Issam Karram
Independent consultant · Paris, France

Making energy and land-use projects legible to investors and institutions.

I work with project owners and companies whose value sits in technical documentation, in land, or in field operations, and whose growth depends on being understood by people outside that world. My work is to turn that material into a case investors, partners and institutions can evaluate and act on.

I hold master’s degrees in cultural studies and linguistics and in energy transition governance. The first taught me how meaning and register move between cultural contexts; the second, the sector this work sits in. I spent six years building the communication capacity of senior government officials under a ministerial contract, and covered intergovernmental negotiations at the United Nations in New York. I work in English, Arabic and French, and take engagements wherever the project sits.

Nine years of practice across three continents UN Environment Programme, New York · 2024–2025 Master’s, energy transition governance · CIFE Registered consultant · UNGM & UNDP
Clients

Who I work with

Project owners and developers

Land, agriculture and renewable energy projects that hold real assets and need to become legible to outside capital, wherever they sit.

Companies preparing to raise

Technical validation in hand, but no investor-facing case, no feasibility evidence and no map of who to approach.

Companies with cross-border exposure

Operations across jurisdictions requiring ESG assessment, indicator frameworks and reporting that survives scrutiny.

Services

What I do

Investment readiness

Turning technical documentation into investor-facing material: pitch decks, investor memoranda and capital proposals that a reader outside the sector can follow and assess, together with the brand and communication material that carries them.

Feasibility and business case

Agronomic, economic, infrastructure and labor analysis, capital and operating cost build-up, internal rate of return and payback, and comparative economics set against the regulatory requirements a project has to satisfy.

Investor and donor landscape mapping

Identifying the multilateral funds, development finance institutions, private investors and partners a project needs, assessing each for fit, and opening those conversations around one coherent account of the project rather than several competing ones.

ESG and monitoring frameworks

Indicator design, benchmarking company practice against recognized ESG standards, alignment with SDG and national policy indicators, logical frameworks and theory of change, and the internal reporting workflows that keep them populated.

Cross-cultural mediation and executive communication

Mediating between teams, partners and funders who operate under different expectations, registers and reporting conventions, so that one account of a project holds across audiences that read it differently. Alongside it, preparing senior staff to present, negotiate and report in English across those same lines, with curricula and assessment built for the specific role rather than delivered from a syllabus.

Selected work

Engagements

BioenergyRemoteAug–Dec 2025

Policy Advisor

Bioenergy corporation, client name withheld

Produced the feasibility study for a 1,000-hectare integrated plantation and processing facility, covering agronomic, economic, infrastructure and labor analysis, capital and operating cost build-up, internal rate of return and payback, and comparative feedstock economics against the applicable regulatory requirements. Researched the ESG frameworks governing the company’s operations and benchmarked its practice against them, designing an indicator set, a monitoring framework and the internal reporting workflows needed to keep it populated.

Wrote the information memorandum presenting a multi-country project portfolio to an infrastructure investment fund, and the pitch deck and capital proposal for its lead deployment, working from the chief technology officer’s proof-of-concept documentation. Both set out a blended finance structure combining concessional capital, commercial debt and carbon credit revenue, with impact stated against SDG and national policy indicators.

Mapped the investor and donor landscape across multilateral climate funds, development finance institutions, private investors and innovation-focused donors, assessing each for fit and setting out an engagement approach, and structured the incubation-to-scale workplan into phased priorities covering financial model completion, patent-linked funding documentation and early technical team onboarding. Throughout, mediated between the operating teams and the company’s international investors, technology partners and prospective funders, aligning register, expectations and reporting conventions so that one account of the project held across audiences that read it very differently.

Intergovernmental affairsNew YorkOn-siteNov 2024–May 2025

Intergovernmental Affairs Branch

United Nations Environment Programme, New York Office

Covered the Second Committee of the General Assembly and ECOSOC proceedings, and the third preparatory session for the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development at UN Headquarters, reporting on the negotiations toward the outcome document. Attended high-level intergovernmental meetings and drafted the reports submitted to headquarters in Nairobi in support of UN Environment Assembly decision-making.

Synthesized intergovernmental proceedings and long technical documents, including reports of the Secretary-General and OECD material, into analytical papers that identified the entry points available to the office for its upcoming interventions. Prepared speeches and talking points for the Director and facilitated stakeholder meetings.

Authored commissioned policy papers on OECD fossil fuel subsidy trends and on the relationship between historical industrial development and greenhouse gas emissions. Reviewed Arabic-language source material and supported the verification of Arabic translations of official documents.

Public sector capacityMoroccoOn-site2017–2023

English Language and Cross-Cultural Communication Coach

Ministry of Solidarity, Social Integration and the Family, delivered through a training institute in Rabat

Delivered English and cross-cultural communication training to approximately forty government officials under contract to the Ministry, including ten in one-to-one executive coaching. Six consecutive years on a single institutional account, in a sector where training contracts are usually awarded a term at a time.

Designed an individual curriculum for each of the ten executive clients, covering reading, writing, listening and speaking, and built around the communication demands of the post that person actually held rather than delivered from a general syllabus.

Designed the assessments and examinations used to measure progress across the program. The brief covered cross-cultural communication as well as language, and it is where the mediation practice began.

Civil societyKenyaRemoteJul–Oct 2025

Deputy Director, Programs and Operations

Child support organization, Nairobi

Advised the executive team on organizational strategy, ethics and partnership development, applying theory of change and logical framework methods, and researched the procedural requirements for an application for ECOSOC consultative status.

Led partnership outreach, opening and carrying conversations with prospective institutional partners, and produced the organization’s documentation, brand and communication material, including consultation and direction on its graphic design and visual identity.

Acted as cultural mediator between the Nairobi team and Canadian, American and European stakeholders, aligning expectations, register and reporting conventions across all three. Delivered capacity building to the team alongside the advisory work.

Methods

How the work is done

  • Logical framework
  • Theory of change
  • Project cycle management
  • M&E indicator design
  • ESG benchmarking
  • Feasibility assessment
  • CapEx and OpEx modeling
  • IRR and payback analysis
  • Investor and donor mapping
  • Investor documentation
  • SDG and policy alignment
  • Cross-cultural mediation
  • Brand and communication material
  • Survey design and analysis
  • Negotiation technique
Background

Training and credentials

2024
Master’s degree, Global Energy Transition and Governance — CIFE, Nice, Berlin and Brussels Thesis on fusion and energy security, benchmarking ITER, Commonwealth Fusion Systems and General Fusion on affordability, acceptability and availability, including field research at ITER.
2017
Master’s degree, Cultural Studies and Linguistics — Ibn Tofail University, Kénitra Major in culture: representation, discourse analysis, and how meaning and register travel between cultural contexts.
2014
Bachelor’s degree, English Studies — Mohammed I University, Oujda
2019
CELTA, Cambridge English Level 5 Certificate in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages
2022
MEM Summer Summit — Università della Svizzera italiana, Lugano Competitive selection to a Middle East Mediterranean programme on intercultural dialogue, geopolitics, energy transition and climate, under the patronage of the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs.
Registered
Individual consultant, United Nations Global Marketplace and the UNDP supplier portal
Languages
Arabic, native · English, full professional proficiency (C2) · French, B1 and progressing · Tamazight
Contact

Tell me about the project

The most useful first message says what the project is, where it sits, and who you need to convince. Engagements usually begin with a short scoping conversation, then run either as a defined-scope project or a monthly retainer. I reply in English, French or Arabic.

karram.isam@gmail.com

Based in the Paris region · Remote engagements worldwide · Available to travel