A. Leigh Williams, Esq.
Founder and CEO of Avania Group, Ms. A. Leigh Williams, Esq. serves as a strategic advisor to clients by focusing on cross-functional approaches to meet their challenges. Ms. Williams is widely respected for her savvy to quickly size up an issue and her drive to zealously advocate with integrity by focusing on legal, business and policy solutions. Some clients she has represented include Bell Atlantic, Pennsylvania Electric, Washington Gas Energy Services, Pepco, Kaiser Permanente, Pfizer, Baltimore Ravens, Washington Redskins, District of Columbia Public Service Commission, M4 Environmental, Association of Maryland Pilots, K. Hovnanian Homes, John Hopkins School of Medicine, Six Flags America and the Town of Upper Marlboro, Maryland. Ms. Williams is licensed to practice law in the District of Columbia, Maryland and Pennsylvania. She is a graduate of the prestigious School of Public and Environmental Affairs, Indiana University with a degree in Public Affairs/Management and Juris Doctorate from Indiana University School of Law.
Farhad Niami, Ph.D.
Farhad Niami serves as Chief Financial Officer/Chief Economist and prepares strategies and documents presenting economic and revenue information used by clients as forecasting and estimating tools for policy analysis and operations. Dr. Niami’s astuteness in assessing financial, political and economic aspects of potential investments and legislation has led him to earn millions of dollars in grant and research contracts. His background in quantitative analysis and statistics as well as his published and presented fiscal and economic studies were factors in his former appointment as State Economist for the State of Louisiana.
Dr. Niami earned his degrees from Oregon State University and University of Oregon with the distinction of earning an international education scholarship towards both degrees. In addition, he is committed to staying current on new fiscal methodologies for domestic and international projects and has incorporated these models in the array of economic and finance courses he teaches university students.
Deborah S. Davis, Esq.
Ms. Deborah S. Davis is an attorney admitted to practice in the State of Connecticut and the Republic of Trinidad & Tobago. Her focus is on International Law, procurement and international contracts. Ms. Davis has gained expert knowledge in these areas from working with organizations such as the Agricultural Development Bank of Trinidad & Tobago, CARICOM and CTBTO. She is a graduate of the University of the West Indies (UWI), Cavehill Campus and the Hugh Wooding Law School. Ms. Davis earned an LLM degree in International Business & Trade from the Fordham University School of Law, New York. She has completed professional development courses in Trade and Agribusiness.
Jesus M. Williams
Jesus Williams serves as Chief Global Client Manager, Energy & Power and uses over 20 years of Wall Street banking and relationship executive experience in utilities and oil & gas (O&G) to counsel our clients throughout the U.S and the Caribbean. Mr. Williams is adept in developing, building, and managing O& G banking relationships focused on spanning upstream, midstream/MLP, downstream, oilfield services, and providing financial and investment solutions for public and investor owned utilities. As a seasoned executive, Mr. Williams uses expertise and intuition to assist clients with portfolio and risk management; marketing; credit underwriting; financial modeling; and business and strategy development. He is also fully capable of overseeing and guiding the entire credit relationship from identifying financial strengths and risks, originating and structuring syndicated and bilateral loans and letters of credit, to performing credit analysis and annual reviews to monitoring relationships. He is also enterprising in discovering and introducing investment solutions and persuasive in raising and leveraging capital across a range of traditional and alternative products.
Mr. Williams maintains and enhances his expert knowledge of regulatory and competitive Utilities and O&G industry developments through taking seminars and courses and making application and compliance. Mr. Williams earned his M.B.A. with a focus in Structured Finance, Capital Markets (primarily securities pricing), and Investment Banking from the prestigious Columbia Business School, NY. He earned his B.S., Applied Mathematics from the University Southern California, Los Angeles, CA.