Highlights

Alex Hakuzimana

Senior Consulting Partner, BlueCloud Healthcare – Rwanda

Alex Hakuzimana is a partner of BlueCloud Healthcare. He is a leading international expert in health policy and financing and a freelance consultant.
He has 13 years of progressive experience in health policy and system research, in providing technical assistance and advisory services on health systems strengthening and health sector reforms to low and middle-income countries and management of interventional health programs.
Since 2005, Dr. Alex has undertaken various consulting roles in the areas of program reviews, public health project design, implementation support and expert technical advice with several public and private organizations including the World Bank Group, the World Health Organization, GIZ, IntraHealth International Inc, Management Sciences for Health, Orasure Technologies, Internet.org, Clinton Health Access Initiative, EGPAF, HERA and Cordaid.
Dr Alex holds a medical degree from University of Rwanda, an MPH with specialization in health policy from the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp in Belgium and an MBA from Swiss Management Center University in Switzerland.

Anna Jailos

Project Accountant, Kimolo Super rice - Tanzania

Ban Ki-moon

Former UN Secretary General

Ban Ki-moon is a South Korean diplomat who was the eighth Secretary-General of the United Nations from January 2007 to December 2016. Before becoming Secretary-General, Ban was a career diplomat in South Korea's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and in the United Nations. He entered diplomatic service the year he graduated from university, accepting his first post in New Delhi, India.
Ban was the foreign minister of South Korea from January 2004 to November 2006. In February 2006 he began to campaign for the office of Secretary-General.

Ban was initially considered to be a long shot for the office. As foreign minister of South Korea, however, he was able to travel to all the countries on the United Nations Security Council, a maneuver that turned him into the campaign's front runner.

On 13 October 2006, he was elected to be the eighth Secretary-General by the United Nations General Assembly. On 1 January 2007, he succeeded Kofi Annan. As Secretary-General, he was responsible for several major reforms on peacekeeping and UN employment practices. Diplomatically, Ban has taken particularly strong views on global warming, pressing the issue repeatedly with U.S. President George W. Bush, and on the Darfur conflict, where he helped persuade Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir to allow peacekeeping troops to enter Sudan.[3][4]

Ban was named the world's 32nd most powerful person by the Forbes list of The World's Most Powerful People in 2013, the highest among South Koreans. In 2014, he was named the third most powerful South Korean after Lee Kun-hee and Lee Jae-yong.In 2016, Foreign Policy named Ban one of the Top 100 Global Thinkers for his achievement of making the Paris Agreement a legally binding treaty less than a year after it was adopted.

António Guterres was appointed by the General Assembly on 13 October 2016 to be the successor of Ban Ki-moon as he stepped down on 31 December 2016. He was widely considered to be a potential candidate for the 2017 South Korean presidential election,before announcing, on February 1, that he would not be running

Biju Mohandas

Head - Health and Education IFC, Sub Saharan Africa - Kenya

Christian Mwijage

Managing Director, Eco Act - Tanzania

Dorothy Akinyi Onyango

Managing Director, R n G Company limited - Kenya

Evelyn Gitonga

Director Medical Credit Fund East Africa - Medical Credit Fund - Kenya

Evelyn is a career banker with over 13 years banking and finance experience. She joined PharmAccess in October 2013 under Medical Credit Fund which was set up in 2009 as a means of bridging the gap between African Private Health Care Providers and Financial Institutions by leveraging on the perceived credit risk involved in lending to the health sector. She has a vast experience in Banking, Portfolio Management, Micro finance, Retail/SME lending, Corporate Finance, Loan restructuring and Credit Risk Analysis.

Francois Ameguide

Partner Head of Africa Office, GreenTec - South Africa

GreenTec Capital is a venture capital firm with a unique offering: We partner with owners of promising start-ups and small enterprises with sustainable business models, and we provide them with value-adding support ranging from financing, social impact assessment, strategic & operational interventions to business intelligence.

Our model is a long-term partnership that is designed to assist these enterprises to evolve from an early development stage to a growth stage while helping them become world-class businesses.

Idit Miller

VP & Managing Director, EMRC - Belgium

Idit Miller is the heartbeat of EMRC. She was among the first of EMRC's founding members to recognise the importance of international business networking. Idit dedicates her knowledge and experience to the organising of international business events, meetings and conferences - from the conception, planning, and marketing strategy through to execution and successful completion of each top-level project.

Jamal Isa

Investment Officer,Private Equity Funds - International Finance Corporation (IFC) – Kenya

John Kabutha

Programme Coordinator - PROFIT - Kenya

Mr. Kabutha is a Certified Service Provider under the Microsave Senior Service Provider’s Programme. He holds a Master’s Degree in economics from York University, Canada and a Bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Nairobi. He has attended several courses in the design and delivery of financial services and products, BDS, SME development, trade policy development and private sector development. He has worked with Government as an economist, with NGOs, donors and the private sector. He currently is the Programme Coordinator of PROFIT.
He has undertaken professional assignments in most countries of Eastern and Central Africa with particular focus on economic empowerment of marginalized population groups.

Kanini Mutooni

Director for Investment - The East Africa Trade and Investment Hub - Kenya

Kanini Mutooni, is a UK Chartered accountant and has worked at Director and board level positions at Merrill Lynch Bank of America, KPMG, Ernst and Young and Kleinwort Benson Bank over the past 15 years in Wealth Management and Investment Banking across 3 continents. Her core experience covers senior level positions in Internal and External Audit, accounting and governance in the UK and US.

She is currently the Director for Investment at The East Africa Trade and Investment Hub in Nairobi, an 8 country initiative created to increase and attract patient capital investments into the East African region.

Luis Franceschi

Dean, Starthmore University Law - Kenya

Luis Franceschi holds an LL.B, LL.M and LL.D with a Cum Laude thesis on The African Human Rights Judicial System: A Proposal for Streamlining Structures and Domestication Mechanisms Viewed from the Foreign Affairs Power Perspective. He is French by descend, Venezuelan by birth and Kenyan by choice, having spent most of his life in Kenya. He is the founding dean of Strathmore Law School, where he also lectures Constitutional and International Law.
He has published more than a dozen peer-reviewed books and articles on law and ethics. His latest publications are: The African Human Rights Judicial System, published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing in February 2014, and The Constitution of Kenya 2010: A Commentary, a 900-page commentary on the Constitution of Kenya, co-authored with Prof PLO Lumumba and published in July 2014. He has also taught leadership executive courses in more than 15 countries. He has also been an adjunct faculty member at Strathmore Business School since its foundation.
He is member of several boards, Chairman of the Board of the Ethics Institute of East Africa, Chairman of the Scientific Committee of the Annual Ethics Conferences since 2004, and Chairman of A.L.L. Foundation. He is also a Member of the Board of Governors of the International Association of Law Schools (IALS) based at Cornell Law School, NY, a Member of the Board of Sosian Energy, a Member of the Advisory Council of the International Justice Commission (The Hague) and a Member of the Board of Transparency International.

Mehnaz Safavian

Lead Financial Sector Specialist - World Bank - Kenya

Mehnaz Safavian is a Lead Financial Sector Specialist in the Finance and Markets Global Practice at the World Bank.
She is based in Nairobi, and currently coordinates the World Bank’s financial sector program for Eritrea, Kenya, Rwanda, and Uganda. Mehnaz has worked extensively on financial inclusion issues, including micro and SME finance, gender, creditors' rights, informality, and responsible finance. Mehnaz holds a PhD in economics from The Ohio State University and has published extensively in World Bank and scholarly journals. Before joining the World Bank, Mehnaz held positions in the U.S. government, Development NGOs, and academia.

Mohamed Sidibe

National Coordinateur - Cadre Intégré Renforcé - Mali

Ndubuisi Ekekwe

CEO, First Atlantic Semiconductors & Microelectronics - Nigeria

Paul Maasdorp

Managing Director - Emerging Capital Partners - Kenya

As a Managing Director of Emerging Capital Partners (ECP), Paul is responsible for deal sourcing, investment appraisal, transaction execution, and portfolio monitoring. Paul is based in Nairobi and serves on the boards of Java House (East Africa), IHS Holdings (Pan Africa), Maarifa Education (East and Southern Africa) and Remitix Holdings (Pan Africa).
Prior to joining ECP in 2010, Paul worked with Berkshire Partners LLC, a Boston-based private equity firm with aggregate capital commitments of over $11 billion. At Berkshire, he worked on investments in various sectors including consumer/retail, business services, and transportation throughout the US and Europe. Paul began his career with Bain & Company working in their private equity and general consulting practices.
Mr. Maasdorp holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BA in economics from Harvard College. He is a citizen of Zimbabwe.

Pierre Van Hedel

Managing Director, Rabobank Foundation - The Netherlands

Pierre van Hedel has been working for the Rabobank Group for almost 30 years. Since 2008 Mr van Hedel has been the Manager of Social Funds and Manager of the Rabobank Foundation, which operates in 25 countries. He started his career in the Education Department and headed Rabobank’s Consultancy/Project Management department and the International Marketing and Product Development department. Before being appointed as the Manager of the Rabobank Foundation, Mr van Hedel was working as a coordinating business manager for Poland.

Rabobank Group is an international financial services provider operating on the basis of cooperative principles. Its operations include retail banking, wholesale banking, asset management, leasing and real estate. The Rabobank Foundation is committed to improving the lives of underprivileged and disadvantaged groups of people in society by providing them with the opportunity to live full and independent lives.

Tali Miller Levin

Impact Projects Developer, Integral Group - Tanzania

Tali promotes and manages impact projects in Africa in the fields of water, agriculture, energy and telecom. Tali works in partnership with project companies, solution providers and technology enablers to implement sustainable projects in Africa. For example, Tali promotes water treatment solutions of potable water with water utilities in East and Central Africa.

Prior to her current position, Tali worked for 7 years at Miya, a non-revenue-water (NRW) reduction leader. At Miya, Tali led the Mergers & Acquisitions and Economic Departments and subsequently, over the last 3 years, she held the position of Regional Director for Africa.
Before joining Miya, Tali held different positions in the hi-tech and telecom industries. Tali served as Director of Partnerships at Sandisk (a US based leading vendor of flash memory) and prior to that, as Associate Vice President of M&A at msystems, which was later acquired by Sandisk. During 2001-2004, Tali held a business development role at ECI Telecom.

Tali holds a B

Titus Karanja

CEO and Managing Director - Sidian Bank - Kenya

Mr. Karanja has been the Chief Executive Officer of Sidian Bank (formerly K-Rep Bank) since July 2015.
He possesses over 15 years’ experience in diverse financial services covering banking, corporate advisory services, investment management and stock broking.
Mr. Karanja holds a Bachelor of Commerce (Finance) degree from the University of Nairobi. He is a qualified chartered accountant of the Association of Chartered Accountants (ACCA) and holds a Diploma in Computer Science (IDPM) among other professional qualifications.
He is a member of Business Conduct Committee of the Central Depository & Settlement Corporation (CDSC) and a Board Member at Children of God Relief Institute-Nyumbani Children’s Home.

Yvette Ingabire

Manager East & Southern Africa, ESPartners - Ivory Coast

Yvette Ingabire joined ESPartners as an Associate and brings to ESPartners a rich experience working on competitiveness and private sector development in Rwanda. Yvette is passionate about the socio – economic development of the poor in our society and in programs and policies that bridge the gap between the rich and poor. Prior to joining ESPartners, Yvette worked with Ntare Insights and OTF Group all strategy and competitiveness consulting firms focused on emerging markets. Yvette successfully worked with tourism industry leaders and stakeholders to drive the competitiveness of Rwanda’s tourism industry.

Yvette was also instrumental in the facilitation of the Academy of Leadership in Competitiveness and Prosperity (ALCP) initiative, a Rwanda-based program for young leaders with more than two hundred and fifty graduates. Yvette has also been engaged in different market research projects including one aimed at articulating a strategy and action plan for Rwandan exporters wishing to penetrate the Southern Sudan market. Yvette also volunteers with the Rwanda National Youth Council in different youth empowerment initiatives. Yvette earned a Masters in Public Policy from the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy (LKYSPP) in the National University of Singapore. At LKYSPP, Yvette concentrated on Public Management and Governance. She also earned a Bsc in International Business Administration from the United States International University – Africa.