Leo Berwick adds to infrastructure advisory team

Leo Berwick has made two senior hires to boost its nascent financial advisory division, executives at the firm told Infralogic.

Kevin Burke, based in Vancouver, has joined as a managing director focused on digital infrastructure, while Amélie Perron, based in Montreal, will join the firm next week as managing director to focus on the transportation sector. Both previously served as senior managers of infrastructure M&A at Deloitte Canada.

“We have long had a lot of success in power and utilities and renewables at Leo Berwick, so I am thrilled to be able to have even greater depth on digital and transport financial advisory,” said Colin Schmidt, the Leo Berwick partner leading the advisory team. “I have always regarded Kevin and Amélie as leaders in their respective fields, and they are joining a market-leading tax team to bring even more depth of expertise to our clients.”

Burke, who joined Leo Berwick last month, and Perron both worked with Schmidt at Deloitte and before that at KPMG.

Leo Berwick, an historically tax-focused infrastructure M&A advisory firm, launched its Infrastructure, Renewables and Energy Transition Financial Advisory division in June, hiring Schmidt to lead the team as a partner.

Burke joined the firm after seven years at Deloitte following a short stint with KPMG Canada. He has worked across several infrastructure subsectors, he told Infralogic, but has recently focused more on digital investments including data centers, fibre, broadband and towers.

“Data consumption is doubling roughly every two years, and the knock-on effects that this exponential growth is having on the underlying digital infrastructure networks is significant,” he said.  “There is a massive amount of capital that needs to be invested through the end of this decade and going forward, and infrastructure investor activity in the space is here to stay.”

Burke said he appreciates that Leo Berwick brings specialized infrastructure and energy transition tax, financial due diligence, and modeling advisory expertise together as one group to create a unique offering for clients.

“That was one of the exciting factors that brought me over,” he said.

Perron will join Leo Berwick after three years at Deloitte. She previously spent 12 years with KPMG in both the UK and Canada. Perron said that the Covid-19 pandemic highlighted the need for resilient transportation infrastructure to strengthen supply chains.

“The approach that Leo Berwick has, which is very sector-focused and very expertise-based but also fairly flexible in terms of the advisory we offer to clients, really spoke to me,” said Perron.