Speakers

Speaker Biography's (Please note the speaker list is constantly being updated as we confirm their attendance)

Mr Jamie Simmonds Access Bank

Mr Jamie Simmonds, is The Chief Executive Officer/Managing Director of Access Bank, an experienced Chief Executive Officer in the financial services industry, with an extensive background predominantly in retail and corporate banking, and more recently in wealth management. His 31 years in the industry have been with NatWest, Coutts, Royal Bank of Scotland, Gerrards, and Close Brothers. He spent over 15 years in major operations departments, together with running significant financial services businesses on an end-to-end basis. He is an Associate member of the Chartered Institute of Bankers, a Certified Financial adviser, and an alumnus of Harvard Business School. Mr Simmons will give a speech on the "Investment and Micro-finance in Africa"

Caroline Marsh Property Investor, Entrepreneur & ITV Secret Millionaire

Caroline Marsh is one of Britain’s leading female property investors and an inspiration to thousands. Born and educated in Lusaka, Zambia. In Autumn 2008 Caroline was catapulted into the media limelight, when she was featured on prime-time Channel 4 television as a philanthropic ‘Secret Millionaire’.Her own journey towards financial freedom was kick-started by Steve Bolton, a multi-millionaire property investor and serial entrepreneur. Within six months, Caroline was given a privileged invitation to join Platinum Property Partners, an exclusive Franchise community of successful property investors, entrepreneurs and some of the best professional advisors in the UK. Since joining the franchise, Caroline’s success has grown exponentially. For more information, visit http://www.carolinemarsh.com/

Dr Jonathan Lawley Business Council for Africa

Dr Jonathan Lawley, Southern Africa Consultant for the Business Council for Africa, a management consultant with unique experience and success in developing effective indigenous African technical management potential. Dr Jonathan Lawley was educated in India, UK, Rhodesia and South Africa. After Cambridge he joined the British Colonial Service in Northern Rhodesia in 1960. Following independence he stayed on for 5 years in Zambia. After early retirement he became Training Manager for a mining project in the DRC before taking up a consultancy contract in Mauritius. In 1980 he helped supervise the Zimbabwe independence elections. Later he joined Rio Tinto to run a unique programme to develop indigenous technical managers for the mining industry as a whole in southern Africa. The experience led to his PhD thesis “Transcending Culture : Developing Africa’s Technical Managers”. In 2000 he became the first Director of the Royal African Society before helping to set up the Business Council for Africa. In 2010 his book “Beyond the Malachite Hills : A Life of Colonial Service and Business in the New Africa”, was published.

Gibril Faal GK Partners & AFFORD

Gibril Faal is a multidisciplinary practitioner with an eclectic professional background. He has led projects and written papers on a wide range of political economy, business management and international development themes. He has been a management consultant, business adviser and University lecturer for over 15 years working on private, public and charitable sector development. In the past 5 years, whilst on a Department of Trade and Industry (DTI)-funded project, he was one of the pioneers of social enterprise business support delivery in the UK. He is a Director at GK Partners, a UK-based consultancy specialising on: multiple bottom line business planning & development; corporate responsibility & governance; and implementing social enterprise & ethical business models. In June 2006, he was appointed to undertake the independent impact evaluation of University of Oxford's Centre for Migration, Policy and Society (COMPAS). He is the founder of RemitAid - the programme for "Remittance Tax Relief for International Development." He is also the Chairman of the African Foundation for Development (AFFORD), a UK-based charity which works to extend and enhance the role Diasporas play in African development.

Dr Ahmad Al-shahi Oxford University

Ahmed Al-Shahi, MA, MLitt, DPhil (Oxon), has been a Senior Associate Member of St Antony's College since 1996. His specialisation is Social Anthropology with specific references to Sudan and the Middle East. His fields of interest are economic development, social differentiation, sectarian politics, oral traditions and immigrants. Dr Al-Shahi was a University Lecturer in Social Anthropology at the University of Khartoum from 1965-70 taught at the Institute of Social Anthropology and the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, between 1970-75. He was a Lecturer at the University of Newcastle from 1975-1996. Dr Al-Shahi has published widely on Sudan, the Middle East, Islam and the Gulf Shaikhdoms. Among his publications (as author, editor and co-editor): The Arab World and North Africa (Verona, 1973), Wisdom from the Nile (Oxford, 1978),Islam in the Modern World (Croom Helm, 1983), Themes from Northern Sudan(Ithaca, 1986), The Diversity of the Muslim Community: anthropological Essays in Memory of Peter Lienhardt (Ithaca, 1987), Disorientation, Society in a Flux: Kuwait in the 1950s (Ithaca, 1992) and Shaikhdoms of Eastern Arabia (Palgrave for St Antony's College, 2001). He will be giving a speech on the "Potentialities for future development, investment and leadership challenges in Sudan"

Sebastian Spio-Garbrah (to be confirmed) DAMina Advisors LLP

Sebastian Spio-Garbrah is the founder of DaMina Advisors LLP, a political risk consultancy firm headquartered in New York. Sebastian Spio-Garbrah was previously the West Africa/Gulf of Guinea analyst in Eurasia Group's Middle East & Africa practice. He covered the politics of African capital markets, ethnic conflicts, economic reforms, and the energy and mineral markets. In 2006, Sebastian was among the "Top 30 under 30 Analysts," according to Institutional Investor magazine. Sebastian hails from West Africa, and he lived in the region for almost two decades. He is fluent in several local languages. He also has a working knowledge of French. He holds a double bachelor's degree in political science and economics from Middlebury College in Vermont, and a juris doctor (JD) degree in law from Rutgers University in New Jersey.Prior to joining Eurasia Group, Sebastian was a senior associate in the Fixed Income Capital Markets Group at Thomson Financial in New York, where he led the energy practice. Sebastian has also conducted research on West Africa for Middlebury College's Felix Rohatyn Institute for International Affairs. He interned on the US Senate Sub-committee on Foreign Appropriations and the Judiciary Committee for Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy.

Christian Busch London School of Economics (LSE)

Christian is currently a lecture of entrepreneurship at London School of Economics. He studied management and politics in Mexico City, Moscow, Furtwangen, and London, resulting in a B.A. in Politics, a BSc. in Management, and a MSc. in Management and Governance (LSE). He enjoyed working in a variety of jobs, from consulting companies in Mexico (at the Chamber of Commerce) and Germany (IB Consulting) to representing the Saxon Prime Minister. At the London School of Economics (LSE) he served as president of the Corporate Social Responsibility Society, co-founded the PhD Steering Committee, and currently acts as PhD-representative for the Management Department. Christian is co-founder of Sandbox AG (www.sandbox-network.com), an organization bringing together the most promising change-makers below 30, and leveraging their creative capacity to solve the most challenging problems of large organizations and governments. Connected to this, Christian has conducted social media- and talent management- consulting for various major multinational companies. Aligned with his professional background, his academic interests lie in the area of entrepreneurship, social entrepreneurship, social networks, and (business model) innovation at the base of the pyramid. He is happy to work with a brilliant team at LSE’s innovation and co-creation lab, while being supervised by Professor Harry Barkema. Christian serves on several committees and boards, and has been scholarship recipient of various organizations such as the Konrad-Adenauer-Foundation. He enjoys speaking at both academic and practitioner conferences, most recently at the CWC Director’s Conference on Future Talent.

Dr Nicolas Sireau Solar Aid

Dr Nicolas Sireau was founding Executive Director of SolarAid, an award-winning non-profit organisation that promotes the use of solar power in developing countries, and is now Senior Advisor for the organisation. SolarAid launched and runs Sunny Money, a programme that identifies, recruits, trains and manages a growing network of solar entrepreneurs in East and southern Africa. Nicolas started his career as a financial journalist before moving to mainline church charity CWM, then as Director of Communications for international development agency Progressio. Nicolas is a fellow of the Ashoka Network of Social Entrepreneurs. He has a PhD in social psychology from City University, London. He is the author of Make Poverty History: Political Communication in Action (Palgrave Macmillan 2008) and a contributor to The Mediation of Power: A Critical Introduction (Routledge 2007). He now devotes the majority of his time to running the AKU Society, a medical charity set up to find a cure for AKU (short for Alkaptonuria), a rare disease affecting his children. He is also a former director of bio-informatics company GenSeq.

Afua Osei Judge Business School, University of Cambridge

Afua Osei has spent over 12 years working at the interface of the private sector and universities in external relations, academic spin out companies and knowledge transfer. Prior to her current role as Client Director for Cambridge Executive Education, she worked at Oxford University’s Said Business School for 5 years as Head of Programmes within the Oxford Centre for Entrepreneurship and Innovation where she led the delivery of a portfolio of practical programmes spanning lecture courses, seminars, events, networks and venture creation initiatives such as Silicon Valley Comes to Oxford. This included programme research, design and marketing in partnership or consultation with academic faculty members and business practitioners. Providing entrepreneurship training and mentoring were central elements of her role, notably she co-delivered a multi-country (EU Framework 6 funded) course dedicated to research management training for PhD research students in the biosciences and Oxford’s 2009/2010 MBA Entrepreneurship Projects core course. From an external relations perspective, Afua led the Centre’s corporate relations and sponsorship campaigns and has been quoted in The Times, The Financial Times and the New Scientist.

Originally, Afua read Biochemistry at Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine. Following 12 months at [national newspaper] The Independent, she completed a Masters in the Management of Intellectual Property and an internship at the Office for Technology & Trademark licensing, Harvard University. Subsequently she spent 4 and a half years as a Contracts and Intellectual Property Manager at Royal Holloway, University of London negotiating confidentiality, licensing, media, consultancy, industrially sponsored research and service agreements alongside the intellectual property elements of large scale EU Research Consortium Agreements of 1 – 2 Million Euros. Her activities in technology transfer include patent management and facilitating the development of academic proposals into business plans for presentation to a variety of funding sources, including a multi-million ‘University Challenge’ fund managed by Cambridge-based fund managers. She helped lay the foundations for the launch of a number of hi-tech university spin out companies.

William So China Unicom operations Ltd and Powerhouse Ltd

Mr. William So is the Chief Advisor to China Unicom (Europe) Operations Limited, a fully owned subsidiary of China Unicom, one of the largest full service telecom operators in China. Mr. So was born in Hong Kong, and subsequently educated both in Hong Kong and the UK. Having obtained an honors degree in Computing Science from Imperial College London in 1981, he joined IBM and embarked on his professional career. He held various management positions with IBM China and IBM Hong Kong until 1993 before moving on to become the Managing Director, and equity partner, of a subsidiary of Legend Computers (now Lenovo) based in Austria. There, he was in charge of both the Eastern and Central European markets until 1996. From 1996, Mr. So continued his career in Beijing, helping Western companies develop joint ventures in China. Combining his exceptional management expertise and international experience, Mr. So established a Sino-US joint venture, a European Wholly Owned Foreign Enterprise (WOFE), and a Foreign-Foreign Joint Venture in China within a 4-year period. In addition, he managed these joint ventures as the General Manager, engaging in satellite communications and telecom equipment manufacturing in China. Mr. So commenced his career with China Netcom Group, a Chinese State-Owned Enterprise, in 2000 as the Head of International Operations. He developed the group’s international business from scratch and established several overseas branches for the group. The company later merged with part of China Telecom, and later with China Unicom, thereby becoming one of the largest full telecom service providers in China. Mr. So held strategic management positions at the company headquarters in Beijing until 2007, when he was transferred to Hong Kong as the CEO for Asian and Middle East operations. In 2008, Mr. So came to London to oversee the group’s operations in both Europe and Africa. He is leaving China Unicom (Europe) Operations Limited this summer but continues as Chief Advisor to the company. Moreover, as an entrepreneur, Mr. So co-founded a company which introduced the use of internet technology to transmit fax and voice in China in the late ‘90s. He is a renowned expert both in the telecom industry and in Chinese government policies, as well as a frequent speaker at industry conferences and trade organizations. Mr So will be giving a talk on " The role of ICT to enhance economic growth and emerging market Telcom"

Mariéme Jamme Co-Founder, Africa Gathering

Born in Senegal, Mariéme Jamme is a London based CEO, blogger, technologist and social entrepreneur with a passionate commitment to helping empower her fellow Africans through education, leadership, social entrepreneurship and economic development. Philanthropist and currently the CEO of SpotOne Global Solutions, a UK based company that helps IT organizations (Editors and Software Vendors) gain a foothold in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia. She recently founded iConscience a think tank uniting business experts and like-minded individuals in a friendly atmosphere to brainstorm ethical scenarios for sustainable business, social, technological and environmental development in Africa. Mariéme is also an international speaker, and co-founder of Africa Gathering, the first global platform bringing together entrepreneurs and others to share ideas about development in Africa. She has forged a worldwide reputation as a tireless advocate for education, good governance and health on the African continent.

Zain Latif TLG Capital

Zain Latif is the principal of TLG Capital, a firm that focuses on frontier markets. Mr. Latif was an Executive Director at Goldman Sachs in the New Markets division focusing on Sub-Saharan Africa across all products. Zain joined Goldman Sachs from Merrill Lynch where he was involved in originating and executing a number of groundbreaking emerging market transactions in Africa. Prior to that Zain spear-headed the special situations African effort at HSBC which culminated in the inaugural debt/equity hybrid structure for a leading Nigerian financial institution that was widely reported. Zain has a Masters degree in Finance achieved at the age of 19 from Cass Business School, City University. “

Yemisi Mokuolu Hatch Events

Yemisi Mokuolu, award-winning entrepreneur and dynamic young MD of one of the capital's fastest growing event management companies

Samantha Callender Business Council for Africa West & Southern

Samantha is the Business Co-ordinator at Business Council for Africa West and Southern, where her responsibilities include engaging and assisting member companies who aspire to or presently invest in West & Southern Africa. She assists members to make the right professional connections, close liaison with FCO, DFID and investment promotion centres in West & Southern Africa and contributing to BCA authoritative monthly country report. Works with all levels of private sector companies, UK & African Government officials, High Commissioners, Ambassadors and other stakeholders alongside a small and motivated team at the BCA to build up a skill and network base that spans economics, politics and investment to facilitate our member organisations transact business successfully and sustainably in African countries.She is further responsible for recruiting Africa focussed business and contacts to the BCA, arranging roundtable meetings with high profile speakers and coordinating the growth of the BCA’s China operations. Samantha specialises in China Africa Trade & Investment and a member of China Africa Business Council. Her Career experience extend back, where she worked as a researcher at the China Africa Business Council Beijing, financial valuations Associate at PricewaterhouseCoopers (London) and a newsreader & researcher, "Into Africa" Radio Show at BBC Radio Leicester.

John Battersby International Marketing Council of South Africa

John Battersby was appointed UK Country Manager of the International Marketing Council of South Africa in January 2004 following a career in South African and international journalism. He was editor-in-chief of the Sunday Independent in Johannesburg from 1996-2001. He served as the New York Times southern Africa correspondent from 1987-89 and as the Christian Science Monitor’s correspondent in the region from 1989-94. From 1994-96 he was the Monitor’s Middle East correspondent based in Jerusalem.

Dale Fickett Soquent

Dale Fickett, the founder of Soquent, is a social entrepreneur and former Accenture consultant During his tenure with Accenture Dale successfully drove business development. initiatives, client delivery, and the creation of strategic thought leadership in transactions banking. Previously, Dale led a start-up from initiation, raised $500,000 in capital, and directed all elements of the company's operations. Dale used his personal venture expertise to instruct entrepreneurial teams through an innovative program at the Wharton School. Through Soquent, Dale is designing and implementing an new model to support ventures with high potential for financial and social returns. Dale has conducted academic research on the creation of a predictive framework for identifying and evaluating business opportunities based on their propensity for returns along both dimensions. Dale's demonstrated expertise includes investment and business planning, capabilities strategy, organizational strategy, and functional strategy. Finally, Dale brings to bear a record of community involvement over 20 years. M.B.A., B.S.B.A. Currently working on a project to create an insight: Poverty alleviation through entrepreneurship in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Kojo Bonti Bonti Media & Bonti Consulting

kojo is the managing director of Bonti Media and Founder of Bonti Consulting

Mario Konyen Joseph Window Trust International

Mario is the programme officer at Window Trust International. Born in southern Sudan but has lived and studied outside his country all his life. He went to Mahindra United World College in India from 1998 to 2000 where he completed his Diploma/Certificate, International Baccalaureate (IB). He further pursued his career in UK and obtained his first BA Hons Economics with Development Studies at the University of Central Lancashire in 2003 and Masters in Development Economics at the University of East Anglia in 2004.