Peter Lewis
Co-Founder

Peter has nearly 30 years of experience in global telecoms finance and > 20 years of African telecoms and tower experience. Peter spent the past 8 years at Eaton Towers as Chief Financial Officer, where he was responsible for financing, strategy and legal. He joined Eaton Towers in 2011 from Millicom, where he was the Treasurer and Head of Corporate Finance, from 1999-2010, responsible for all group funding (raised over $1bn in debt finance for Africa), strategy, business development and M&A. One of the last strategic sales he headed at Millicom was the sale of its towers in Ghana (2009), which was the first sale of a tower portfolio by an operator in Africa. He also helped execute the first “active” joint cellular network company, Svenska UMTS in 2001 (TeliaSonera and Tele 2/Comviq) in Sweden. Prior to Millicom, Peter spent almost 10 years (1990-1999) as an Investment Banker with ABN AMRO in London, Amsterdam and Singapore. Peter is an Associate of the UK Chartered Institute of Bankers and has an MBA/MBI from Erasmus, Rotterdam School of Management.

Pankaj Kulshrestha
Co-Founder

Pankaj has nearly 32 years of experience in telecoms out of which the last 16 years have been in the telecom infrastructure and tower sector. Prior to EI, he held the role of Group Chief Operations Officer at Eaton Towers for five years, where he was responsible for P&L in all countries, with the country MDs reporting into him. He was also responsible for SLA performance, new builds, achieving OPEX savings and procurement. He also has extensive operational experience in the Indian tower market. Prior to Eaton Towers, Pankaj spent a significant part of his career (September 2008 – December 2013) in American Tower Corporation, where he was the VP Operations and Regional Head North & West in India, and part of the company’s core group for M&A activities, leading both operational due diligence and post-acquisition integration activities. Pankaj holds a B.Tech. in Electronics & Telecommunications Engineering from Jawaharlal Nehru University and an MDBA (Marketing).

Julian Rennie
Group Head Finance

Julian has 28 years of experience, the majority being related to financing related activities in sub-Saharan Africa and the telecommunications industry. Julian was a founding team member of the Standard Bank Group’s Telecoms and media team in the late 1990’s, a small team that was responsible for advising on opportunities and fundraising and structuring and arranging both debt and equity products for the vast majority of greenfield network roll-outs for the MNO’s that were entering sub-Saharan Africa at that time including MTN, Vodacom, Celtel and Orascom.In Eastern Europe and the MENA and LATAM regions MENA and has developed extensive global networks with commercial funders, DFI’s, ECA’s and equipment providers. Julian is a member of the institute of Chartered Accountants of England and Wales and the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants, having completed his training in 1995 through Arthur Andersen & Co.

Lesley Morley
Group Head Legal

Lesley Morley is the Group General Counsel of Eastcastle Infrastructure Limited. Lesley is an English qualified lawyer with experience across commercial, mergers and acquisitions, equity fundraising, general corporate law, compliance policies and in-house legal services. She was a senior associate with Allen & Overy before spending some years as a consultant for Allen & Overy Peerpoint working on projects for clients including Bank of America Merrill Lynch and HSBC. Lesley joined Eaton Towers in 2017 to support the private equity investors’ exit and took over the role of General Counsel of Eaton Towers in 2018. She was responsible for delivering the legal, regulatory and anti-trust elements of the exit, as well as ongoing management and legal support for corporate, commercial, compliance, HR and the management and development of the Africa-based legal team. Lesley holds an LLB(Hons) degree from Bristol University and is qualified as a solicitor in England and Wales.

Srivats Grandhe
Group Head Technical

Srivats Grandhe is the Group Technical Director of Eastcastle Infrastructure Ltd. Srivats has about 33 Years of experience out of which the last 18 years have been in the Telecom infrastructure and Tower sector. He held the role of Group Operations Director at Eaton Towers for 05 years where he was responsible for turning around the operations and deliver exceptional SLA performance of +99.97%, earning performance rewards from the customer. He also planned and executed the OPEX optimization plan and delivered substantial savings on all acquired portfolios. Prior to joining Eaton Towers, he was Vice President – Group Operations at Airtel Africa (Africa Towers). He has extensive operational experience in Africa & India, successfully led the transformation and transition of operations & services from MNOs, OEMs to the Towerco model in both the markets. He was one of the start-up team member of Indus Towers, largest Tower company in the world.

Prasanna Nagaraja
Group Head Procurement

Prasanna has more than 24 years of work experience, of which 22 years are in the Telecom Infrastructure and Tower industry. His last role was Senior Director – Strategic Sourcing with American Tower Corporation – Africa, preceding which he worked as Group Head of Procurement with Eaton Towers for more than 5 and ½ years. At Eaton Towers, he set up the group Supply Chain function moving it inhouse from Vendor Managed Inventory model, achieving substantial savings in the capex costs alongside establishing a global supplier base for country specific cost and lead time optimization of Logistics. Prior to joining Eaton Towers, he has worked in India in the corporate supply chain function focusing on capex equipment sourcing with some of the biggest tower companies like Bharti Infratel and Indus Towers. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Industrial Production Engineering along with Post Graduation with dual specialization in Operations and Finance Management, both from India.

Jayachandran Thiruvengadam
Group Head of Operations

Jayachandran Thiruvengadam is the Group Head of Operations of Eastcastle Infrastructure. Jayachandran has more than 30 years of experience in the field of telecommunications and has experience with Eaton Towers in Uganda as a consultant on Airtel special projects. He held the role of Business Head for multiple circles at ATC India for 8 years where he was responsible for Operations, Projects and P&L of the circle. For his exceptional performance he earned the ATC Tower Star award in 2015. Prior to joining the ATC India, he served with Indian Army and has extensive experience in planning, implementing and operation of large scale telecommunication projects.

Jean Tshimpaka
Managing Director DRC

Jean Tshimpaka is the Managing Director of Eastcastle Infrastructure Dem. Rep. of Congo (DRC) SA Jean has over 25 years in Telecoms Industry , working for Mobile Operators, Telecoms Equipment Suppliers and a TowerCo. For the past 5 years Jean held Regional Operations Director and Deputy Managing Director with EatonTowers in Burkina Faso Prior to Joining EatonTowers, Jean was Managed Services Chief Operations Officer at Ericsson Chad , Chief Technical officer at Infratech Africa Ghana and Technical Director at Celtel Burkina Faso and Madagascar. Jean holds an Engineering Degree in Telecoms and He had pursued BBA in International Management at Phoenix University and MBA at Cumbria University. Jean has a diploma in Biofuels from McGill university, and is also the recipient of Leadership Excellence Award from African Leadership Magazine ( 2017)

Ewu Roger
Deputy Managing Director DRC

Ewu Roger is the Deputy Managing Director of Eastcastle Infrastructure DRC SARLU. He has nearly 15 years experience across various industries in Sub-Sahara Africa with the last 9 being in telecoms. Roger spent 5 years in senior country management roles at Eaton Towers, starting as Finance Director and later promoted to Deputy MD for the Niger business. He continued overseeing the finance team of Eaton Towers Niger and subsequently Eaton Towers Burkina Faso. He contributed to the setup of the Niger operation, integration of the acquired Airtel assets, people and processes and the stabilization and growth of the business. He previously held senior finance roles in Airtel, and Olam International, a global leader in food processing and agri-business in Chad and Cote D’Ivoire respectively. Roger holds an MBA from Oxford Brookes Business School and is also a Fellow of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants. He has taken leadership courses with both the Columbia Business School, New York and U-Penn Wharton School, Philadelphia

Niranjan Bhole
Deputy Managing Director, Nigeria

Niranjan Bhole has over 29 years of experience in operations, marketing & sales leadership roles across TowerCos, IT and Engineering domains. Niranjan has carried out Hub Business & State Business Head roles at American Tower, India. While leading eight different states for American Tower in India, he was also responsible for P&L, new builds, SLA performance, team building & achieving OPEX savings. He is also highly experienced in integration of tower portfolios, teams post mergers. Prior to joining American Tower, Niranjan was Regional Business Head at GTL Infrastructure Limited & was responsible for managing two leading telecom circles in India. Niranjan holds a bachelor's degree in Engineering(Production Engineering) and a post graduate diploma in Management. Niranjan has also led teams to market usage of software products & customized engineering automations across India