Archives: Speakers

Magdi is an Investment Partner with Omidyar Network (ON) in Washington, DC, where he focuses on global strategy and early-stage investment in Digital Identity. ON’s vision is for a world in which everyone has access to Good Identity that empowers and protects individuals’ rights to privacy, security, and control in the digital world. Before joining… Read more »

Will is an experienced Operations Executive with a track record of successfully leading large international teams through turnaround situations. Prior to co-founding Orbitt, Will worked at Shell Plc for 15 years where he was responsible for managing fleet operations and asset management for a $1bn portfolio. Subsequent to this, Will has been involved as an… Read more »

Neil is an experienced accountant, who has operated in the Mauritian and Dubai business environments for the past 9 years. Prior to that he had extensive London experience in the banking industry as well as having operated throughout a number of different countries within the SADC region of Africa. He has a BCom from the… Read more »

Richard predominantly works with a range of clients across Sub-Saharan Africa and MENA region. He concentrates on the full gamut of private equity activities – including direct investments, advisory groups, fund of funds, secondary’s and placement agents. Richard also works with Infrastructure and Real Estate funds as well as Family Offices and various Microfinance organizations… Read more »

Ralph has had many years of experience in the technology sector and started out working as a programmer and systems analyst. He has been involved with IT companies as a business consultant and director of EMEA. Throughout his career Ralph has been involved in the start-ups, directorship, and management of a number of companies across… Read more »

Fernando Oltra heads the Investor Relations department of MyBucks, S.A., a FinTech group listed in the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and regarded as the leading digital bank in Sub-Saharan Africa. Prior to joining MyBucks in 2016, Fernando worked on different corporate finance and capital raising roles for such entities as Ecobank, Exotix, BPI and Merrill Lynch.

In 2012, Jean-Luc Konan founded the Financial African Company (Compagnie Financière Africaine, COFINA), which became the first African financial institution dedicated to mesofinance. Cofina aims at bridging the missing link between microfinance and traditional banking when it comes to financing SMEs. Holding offices in six countries across West Africa, the group counts more than 125,000… Read more »

As CDC Group’s Financial Institutions sector strategist, Wasim is responsible for developing the investment strategy of their second largest sector by AuM. Geographic scope covers Africa and South Asia; product scope covers Equity, Debt, Guarantees and Funds. Wasim’s topic expertise spans capital markets, asset management, transaction banking, retail banking, consumer finance, payments and insurance. His… Read more »

Jurgen Hammer is the Managing Director of SPTF, the international inclusive finance network and Standard Setting body for social performance management (SPM), in charge of the European office in Luxembourg. From 2008 to 2019, Jurgen was Chief Risk Officer and Head of SPM at Grameen Credit Agricole Foundation (GCAF). Jurgen’s involvement in financial inclusion started… Read more »

Thomas Hougaard is the Vice President for Sub-Saharan Africa, International Fund for Developing Countries (IFU) based in Copenhagen Denmark. IFU invests across agribusiness, renewable energy and financial institutions and currently hold an active portfolio of more than 60 projects across the continent.