Julia Lawson-Johns

Julia Lawson-Johns is a climate finance professional focused on mobilizing capital to accelerate climate innovation and sustainable economic growth. She brings experience across venture investing, strategy consulting and international development. Most recently, she was an Investment Associate at KawiSafi Ventures, investing in clean technology companies across energy, mobility and carbon removal. Previously, she advised corporations, investors, philanthropies and multilateral institutions on climate and infrastructure as a Senior Project Manager at Dalberg Advisors, following her early career at Oliver Wyman. She holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and an MSc in Development Economics from the University of Oxford.

Articles by Julia Lawson-Johns

Guest Articles

Wednesday
June 10
2026

Julia Lawson-Johns / Amar Inamdar

Financing the Future: How Off-Balance-Sheet Special Purpose Vehicles Could Fund Africa’s Cleantech Transition

Across Africa, founders are tackling some of the world’s most difficult development challenges with cleantech solutions that require significant capital expenditure. But according to Julia Lawson-Johns, and Amar Inamdar at KawiSafi Ventures, beneath this wave of innovation lies a capital architecture that is still too shallow to enable the scale these firms now require. They argue that off-balance-sheet financing via special-purpose vehicles could provide cleantech enterprises with an alternative means of securing upfront liquidity to finance growth, and explore how these vehicles could power Africa’s cleantech transition.

Categories
Agriculture, Energy, Finance, Investing, Transportation

Tags
e-mobility, energy access, impact investing, lending, off-grid energy, Productive Use of Energy, renewable energy, smallholder farmers, solar

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Julia Lawson-Johns

Articles by Julia Lawson-Johns

Financing the Future: How Off-Balance-Sheet Special Purpose Vehicles Could Fund Africa’s Cleantech Transition