About Momentum

Momentum Energy Advisors is a specialist advisory practice for organizations working on complex, high-stakes energy transition, climate finance, and market development challenges. The practice exists because these situations are structural, and most advisory approaches do not treat them that way.

Julio Retana — Founder, Momentum Energy Advisors

Julio Retana

Founder and Managing Director

MSc Energy & Environment — KTH / IMT Atlantique
BSc Electromechanical Engineering

Julio has over 15 years of experience working at the intersection of energy transition, climate finance, policy, and programme delivery. He has led and advised on initiatives across Southeast Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean, operating in environments where technical complexity, institutional constraints, and coordination challenges are the norm rather than the exception.

His most visible engagement was leading the MENTARI programme in Indonesia. The programme involved policy support, renewable energy project development, blended finance facility design, and rural electrification, all requiring navigation across government, donor, private sector, and community stakeholders simultaneously.

Before Momentum, Julio worked on energy performance contracting, Super ESCO development, energy efficiency market design, and policy reform across multiple regions.

What connects all of this work is a consistent approach: understanding how complex situations actually behave, identifying what is really driving outcomes, and helping design better structures rather than adding more activity around existing ones.

15+ years, 15+ countries Southeast Asia, the Pacific, Latin America, the Caribbean, and the Middle East
Led £15M programme MENTARI — UK-funded energy transition programme, Indonesia
£850M+ investment pipeline supported Renewable energy and climate finance under MENTARI leadership
Clients and partners Core donor experience includes FCDO, ADB, World Bank, and GEF-funded programmes across Southeast Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean, with particular depth in the ASEAN region
Core expertise Energy transition, climate finance, policy reform, ESCO development, programme delivery

Senior expert availability

Momentum provides senior expert capacity on energy transition and climate finance assignments. Julio and the Momentum network are available for selected team leadership, programme design, adaptive management, and senior advisory roles on donor-funded programmes.

Core donor experience includes FCDO, ADB, World Bank, and GEF-funded programmes across Southeast Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean, with particular depth in Indonesia, Malaysia, and the ASEAN region.

For full assignment history, see Julio's LinkedIn profile.

For availability and engagement details, contact info@momentumenergyadvisors.com

How we think about complex situations

Most advisory work in the energy and climate space treats situations as though they are complicated: many parts, but solvable with enough expertise applied in the right order. Some situations are like that.

But the situations Momentum works on are usually complex. They involve multiple actors with different incentives. They have feedback loops, time delays, coordination challenges, and institutional constraints that interact in ways that resist simple responses. Donor programmes designed to build markets. Investment portfolios that span dozens of partners. Transition initiatives where the policy, finance, and implementation layers do not align.

These situations require a different kind of thinking. Not deeper specialisation, but better synthesis. The ability to see how the layers interact, understand what is actually driving performance, and design responses that work at the system level rather than one piece at a time.

That is what Momentum does.

Dealing with a complex initiative or unclear portfolio?

If you are working on an initiative that is not delivering as expected, a portfolio that lacks visibility, or a transition challenge that needs better structure, let us discuss it. Typical starting points include reviewing a complex initiative, making sense of a fragmented portfolio, or working through a specific decision.

Discuss your situation