting skills and experience in senior leadership roles across several industries. She has managed global businesses including Giorgio Armani, SAP, Corality, and Mazars. Alison is an owner and director of M3 Logistics, an Australian business founded in 2003 that employs over 200 staff with a revenue of $42m. Alison previous charitable work includes a role as acting finance director for the National Breast Cancer Foundation (Australia) in a voluntary capacity. Alison’s played instrumental roles in both the selling of the Corality business to Mazars and the integration of global systems and processes post the merger.
An Australian currently living in London and working for a USA based company, Alison has a love for travel. Her two grown up children live in Sydney providing her with a perfect excuse to go home for visits. Alison loves the outdoors, and her holidays and weekends will often involve cycling, hiking or skiing. Her favourite excel short cut is F1.
Qualifications
- Bachelor of Commerce – with merit. University of New South Wales (Australia)
- Certified Practicing Accountant- Fellow (FCPA)
Haydn Palliser
Founder & Instructor
Haydn Palliser is a founder and instructor at Pivotal180 and a globally renowned financial modeling and project finance expert. Haydn develops content for courses, teaches classes, and provides guidance and mentoring to financial modelers, advisors, and investors.
Read more about Haydn
Founder & Instructor
Haydn Palliser is a founder and instructor at Pivotal 180 and a globally renowned financial modeling and project finance expert. Haydn develops content for courses, teaches classes, and provides guidance and mentoring to financial modelers, advisors, and investors.
An engineer by background, Haydn grew and led the Corality business across Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Americas, providing training, financial modeling consulting, due diligence, and financial advisory services predominantly in the renewable energy, infrastructure and mining sectors. He has provided advisory, consulting, or training to organizations such as Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan, Barclays, IFM, Carlyle Group, Apollo, ANZ Bank, CPPIB, and Macquarie. His most recent focus and passion has been advising and mentoring developing country Governments on transactions and financial analysis.
Haydn lives in Westchester, New York with his wife and two kids and spends his spare time on the tennis court and being punished in CrossFit (thanks Dan!). Being from New Zealand he is an avid rugby fan, but as a new American he also appreciates the finer American foods such as Buffalo Wings, with a good game of American Football. He is an Adjunct Associate Professor at Columbia University where he teaches Renewable Energy Project Finance modeling. He has also taught students at MIT, Harvard, Wharton, and the University of Chicago. His favorite Excel shortcut is of course (CTRL + \).
Qualifications
- Bachelor of Engineering (Hons) University of Canterbury (New Zealand)
- Master of Applied Finance Macquarie University (Australia)
Florentina Mutafungwa
emerging markets specialist
Florentina is a specialist in Government advisory and capacity building in Emerging Markets. She designs and implements consulting and training programs within the energy and infrastructure sectors in Africa.
Read more about Florentina
Emerging Markets Specialist
Florentina is a specialist in Government advisory and capacity building in Emerging Markets. She designs and implements consulting and training programs within the energy and infrastructure sectors in Africa.
Florentina is inspired to make a difference in the Africa region. After graduating from Dalhousie University of Halifax, she moved back to Tanzania to work with the World Bank as an Energy Specialist. She spent 5 years designing and implementing supervision of Bank-Funded energy projects, where she mostly focused on organizing and supervising capacity building programs.
Over her tenure at the World Bank, she realized that Tanzania, as well as many other countries in the region, lacked the necessary skills required to navigate the complex transactions, including Public Private Partnerships necessary to attract foreign direct investment. She also reached a conclusion that traditional institutional “capacity building” efforts were underserving the Tanzanian energy sector and leaving the government ill-prepared to transact. Florentina successfully engaged highly skilled professionals to prepare a carefully developed curriculum based upon real-world skills development and rooted in a “teach a person to fish” framework, which was delivered to the government agencies and the state-owned utility.
Florentina is Based in Dar-Es- Salaam, Tanzania. As a young professional, Florentina’s remarkable talents include vision, tenacity, political will and coalition building. She is an innovator and she is not one to take “no” for an answer. She has the drive to successfully navigate complex and highly political institutions - ultimately getting everyone to “yes.”
Qualifications
- Bachelor of Science degree from St. Mary's University of Halifax Nova Scotia
- Certified Master of Arts in Development Economics from Dalhousie University of Halifax, Novia Scotia
