Aleem Tharani
Aleem Tharani is a Kenyan energy-and-infrastructure lawyer who advises on many of the region’s landmark power, transport, and PPP transactions. A Solicitor of England & Wales and Advocate of the High Court of Kenya, he earned his LLB (Hons) from the University of Manchester and an LPC (distinction) from Nottingham Law School before joining Bowmans (then Coulson Harney) in 2010. Now a partner and co-head of the firm’s Infrastructure Sector, he structures, negotiates, and closes complex project-finance deals for lenders, multilaterals, sponsors, and governments across sub-Saharan Africa.
Tharani’s recent mandates include advising the financiers of Kenya’s 100 MW Kipeto wind farm, the sponsors on Uganda’s first toll-road PPP, and a consortium developing a multi-country cross-border fiber optic network. He is currently lead counsel to an IFC-backed syndicate funding a 300 MW solar-plus-storage portfolio spread across Kenya, Tanzania, and Zambia. Clients value his ability to reconcile local regulatory frameworks with international bankability standards.
Ranked by Chambers Global (Projects & Energy) and IFLR1000 (Highly Regarded), Tharani sits on the Kenya Private Sector Alliance Infrastructure Committee and lectures part-time on project-finance drafting at Strathmore Law School. Passionate about capacity-building, he mentors young lawyers through the African Legal Support Facility’s fellows programme and serves on the editorial board of The African Energy Journal.