Investment Analyst, Project Finance & Energy
Diego Valdés
About
I am a civil engineer turned project finance analyst. I work on the financing, structuring and commercial side of utility-scale solar and battery storage projects in Mexico, at a private capital firm where I joined as a junior analyst and was promoted twice in twelve months.
Day to day that means financial models and returns analysis, PPA origination, investor and lender materials, and the regulatory process with CENACE, CFE, SENER and the VUPE. My engineering background lets me connect the technical, regulatory and financial sides of the same project instead of treating them as separate conversations.
I also build the tooling around the work — models, trackers, screening scripts and AI-assisted workflows — because the analyst who automates the repetitive half of diligence gets to spend the other half on judgement.
Experience
May 2025 — PresentMexico City
Private capital firm focused on renewable energy and sustainable infrastructure.
Ennova América is a private capital firm investing in renewable energy and sustainable infrastructure. I joined as a junior analyst and was promoted twice in twelve months. Today I carry the financial and commercial side of the projects the firm takes to market.
Most of my time goes to a USD 280M, 200 MWp solar project in Puebla. I built the investment file and the financial base case, and I support the structuring alongside the mandated bank and an EPC partner as the project moves toward financial close. Around it sits the offtake work: USD 410M of PPA origination across two projects, a ranked pipeline of a hundred potential counterparties, and a virtual PPA proposal to a Tier-1 hyperscaler. Lumina, the solar and battery storage financing model I took from concept to launch-ready, came out of the same effort.
On the capital side I supported the negotiations for a USD 100M multi-project equity commitment from a global asset manager, preparing the transaction structure, the portfolio-level return analysis and the materials that framed the discussions. I also coordinated the legal, financial and technical workstreams on ARKE, an infrastructure Fibra E developed with Diligentia and BBVA and taken through a public listing process, and produced the consolidated asset-level valuation used in its documentation.
The rest is the machinery that makes all of that possible: regulatory filings through the VUPE and CENACE, investor, board and government presentations, screening memos for the Investment Committee, market research on how much renewable capacity is actually available to private offtakers and on entering ERCOT, project schedules on critical path, and a CRM built from scratch. AI- and Python-assisted workflows cut the turnaround on most of it. I am also the firm’s Microsoft 365 Global Administrator.
Jun 2024 — May 2025Mexico City
Constructora y Edificadora GIA+A — construction and infrastructure group.
- Supported the structuring of MXN 450M in subordinated debt with an infrastructure credit fund for a PPP hospital portfolio: coordinated lender information requirements across internal teams and advisors, resized the debt structure against DSCR covenants and prepared the lender-facing credit analysis.
- Rebuilt and standardized the financial model architecture, VBA tooling and Power BI reporting used across PPP hospital and infrastructure opportunities.
- Built the financial model and strategic presentation for an infrastructure opportunity in Baja California Sur, presented by senior leadership to state authorities and local business leaders.
- Prepared cost estimates for competitive bidding on large-scale public works, including government buildings and airports.
2022 — 2024Mexico City
Independent mandates, concurrent with undergraduate studies.
- Barite mining company (undisclosed) — Consultant to the CEO, 2022–2024. Built the valuation and ran the commercial due diligence for the acquisition of a producing barite mine, working alongside external legal counsel.
- Gonzalez Aleu Firm — Investment advisor, 2023–2024. Portfolio optimization and asset allocation analysis for private investors, reducing client fees by more than 5%.
- Bosque Real — PR & Sales Representative, 2022–2023. MXN 9M in luxury residential sales in the first month through direct outreach, and expanded the investor network among high-net-worth clients.
Deals & Projects
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Project finance
USD 280M 200 MWp
Utility-scale solar, Puebla
Supported the structuring alongside the mandated bank and an EPC partner, and built the investment file and financial base case.
15%+ project IRR · 22%+ with exit strategy
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Origination
USD 410M
PPA origination
Across two solar projects, including a virtual PPA proposal to a Tier-1 hyperscaler.
100-counterparty offtake pipeline, screening to active negotiation
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Equity
USD 100M
Multi-project equity commitment
Supported the negotiations with a global asset manager: transaction structure, portfolio-level return analysis and investment materials.
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Debt
MXN 450M
Subordinated debt, PPP hospitals
Supported the structuring with an infrastructure credit fund at GIA+A, resizing the debt against DSCR covenants.
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Capital markets
ARKE — Fibra E
Infrastructure vehicle developed with Diligentia and BBVA and taken through a public listing process. Coordinated the legal, financial and technical workstreams and produced the consolidated asset-level valuation.
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Structuring
Lumina — solar + BESS
Solar and battery storage financing model built at Ennova América, from concept to launch-ready, cutting client energy costs through long-term service contracts.
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Market sizing
Mexico renewable supply study
How much of the announced renewable capacity is actually available to private offtakers, rather than already committed.
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Commercial DD
Tariff savings model
CFE GDMTH tariff history (2018–2026, 29 tariff divisions) weighted by the store footprint of a national retailer.
Education
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Tecnológico de Monterrey, Campus Santa Fe
Aug 2020 — Dec 2024
BS, Civil Engineering
Certified degree.
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Self-directed coursework
No certificate — listed for transparency, not as a credential
- Valuation — NYU, Aswath Damodaran (open course)
- Finance coursework — Rice University
- Justice — Harvard University
- Semiología de la vida cotidiana
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Skills
Finance
- Financial modeling
- Project finance
- Valuation (DCF, comparables)
- Commercial due diligence
- Market sizing
- Scenario & sensitivity analysis
- DSCR and debt sizing
- Transaction documentation
Energy markets
- Mexican Wholesale Electricity Market (MEM)
- CENACE
- CFE
- SENER
- CELs
- PPAs / VPPAs
- Solar & BESS
- Fibra E
Software
Excel, Word and PowerPoint at an exceptional level — keyboard-first, shortcut-driven, VBA where it pays off.
- Excel (advanced · VBA · macros)
- PowerPoint
- Word
- Outlook
- Microsoft 365
- Macabacus
- Power BI
Data, engineering & GIS
- Python (pandas, scikit-learn)
- QGIS
- AutoCAD
- Google Earth
- Firebase
- GitHub
Project management
- MS Project (critical path)
- Microsoft Planner
- Notion
- Airtable
- Microsoft 365 administration
Languages
- Spanish (native)
- English (B2)
- Italian (A1)
AI in practice
AI is not a side interest. It is how the work gets done.
I use it across the whole pipeline: Claude for Excel to stress financial models and trace where a formula breaks, Claude for Word and Claude for PowerPoint to turn raw model output into investor memos and board decks, and Claude Code to build the internal tooling — offtaker screening scripts, regulatory monitors, trackers and dashboards that used to be manual work.
Claude Cowork and Claude chat are where a structuring question gets argued out before it reaches a committee. The rest of the stack gets used for what each one is best at: a second opinion, a faster search, a piece of visual material.
The point is not the tool list. Diligence turnaround that used to take a week of analyst time now takes an afternoon, and the time that frees up goes into judgement rather than formatting. This site is an example: written, built and deployed end to end with Claude Code.
Claude -
Claude Code -
Cowork -
Microsoft 365 -
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Design
Turnaround on a diligence request
hours of analyst time
- Before
- With AI
Diligence request
Self-reported estimate: a week of analyst time against an afternoon.
PENDING One row is not a chart yet. Send real before/after hours for regulatory monitoring, offtaker screening and first-draft memos and this becomes a proper comparison.
Side Projects
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Rizo
In developmentAll-in-one booking marketplace and management platform for the beauty industry in Mexico.
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Progressive Web App built for a family office to manage its real estate portfolio: Firebase and Firestore, push notifications, a flight-price API, role-based permissions and theming.
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Tournament draw engine
Animated draw system for the 85th Cabo Anglers fishing tournament: an OR-Tools CP-SAT constraint solver behind a slot-machine-style HTML reveal.
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GIS cadastral mapping
Contour and cadastral mapping of roughly 330 hectares in Querétaro with QGIS.
Contact
Open to conversations about project finance, renewable energy investment and commercial due diligence mandates.
- Email valdesgonzalezdiego@gmail.com
- LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/diego-valdes-gonzalez-
- Location Mexico City