Amit Bhatia ( www.amitb.in ), an award-winning social entrepreneur, is The Founder of Aspire Impact since 2007, a social enterprise in impact leadership and ecosystem development and Founder of Aspire Circle since 2013, India’s pre-eminent fellowship for social leadership. Formerly, as inaugural CEO of The Global Steering Group for Impact Investment or GSG from 2017-2020, Amit built the 32-country multilateral, catalysing impact investment and entrepreneurship, for social, climate and economic justice. Prior to GSG, Amit was Founding CEO of India’s Impact Investors Council (2014-2017) where he built “Brand India” and grew inbound annual impact investments from USD400mn to USD1.1bn.

Amit was also Founding CEO of WNS Knowledge Services (2003-2007) and Country Manager of FreeMarkets (1999-2003). Most prominently, he was Founder of McKinsey Knowledge Centre (1996-1999). An alumnus of Shri Ram College of Commerce (1989) and Delhi School of Economics (1991), Amit quit a successful corporate career in 2007 to serve the social sector.

Dr. Frank Aswani, is the CEO of Africa Venture Philanthropy Alliance (AVPA), a network of social investors who will collaborate to increase the flow of capital into social investors across Africa and ensure that the capital is deployed for maximum social Impact. He’s Kenyan, living in Johannesburg and holds a Veterinary Medicine degree from the University of Nairobi and an MBA from GIBS (Gordon Institute of Business Studies), University of Pretoria, South Africa. AVPA will be presenting their nee Deal Share Platform designed to connect Social investors to social investment deal flow in Africa. He presents extensive Private and Social sector experience. His previous roles including 14 years with Eli Lilly where he worked in Kenya, England, Switzerland and South Africa. His last role at Lilly was the Sales Director for South Africa and Regional Director for Sub Sahara Africa where he managed over 25 countries in Anglo Phone and Luso-phone Sub Sahara Africa. His other stints included being the VP and Director of Strategic Relations at African Leadership Academy (ALA) in Johannesburg where he led ALA’s corporate partnerships, Business development and Fundraising across Africa, Europe, Middle East and the US, African Regional Director with ARK (Absolute Return for Kids) and time running his own consultancy in Innovation. Frank is a passionate pan-African who believes that Africans should be at the forefront of solving our own problems.

Dr. Okechukwu Enelamah is the Chairman of African Capital Alliance (ACA), a leading independent investment management firm sponsoring funds and managing investments across a variety of sectors in Sub-Saharan Africa.Dr. Enelamah served as the Federal Minister of Industry, Trade, and Investment in Nigeria from November 2015 – May 2019. Prior to his appointment to government, Mr. Enelamah worked as the CEO of ACA. Dr. Enelamah’s previous private equity experience was gained from Zephyr Management L.P. and Capital Zephyr Limited in New York and Johannesburg. Prior to his career in private equity, Mr. Enelamah worked for Arthur Andersen in Nigeria and London, and Goldman Sachs in New York and London. After first qualifying as a medical doctor, Dr. Enelamah transitioned to a business career and qualified as a chartered accountant in Nigeria. He holds an MBA from the Harvard Business School and is a Chartered Financial Analyst.

Eddie Mensah grew up in Ghana, a couple of hours away from the Right to Dream campus where he is now the Managing Director. At 16 he won a national scholarship to attend Pearson College in Canada, one of a number of international United World Colleges.He earned an international baccalaureate diploma there before moving to the United States for university. With a Bachelor’s in Economics from Franklin and Marshall College in Pennsylvania, he worked first as a teacher and then for 13 years as a director for an educational Non-profit. He then worked as head of middle school before transitioning to Head of School in Charlotte, North Carolina. He is currently in his first year as Managing Director at Right To Dream. He has a master’s degree in Educational Leadership from the University of Pennsylvania. He’s also completing studies for a Certificate of Management and Leadership from Harvard Business School. Eddie has been committed to social equity and justice throughout his career.

Eyitope is an Architect and a leading real estate investment manager. He is the managing partner of Bver group, a company focused on providing affordable housing and financial services for the masses in Nigeria. He studied Architecture at Ryerson University, Canada (B. Arch), the Academy of Art University San Francisco (M. Arch) and Real Estate Investment and Construction Administration at the Ontario Real Estate College of Canada and Gorge Brown College of Canada. He also worked in the burgeoning real estate scene in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) sparking his unwavering interest in community development through real estate investments and housing affordability.

Armed with both the education and experience, the BVER Group company was born with long term plans of tackling the precarious social inequality and housing deficit problems in Nigeria for all Nigerians, the BVER Initiative is currently engaged in:Providing affordable student and urban housing for university students across Nigeria for less than a dollar a day with over 3000 completed units.Helping people create and preserve wealth in real estate with affordable capital commitments through BREICS.com which offers fractional ownership and subscriptions in Nigerian & Canadian real estate markets.Making life better for every Nigerian by providing trade credits, micro loans & thrift savings for basic essential goods & services. Eyitope is a member of the Real Estate Council of Ontario Canada, The Royal Architectural Institute of Canada, Architects registration council of Nigeria, Nigerian institute of Architects,and an ambassador of the Stanford institute for innovation in developing economies.

Hamdiya has over 20 years’ experience in Finance and Investments and over 13 years’ experience in Venture Capital and Private Equity investing. She has supported the Venture Capital and Private Equity ecosystem development through education and influencing policy and regulatory outcomes for the industry in Ghana.

She is currently the General Manager of Venture Capital Trust Fund (VCTF), where she oversees the Investments and general operations of the Trust.  She reviews fund proposals, conducts due diligence and presents investment recommendations to the Trustees of the Fund.  She also manages the Venture Capital Trust Fund Technical Assistance Facility, which is designed to support Fund Managers and build the capacity of investee companies.

Prior to joining VCTF, she was a Deputy Director at the Ministry for Private Sector Development, where she led in the provision of Business Advisory Services, financing arrangements, enterprise support services, skills development, entrepreneurship training, and promotional workshops for MSMEs.

She is an Angel Investor and was instrumental in the design of the Ghana Angel Investor Network (GAIN). She is also a Director of the Ghana Angel Fund and a Founder of the Lady Angel Network – which invests in women owned/led businesses. She chaired the Ghana Taskforce which successfully led to the establishment of a National Advisory Board (NAB) for Impact Investing Ghana (IIGH). Ghana, through IIGH is now a member of the Global Steering Group (GSG) for impact investing. She has been at the forefront of impact investing over the last 8 years, establishing the GIMPA Centre for Impact Investing and working closely with the team and other stakeholders in promoting impact investing in the country.

Ms. Ismaila currently serves as a Trustee of the Global Steering Group for Impact Investing. She is also a Council Member for the Ghana Alternative Exchange (a second tier listing platform for SMEs on the Ghana Stock Exchange) and a member of the Governing Council of the Star Ghana Foundation.Ms. Ismaila Holds an Executive Certificate in Private Equity and Venture Capital from Harvard Business School, a Master of Public Administration from Columbia University in the City of New York, BBA (Sum Cum Laude) from Monroe College and an LLB degree from the GIMPA Law School. She is a Fellow of the 2019 Class of the Aspen Finance Leaders Fellowship and a Member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network.

Jide J. Zeitlin is a former Director (2006 – 2020), Chairman (2014 – 2020) and Chief Executive Officer (2019 – 2020) of Tapestry, Inc., a New York-based house of modern luxury lifestyle brands. The Company’s portfolio includes Coach, Kate Spade, and Stuart Weitzman. Its global operations and approximately 25,000 employees generate in excess of $6 billion and $1 billion in annual revenue and free cash flow, respectively. Tapestry, a New York Stock Exchange listed company, is included in the S&P 500 and the Fortune 500 composites. Mr. Zeitlin spent the first 20 years of his career (1987 – 2006) at The Goldman Sachs Group,Inc., where he held a number of senior management positions including serving as Global Chief Operating Officer of their investment banking businesses. He also served in the firm’s Executive Office. After retiring from Goldman Sachs, Mr. Zeitlin was a private investor overseeing the Keffi Group Ltd (2006 – present), an investment office that has life science and natural resource interests in the Middle East, the United States, and Africa. Mr. Zeitlin is Chairman (2012 – present) of the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority. He is Chairman Emeritus of Amherst College (1994 – present) and formerly served on the boards of a range of institutions, including Teach for America (1994 – 2013), Harvard Business School (2004 – 2016), and the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation (2006 – 2017). Mr. Zeitlin holds an A.B. degree, magna cum laude, in Economics and English and a Ph.D., Doctor of Humane Letters, honoris causa, both from Amherst College and an M.B.A. degree from Harvard University.

Judith Aidoo-Saltus is Chief Executive of Caswell Capital Partners, LLC, (“Caswell”), a financial advisory firm specializing in African capital markets and investments (www.caswellcapital.com), and CEO of its US affiliate Caswell Communications, Inc. (“CasCom”), a private investment company.  Since 2003, Judith has directed nearly $220 million in investment capital through a hedge fund that she co-manages to provide senior and mezzanine debt for small and medium sized companies. Her investment focus includes financial services; real estate, with a particular interest in affordable housing; media, franchises and intellectual property; and, increasingly, agriculture and agro-processing.

Judith, a licensed member of the New York law bar, began her career as an investment banker in 1987 with Goldman, Sachs & Co., where she specialized in structured finance. In 1991, she started her own firm to advise institutions like the World Bank and IFC, and more recently the Global Steering Group for Impact Investing (www.gsgii.org) on raising patient investment capital to help African countries achieve their UN Social Development Goals. Judith has also regularly advised African sovereign governments, including Ghana, Zambia and Uganda, on the development of their local capital markets; as well as pan-regional organizations like the Regional African Satellite Communications Organization based in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire,  and, separately, the Preferential Trade Area Bank for Trade and Development (now TDB Group) based in Nairobi, Kenya on raising hundreds of millions of dollars respectively on the international capital markets. For the latter, Ms. Aidoo-Saltus developed and managed an innovative securitization program that raised $500 million to refinance dollar-denominated trade loans of large exporters in 22 eastern and southern African countries. This deal was historic in its structure and it received the highest possible short-term credit rating from Standard & Poor’s (A1+) and Fitch Investor Service (F1+), a regional first at the time.

Judith Aidoo-Saltus graduated Phi Beta Kappa and with high honors from Rutgers College in 1984 and received a Juris Doctor degree from Harvard Law School in 1987. She is an avid photographer, traveler, reader, and writer (see her latest article on impact investing in culture at https://www.creativityculturecapital.org/field-notes-from-an-african-investor/)

Maryana Iskander has served as Chief Executive Officer of Harambee Youth Employment Accelerator since 2013. She brings a track record of scaling organisations through partnership models, data-driven delivery, talent management and technology innovation. Harambee has partnered with over 500 African businesses in South Africa and Rwanda and provided over 175,000 jobs and work experiences to unemployed youth. In 2019, Maryana led Harambee to receive the prestigious Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship and the Concious Companies Award.

Previously, she served as Chief Operating Officer of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, a US$1 billion organisation that is America’s largest provider of women’s healthcare. Maryana was an associate at global consultancy McKinsey & Company, and a law clerk on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.

She earned a B.A. magna cum laude from Rice University, an M.Sc. from Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar, and a J.D. from Yale Law School, where she received a Distinguished Alumna Award. Maryana is a Henry Crown Fellow and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network. She also serves on the board of World Education Services, a leading institution in the field of education and professional development.

Michael Sudarkasa is the CEO of Africa Business Group (ABG) (www.abghq.com), a South Africa based continentally active, African economic development company.  Founded in 2005, ABG focuses on three key areas: 1) economic and business development consulting, 2) agriculture, tourism and renewable energy projects, and 3) capacity development.  The Group specializes in the areas of private sector development, trade and investment within Africa and between Africa and the global business community.  ABG is a strategic advisor to the African World Heritage Fund, an African Union and UNESCO supported body that supports 145 world heritage sites across Africa. In January 2020, ABG was also appointed to serve as the Country Coordinator – South Africa, Eswatini and Lesotho for the Private Financing Advisory Network (a global network of climate and clean energy financing experts) established by UNIDO and REEEP; and in April 2020 ABG was appointed to serve as the Southern Africa Regional Coordinator of the UNDRR’s private sector network, ARISE. For young agripreneurs, ABG also has designed and manages the Global African Agribusiness Accelerator Platform (www.gaaap.biz).

A U.S. commercial attorney by training, Michael has lived, travelled, and worked in 50 countries around the world (including 35 in Africa), and is the author of several publications, including: The African Union Commission’s Africa Business Directory: Toward the Facilitation of Growth, Partnership and Global Inclusion (African Union, 2014), A Field Guide to Inclusive Business Finance (UNDP 2012) and Investing in Africa: An Insider’s Guide to the Ultimate Emerging Market (John Wiley & Sons, August 2000).  Michael currently serves as the Chair of Impact@Africa, a continentally focused impact investment ecosystem development platform, as the sole sub-Saharan Africa representative on the global board of the UNDRR’s Private Sector Alliance for Disaster Resilient Societies (ARISE), as an Advisory Committee Member of the ASPEN Network SA Gender Equality Initiative Action Lab, as a  member of the University of Michigan Provost’s Advisory Committee, and as Chair of the Advisory Board of the African Studies Center of the University of Michigan. He holds a B.A. degree from the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor (High Honors in History), a J.D. degree from Harvard Law School.

Nick O’ Donohoe joined CDC as its Chief Executive in June 2017 and is also a member of the CDC Board. He was previously a Senior Adviser to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation where he specialised in the use of blended finance models to support the work of the Foundation. Prior to taking this role, Nick co-founded, with Sir Ronald Cohen, Big Society Capital (BSC). He served as its Chief Executive Officer from 2011 to December 2015. BSC is an independent financial institution established by the UK Government as “the world’s first social investment bank” and is capitalised with unclaimed UK bank accounts and investment by the largest UK banks. Previously Nick worked at JP Morgan, latterly as Global Head of Research. He was a member of the Management Committee of the Investment Bank and the Executive Committee of JP Morgan Chase, as well as the senior sponsor for JP Morgan’s Social Finance Unit. Nick co-authored “Impact Investments: An Emerging Asset Class”, published by JP Morgan and the Rockefeller Foundation in November 2010. Prior to JP Morgan, he spent fifteen years at Goldman Sachs. Nick served as Chairman of the UK Dormant Assets Commission which reported in March 2017. He  was also a board member of the Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN) between 2012 and 2019. He is Deputy Chairman of the Global Steering Group (GSG) on Impact Investment and joined the board of European Development Finance Institution (EDFI) in 2020. Nick has an MBA from the Wharton School and a BA in Mathematical Economics and Statistics from Trinity College, Dublin.

Nomsa Daniels is the Director for Business Development at Anibok Investment Research Chambers, based in Johannesburg, South Africa. The company conducts research and finds investment opportunities in Africa for its clients. The principal client has been the African Opportunity Fund LP which is listed in the London stock exchange. AOP has invested in a wide-range of African asset classes, including equity, debt and real-estate and social impact investments in areas such as sustainable forestry, agriculture and education.

Nomsa also has extensive experience in the development sector, having served as CEO of the Graça Machel Trust, where she led a team of programme specialists who drove the Trust’s work in Women’s Economic Advancement, Children’s Rights, Nutrition, and Leadership and Governance in twenty African countries. As CEO she harnessed her experience in advocacy, policy development, research, network building, stakeholder engagement and fundraising to amplify the work of the Trust at national, regional and global levels.

She was also at the forefront of advancing women’s financial inclusion and developing innovative financing vehicles to support women-owned businesses and promote gender-lens investing in her work at GMT and as Executive Director of New Faces New Voices. Through various NFNV programmes, she was instrumental in developing and conducting research projects on women’s financial inclusion in ten African countries as well as managing a network of seventeen chapters, spread across the five regions of the African continent.

Nomsa is a member of the International Advisory Council of APCO Worldwide, the largest women-owned global advisory and advocacy communications firm in the world. She serves on the boards of several investee companies and non-profit boards such as the Sešego Foundation, Roedean School, and the CORBUWAS International Youth Organization to Transform Africa.

She has a Master’s Degree in Geography and Environmental Studies from the City University of New York, Hunter College and a Bachelor’s Degree from the University of Toronto.

Obie McKenzie is an experienced executive with over 45 years of financial service experience. He received an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1972 and an Honorary Doctor of Commercial  Science from the University of Hartford in 2017. He is a founding Board member of both The National Association of Securities Professionals and The Tiogo Foundation and is Chairman Emeritus of MIDA, an initiative to mobilize infrastructure investments in Subsaharan Africa. He is an accomplished public speaker and teacher of Bible Economics and vocalist of Christian music

During his distinguished career, he has held positions of Managing Director at BlackRock, Merrill Lynch Investment Managers, and Chase Investors as well as Executive Director of UBS Asset Management . He was also Senior Vice President of Freedom National Bank where he was the senior credit officer . Mr McKenzie was the Founder and President of McKenzie & Company, an NASD registered broker dealer and of OLM Export Credit. Mr McKenzie has played a major role in raising over $30 billion of limited partnership capital from a variety of institutional sources.He is a recipient of many honors and awards to include: Public Funds Marketer of the Year, The Richard A. Lothrop Award,  The Wall Street Hall of Fame Award and others. Mr McKenzie was recognized in 2011 as being among the 75 Most Influential Black Executives on Wall Street. He currently serves on the following Boards of Directors:

Girls Who Invest, Tennessee State University, Fulbright Canada, Victory Park Capital and Xponance, a Jamaican Woman owned business with $12 billion of assets under management.

Senior Lawyer affiliated with LithurBrew & Company, with a passion for the potential of low cost energy for the transformation of the African continent and the monetization of its huge mineral resources.

Formerly the Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) in its formative period from 1988 to December 2000, perhaps the most intensive period of oil and gas exploration in Ghana, culminating in the discovery of the giant Jubilee field in June 2007. Many international oil companies were attracted to enter joint ventures with GNPC to undertake exploration. GNPC initiated a project which sought to substitute liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) from associated gas for fuelwood for domestic cooking using locally designed cookstoves.

GNPC also developed a focus on the use of natural gas for power generation to complement Ghana’s hydro-based power generation system that was under pressure as water levels in the Volta Lake went through severe fluctuations, no doubt from climate change impacts.

Tsatsu was one of the drivers of the West African Gas Pipeline project (which comprised Chevron as managing sponsor, Shell, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, GNPC, Sobegaz of Benin and Sotogaz of Togo).

Previous to GNPC he lectured in the Faculty of Law, University of Ghana (Legon).  He holds an LLB (First Class Hons) from the University of Ghana and a BCL (First Class Hons) from Oxford University, where he also held a Research Fellowship at Corpus Christi College.

OTHER OIL INDUSTRY ROLES

He advised the Government of Equatorial Guinea on the establishment of its national oil company, GEPETROL. He has also previously advised the Government of Benin as a consultant of the United Nations Centre for Transnational Corporations (UNCTC) on upstream petroleum matters, with particular reference to the Seme field which is the only field that has produced oil in Benin and which had been shut in after only a few years of production.