Who We Are
Our Risk Management team has the experience and expertise to understand the complex needs of our clients.
Whether you are looking for protection, enhancement, risk mitigation or future planning for your business, we will help guide you on your journey.
Our belief is that no two clients ever have the same solution since each has their own unique cultural, financial, and political background that will determine their optimal programme structure. We serve a limited number of private and public entities in order to dedicate the necessary time to your business.
Our global expertise and access to the leading products and services allows us to deliver on our client mandates.
Our Key Personnel
Knut Loesche
Chief Executive Officer, Chairman of the Board
Knut Loesche is a distinguished and dynamic leader within the energy sector, presently serving as both the Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board at Nippur AG. Nippur AG stands as a prominent Comprehensive Energy Solutions provider, operating with a focus on excellence in the Middle East and Central Asia region.
Before establishing Nippur AG, Knut Loesche carved a distinguished career in the venture capital industry in Germany. During this tenure, he meticulously honed his leadership skills and cultivated a profound understanding of investment dynamics, contributing significantly to his acumen in strategic business development.
With a career spanning several decades and marked by a global investment portfolio, Knut Loesche has emerged as a key influencer in shaping the energy services landscape, particularly in the Middle East. His visionary leadership has played a pivotal role in positioning Nippur AG as a highly dynamic player in the energy sector, where innovation and comprehensive solutions are paramount. Knut’s multifaceted expertise and strategic insights have not only steered Nippur AG to new heights but have also left an indelible mark on the broader energy services industry. His unwavering commitment to excellence, coupled with a forward-thinking approach, continues to drive Nippur AG’s success in delivering cutting-edge solutions in the ever-evolving energy landscape.
Prasann Patel
Director and Head of Portfolio & Risk Management
Prasann is a Director of Nippur AG and leads portfolio management and risk management across the firm’s Risk Management and Asset Management businesses. He brings more than 30 years of experience in global markets, spanning foreign exchange, interest rates, commodities and multi-asset portfolios, and advises governments, central banks, state-owned enterprises, large corporates and institutional investors on the management of complex market exposures.
A fourth-generation principal of an Asia-Pacific family enterprise founded in 1928, Prasann has spent more than two decades as Executive Director and Portfolio Manager at Core Investments Group, a New Zealand based investment group active in private equity across the Asia Pacific region and in global markets trading. Since 2003 he has led the Group’s global markets trading operation, investing and hedging across sectors ranging from national utilities to steel manufacturing, alongside leadership roles in asset management across New Zealand, Australia and Singapore.
His expertise in foreign exchange, interest rate and commodity markets has led to advisory roles with governments and national institutions across the Middle East, Africa, Asia and the Pacific. In the Middle East, he has advised two oil-exporting governments on global best practice in commodity price risk management for their national oil exports, including multi-day workshops with a GCC government’s Ministry of Finance, central bank and national oil company. He has prepared an advisory paper for an African Head of State on hedging the country’s gold exports, and his institutional work includes advising a national superannuation fund on the management of its global foreign exchange exposure.
Prasann has designed and implemented Dynamic Hedging Programmes for fuel, foreign exchange and commodity exposures, and has advised on major corporate transactions, including a strategic equity divestment and a large syndicated banking facility. He also serves as Special Advisor to the Board of a national electricity utility and as a member of its risk management committee.
At Nippur, he oversees the firm’s Dynamic Hedging Programmes for sovereigns, utilities and airlines, its asset management strategies including the FX Trading Portfolio, and its green energy finance and structuring advisory work.
Outside Nippur, Prasann is a committed supporter of the Deepavali Charitable Trust (www.deepavali.org.nz), which funds three hospitals and a school in rural Uttar Pradesh, India. Since 2009 the hospitals have served approximately 42,000 patients each month, and the school provides education to 4,600 underprivileged girls.
Ahmed Nassar
Chair of the Advisory Board
Ahmed brings over two decades of experience in credit and fixed income markets, built at three of the most respected names in global finance: Morgan Stanley, Moore Capital Management and Point72.
He began his career at Morgan Stanley, where over four years he worked as a credit strategist and then as a credit market maker. Combining research with trading gave him a grounding in both the fundamentals of credit and the realities of liquidity, pricing and client flow.
He then spent over ten years at Moore Capital Management, one of the world’s most established global macro hedge funds, trading credit and managing credit risk through multiple market cycles. It was here that he built the disciplined approach to risk, position sizing and capital preservation that defines his investment approach.
Most recently, Ahmed spent five years as a Credit Portfolio Manager at Point72, one of the world’s leading multi-manager hedge funds, where he ran his own credit portfolio within a framework in which capital is earned through consistent, risk-adjusted performance.
As Chair of the Advisory Board, Ahmed draws on experience across the full credit value chain, from strategy and market making to trading, risk management and portfolio construction. He provides strategic guidance to Nippur and holds the firm to the same standards of risk discipline he practised at the world’s leading hedge funds.
Jignasha Patel
Head of Finance & Compliance
Jignasha is a passionate advocate of enabling business growth and transformations through best practice executive management and governance. As an experienced commercial business leader with more than 25 years executive management experience leading diverse teams, portfolios and revenue streams in multiple countries, she has consistently delivered exceptional results in growth and business transformation while maintaining a strong bottom line.
Throughout her distinguished career, Jignasha has also brought long term strategic and commercial focus to the boards she has served and encouraged management to create strategies supporting long term shareholder and stakeholder value creation. She has served in independent governance roles at NZ Post Limited (Deputy Chair, Acting Chair Finance, Audit Risk and Director), NZ Post Superannuation Plan (Chair and Trustee) and Te Hononga Akoranga COMET (Trustee).
Experience gained on the commercial and non-profit boards had reinforced Jignasha’s belief in long term value creation through a collaboration and engagement model with diverse communities and building cross industry partnerships. Her enthusiasm for exploring new ideas and opportunities with fellow board members fuels her commitment to shaping a prosperous future for enterprises in Australia, New Zealand and beyond.
Currently, Jignasha holds the position of Director Enterprise, Finance, and Property at Auckland War Memorial Museum, where she continues to leverage her extensive expertise. Additionally, she serves as a Board Trustee for Te Hononga Akoranga COMET. Jignasha is a proud member of Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand, as well as the Institute of Directors (NZ) and the Australian Institute of Company Directors, highlighting her commitment to professional excellence in her field.
Darko Atijas
Head of Operations
Darko is an experienced COO, investor, entrepreneur and executive. He currently sits on the board of several businesses in the UK and Australia as a non-executive director. Darko has led multiple high profile M&A transactions such as the sale of Temando to Neopost in 2015, Attco Global Services to Tech Data in 2017, and Showpony to Kevin Murphy Group in 2023.
Darko is a co-founder of True Altitude, a boutique Investment Services firm focused on business to business transactions. He and his team have managed over 40 investments, supporting 130+ clients in the UK, EU, GCC, US and APJ. Darko’s career has seen him heavily involved in over $600M USD in equity investments, $110M in asset based financing and more than £300m in wholesale structured debt deals.
Darko joined Nippur AG as a representative of the board in the GCC and United Arab Emirates in 2023 and is part of the management oversight committee of the company.
