Founder and editorial director
Jon founded African Energy in 1998 and has overseen its evolution from a respected B2B newsletter into a trusted provider of consultancy services.
A political scientist with a deep understanding of energy markets and politics, Jon’s wide-ranging experience allows him to engage with clients, conference participants and readers on a number of areas of expertise from providing counsel on understanding and mitigating political and commercial risks to structuring complex projects to have the maximum impact.
Jon has led some of African Energy’s largest consultancy projects, including its work for the EU Energy Initiative Partnership Dialogue Facility (EUEI PDF) on the Africa-EU Energy Partnership (AEEP)’s baseline monitoring programme.
Jon has lived in Algeria and Morocco and worked in dozens of countries, from DR Congo and Guinea to Iran and Saudi Arabia. He has held advisory roles in the European Commission, British Parliament and other institutions and (from 2003 to 2015) was as an associate fellow in the Royal Institute of International Affairs’ (Chatham House) Middle East and North Africa Programme.
Jon has a BA from the University of Kent, an MSc from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and carried out doctoral research at the School of Oriental & African Studies (SOAS). He has broadcast and lectured on several continents.