Deborah Nyasha Peters

Founder

African Women's Fund, Zimbabwe

Biography

Deborah Nyasha Peters is a fund manager and consultant with extensive experience in private equity funds, investments, infrastructure, power projects, real estate and healthcare in Africa. She has set up various off-shore funds in Mauritius, a real estate fund in Nigeria and is currently consulting to banks, multinationals and insurance companies in Zimbabwe as well as advising start-ups and entrepreneurs. She left Zimbabwe to study in the US in 1998 and remained in the Diaspora working in investments until she moved back home to Harare in December 2013. She was previously the fund manager for the AiQ Hospitality and Real Estate Fund in Lagos Nigeria. She moved to Nigeria is December 2011 from South Africa where she worked in project funding for Eskom the giant power utility in South Africa. She had relocated to Johannesburg from New York in 2008 as part of Eskom’s international recruiting drive where she worked on the financing of large infrastructure projects including the $2.5 billion African Development Bank and $3.5 billion World Bank loans for the power stations. She worked closely with various development finance institutions and built up network of contacts financing pan-African projects. She previously spent 8 years on Wall Street in various senior investment roles including managing a multi-billion investment fund for Depository Trust and Clearing Company and managing hedge funds with companies such as JP Morgan and Globeop. While in New York Deborah was an active member of the Diaspora African community; she was a committee member of the Angel Africa Network and she wrote a weekly column for the ‘African Sun Times’ newspaper. She had spent 10 years studying and working in the US before moving to South Africa in 2008.

Deborah started off as an entrepreneur in the pharmacy industry in Harare and she is a seasoned real estate investor. She holds an MBA from Pepperdine University, an MSc from King’s College, University of London and a BSc from the University of Zimbabwe. She is a passionate advocate for bringing investment into Africa through her strong international network. She is currently managing a portfolio of property investments and an event management consultancy in Zimbabwe. She is also very active in technology, social media and is a popular public speaker. She has spoken at Global Entrepreneurship Week, TEDx Harare, Hotel Investment Conference Africa, SuperReturn Africa and Africa America Institute. She also mentors start-ups, small businesses and entrepreneurs in Africa. She is a seasoned networker with a wide global network, an experienced business event manager, a popular speaker, author of ‘A Modern African Nomad’, a talented brand manager and international marketing expert. Deborah ran for local government in Harare as an independent in the 2018 Zimbabwe harmonised elections. She is the founder of the African Women’s Fund to finance projects for the economic empowerment of women in Southern Africa, which finances low-cost housing, clinics, markets and recycling projects.