About Pivotal180

WHY WE ARE DIFFERENT

Who are We?

  • We teach from experience. Not from a book.

  • Going deep without getting lost in the weeds

    Our training explains WHY things work the way they do and HOW the multifaceted pieces fit together in the broader context of a transaction.

  • Complexity Simplified

    Our materials are designed to make hard things feel easy.

    We take dry material and make it interesting and fun.

    We have re-imagined financial training and created a novel approach which demystifies esoteric rules and techniques using simple and elegant examples and quantitative demonstrations.

  • You will learn to think like a lender, an equity investor, a developer, an owner/operator, a regulator and commodity off-taker.

  • We have been adjunct professors at USA Ivy League universities, we have taught in the Middle East, Africa, Asia, Europe and Australia and worked in-house at best-in-class institutions like Goldman Sachs and GE Capital.

  • We are passionate about training and providing a learning experience of the highest caliber.

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 and live-streaming 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.

What do we value?

  • We believe that businesses have a responsibility to their employees and to the communities in which they operate.
  • Intolerance is intolerable.
  • Pivotal celebrates diversity and respects the dignity of every individual.
  • Family, friendship, society, health, fitness and the pursuit of outside passions make life worth living.
  • We demand excellence from our employees without compromising their ability to be human.
  • We believe that climate change is a threat to the planet, to ecosystems and to life itself.
  • Rapid adoption of environmentally sustainable infrastructure is critical to our collective future.
  • We are committed to training project finance and other business professionals to be a part of the solution.
  • Dependence upon foreign aid and foreign consultants is not a long-term solution to poverty.
  • To stand on their own, developing nations require investment in local institutions and human capacity building.
  • Part of our mission is to bring financial skills and best practices to countries lacking such experience and expertise.
  • We aim to empower local people to lead their own transactions and ensure that government ministries are not at a disadvantage when pursuing Public Private Partnerships with multinational corporations and experienced investors.
  • Modeling is a critical skill, but it is just one piece of the toolkit necessary for deal execution and asset management.
  • Financial projections are only as good as the underlying assumptions.
  • We help you to understand what the numbers mean and how to determine whether they make sense.
  • We have served on boards of directors of companies, both public and private.
  • We have raised billions of dollars in debt and equity.
  • We have bought and sold operating companies and infrastructure assets.

Bottom Line:

Our Team

Daniel Gross

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)

READ MORE ABOUT DANIEL
+1 347 991 7400

Alison Leckie

Founder & COO

Alison is a founder and the COO 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 favorite excel short cut is F1.

Qualifications
- Bachelor of Commerce – with merit. University of New South Wales (Australia)
- Certified Practicing Accountant- Fellow (FCPA)

READ MORE ABOUT ALISON
+1 347 991 7400
Alison Leckie
Haydn Palliser

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)

READ MORE ABOUT HAYDN
+1 347 991 7400

Richard Webster

Director

Richard Webster is a Director of Pivotal180 and leads our modeling services. Previously an Associate Director at Mazars in Sydney, he was the team lead for the APAC renewable energy business, providing advisory, valuation, financial modeling, and training services to some of the world’s largest infrastructure and energy clients.

 

Rich Webster

 

Read more about Richard

LEAD CONSULTANT

Richard Webster is a Director at Pivotal180 and leads our modeling services. Previously an Associate Director at Mazars in Sydney, he was the team lead for the APAC renewable energy business, providing advisory, valuation, financial modeling, and training services to some of the world’s largest infrastructure and energy clients.
Having worked from the UK, US and Australia he has previously worked across a broad range of infrastructure and mining sectors, and with organizations such as Macquarie Capital, ANZ Bank, BAML, Bank of China, Orsted, DIF, FRV and QIC.

Recent engagements include advising and delivering an offshore wind operational model in Taiwan, a portfolio model for battery and gas projects in the US and a highly structured corporate model for a portfolio of solar investments in Japan. Richard and Haydn have worked together since 2015 both in the US and abroad

A Brit living in Sydney with his fiance, Rich enjoys getting outside as much as possible. A keen hiker, camper and sportsman he tries to take advantage of the Aussie sunshine as much as possible, although unfortunately he will most likely be found in the gym going through rehab exercises on another injury! After 7 years of living next to the surf, he is still trying to catch his first wave.

His favorite shortcut is F11.

Qualifications

-BSc in Mathematics with Psychology (Hons), University of Durham (United Kingdom)

-MSc in Metals and Energy Finance (Distinction), Imperial College London (United Kingdom)

-Chartered Financial Analyst

READ MORE ABOUT RICHARD
+61 427 344 231
Rich Webster

Get in touch to discuss our instructor-led training, online courses or advisory services

Enquire Now