Speaker Group: Business Leader

Bleejay is an emerging Leader and Entrepreneur with a focus on Africa. He was born in Buchanan, Liberia on January 14, 1989 and grew up in the capital city of Monrovia for most of his early childhood before escaping the country with his family in 1996 during the nation’s civil war. He completed his undergraduate… Read more »

As Managing Director of Lekela Power in Senegal, Massaer is responsible for managing Lekela’s investment projects thru financial close, construction and long-term operation. Additionally, he leads Lekela’s business development activities in the region. Prior to joining Lekela, Massaer was a Director at Deloitte, where he led a team who assisted multinational firms in various sectors,… Read more »

Lord Popat is a Conservative peer at the House of Lords and has been the UK Trade Envoy for Rwanda and Uganda since 2016. He was born in Uganda and arrived in the United Kingdom in 1971, a year before the expulsion of many Indians from Uganda. After practising as an accountant in the late… Read more »

Asha-Sabrina (known as Sabrina) is a qualified lawyer in Mainland Tanzania (Advocate), Zanzibar (Advocate) and England (Solicitor) and a registered Arbitrator (TiArb). Sabrina has considerable experience as a lawyer in private equity and corporate (including mergers and acquisitions), banking and debt finance, petroleum, mining and other regulated industries (including local content laws), infrastructure, construction and… Read more »

Azeez Amida has had a meteoric growth in his 17-year career that spanned across FMCG, healthcare, investment banking,  agriculture, and private equity.  He is currently the deputy managing director at EastCastle Infrastructure, one of West Africa’s key telecom Tower Infrastructure providers. Before his current appointment, Amida had been CEO at IHS Rwanda and, before that,… Read more »

Maelis Carraro is the Director of Catalyst Fund and the Impact Ventures Practice at BFA. She has over 10 years of experience working alongside fintech startups, development finance institutions, microfinance banks and impact investors to pioneer tech and data-enabled solutions that benefit underserved communities in emerging markets. At BFA, she runs Catalyst Fund, a global… Read more »

Ahmed El Saharty is a Vice President and is a member of the beyond BRIC public equity investment team covering Central Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa regions. He is based in New York. Prior to joining TRG in January 2018, Mr. El-Saharty served as an associate at Briarwood Capital Partners, an emerging and frontier… Read more »

With over 18years presence in the formal workspace, Olusegun’s experience in financial services cover commercial and investment banking and insurance. Within the investment banking space, he was part of a number of notable transactions as financial advisers. He acquired consulting exposure as a strategy and business transformation subject matter expert working with leading global firms… Read more »

Toyin Abiodun, is former Strategic Advisor to Hon. Minister of Trade and Industry – Government of Rwanda. Toyin is a proactive development professional with over a decade and a half professional experience backed by a strong commercial acumen and a natural ability to identify and capitalise upon investment opportunities that both harnesses and drives business… Read more »

Esselina Macome – Associate Professor at the Eduardo Mondlane University. She holds a PhD in Information Technologies and MSc in Analysis, Design and Management of Information System by LSE – University of London. She concluded courses in Digital Money, Leading Digital Money Market, Leading for Frontiers, Bitcoin and Block chain, Gender, regulating Fintechs, Humanitarian payment… Read more »