Ramatoulaye Adama Diallo is a Senegalese national and an experienced non-executive director and senior financial services and fintech leader, with over 25 years of experience across Africa, Europe, the Middle East, and the United States. She has held CEO, CFO, and COO roles, building and scaling regulated financial services businesses across multiple African markets.
She began her career in mergers and acquisitions at Morgan Stanley in New York and later moved into private equity at Emerging Capital Partners. She went on to serve as Deputy CFO at Etisalat Nigeria, before becoming CEO of Orange Finances Mobiles Senegal, where she led a significant scale-up and expanded financial inclusion. As Director of Digital Financial Services for the Orange Sonatel Group, she drove strong growth in the regional customer base. Most recently, she served as Director and COO for B2B Ads for the French market at Google.
Rama currently serves as a Non-Executive Director of ACE Money Transfer, a global remittance company regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland, where she chairs the Business Continuity and Transition Risk Committee. She is also a board member of myAgro, a digital savings platform supporting smallholder farmers across West Africa, where she chairs the Audit and Risk Committee, and of Wafacash Specialty Finance, a multi-market financial services company focused on financial inclusion across North, West, and Central Africa and part of the Attijariwafa Bank Group, where she serves on the Audit and Risk Committee.
She also serves on the Investment Committees of Aruwa Capital Management and Ventures Platform, both leading investment funds across the continent.
Rama holds an MBA from Harvard Business School, a BSc in Mathematics and Economics (Magna Cum Laude) from Bryn Mawr College, a Diploma in Company Direction (Distinction) from the Institute of Directors (UK & Ireland), and a Diploma in Practitioner and Integral Coaching from Integral The Coaching Center SA. She is fluent in English and French.
Cheikh Oumar Seydi is a development executive with over three decades of experience in investment, advisory, and philanthropic operations across emerging markets, with a deep focus on Africa. He has held senior leadership roles at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the IFC (World Bank Group), and across the private sector.
Born and raised in Senegal, Cheikh began his career at USAID in Dakar before completing an MBA at Harvard Business School. He joined the IFC in 1998, where over 22 years he held a range of field-based and headquarters leadership positions, including Regional Representative for Central Africa, Global Director for Human Resources, and Regional Director for Sub-Saharan Africa, where he managed IFC’s investment and advisory operations across 49 countries in the region.
From 2018 to 2024, he served as Africa Director for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, overseeing a major expansion of the foundation’s grant programmes and physical presence across the continent across all priority areas, including global health, gender equality and economic opportunity. He recently retired from this role.
Cheikh is a highly accomplished relationship builder with strong networks across political leadership, development finance partners, and continental policy bodies. Cheikh brings substantial executive leadership experience, a valuable pan-African network, deep expertise in funding partnerships, and a broad understanding of private sector development and financial institution strengthening. He currently serves on the board of VillageReach, a primary healthcare organisation focused on underserved communities, where he sits on the finance committee. His extensive experience in global health, development finance, and organizational leadership will support VillageReach’s 2030 goal of improving healthcare delivery for 350 million people across 15 countries.
Cheikh is fluent in English and French. He holds an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Rolake Akinkugbe-Filani is a strategic finance and energy executive with over 18 years of multidisciplinary experience spanning energy finance, infrastructure development, investment banking and development finance across more than thirty African markets. She is the Founding CEO of EnergyInc Advisors, a strategic investment and advisory firm focused on capital mobilisation, infrastructure financing and policy advisory in the energy, climate and financial services sectors.
Her career began in country risk analysis at Control Risks and Eurasia Group, where she assessed business and political risks for multinational clients across Africa’s energy sector. She subsequently built and led an award-winning energy research team at Ecobank Group covering 35 African markets, before moving into senior investment banking roles at FBN Quest Merchant Bank as Head of Energy, Natural Resources and Infrastructure. She later served as Senior Africa Advisor on Energy to IFU (now Impact Fund Denmark), Chief Commercial Officer at Mixta Africa, ARM Group’s infrastructure subsidiary and as General Manager and Head of Investor Relations at Zenith Bank Plc.
Rolake holds a Global Executive MBA from the TRIUM programme jointly offered by NYU Stern, LSE and HEC Paris, an MSc in International Relations from the London School of Economics and a BSc in Government from the London School of Economics. She is fluent in English and French.
In addition to her executive career, Rolake serves as an Independent Non-Executive Director at UpEnergy, a global decarbonisation project developer and at ALL ON, Nigeria’s leading off-grid renewable energy impact investment fund, where she also sits on the Investment Committee. She is a Non-Executive Director at Save the Children International and a member of its Audit and Risk Committee. Her past advisory roles include Aruwa Capital Management, Persistent (Africa’s Climate Venture Builder), the African Energy Chamber and Stonechair Capital.
She is a recognised industry voice, having been named among the Top 100 Women in Finance (Leading Ladies Africa, 2025) and one of the 275 Global Female Influencers in Energy (UK Energy Council, 2020). She is a Fellow of the UK Energy Institute and an Honorary Senior Member of the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria.
Private sector development adviser with very strong team management skills. Excellent understanding of trade and regional integration issues, and a very strong regional network. Substantial experience in oil, gas, mining and good understanding of climate change and gender.
Frannie is the Senior Partner and CEO SouthBridge Investments, an investment firm that works across Africa, and has held senior positions at the World Bank and the African Development Bank.
Frannie is a highly experienced and well-known finance and development expert, with long-standing global experience leading and transforming organisations in the private, public and non-for-profit spheres. She has held various leadership roles at The Trade and Development Bank (TDB) Group, including Vice Chair of the Board, Special Advisor to the President before becoming TDBs first Chief Operating Officer. She also led the Asset Management business of TDB, including the recent launch of a unique product for trade finance in Africa.
She graduated from the Massachusetts Institute for Technology (MIT) with both a Masters of Science in Transportation and a PhD in Infrastructure Systems. She went on to work at the World Bank Group (WBG), where during her 15-year career she held senior financial positions across the Group. Frannie served as Vice-President for nearly seven years of her tenure at the WBG. She was also Senior Vice President at the African Development Bank (AfDB).
She has also founded two companies:
- The Fezembat Group, which was dedicated to providing risk management and support through advisory services to top leadership of companies investing in mining, infrastructure and energy in developing and emerging markets; and,
- Mkoba Private Equity Fund, which was founded to invest in small and medium-size enterprises in Africa in response to the emerging market opportunities in Sub-Saharan Africa.
In addition to her extensive career, Frannie holds advisory and governance roles on several boards, including the UN Foundation, OCP Group, Orca Explorations, AZA Finance, and ARC (African Risk Capacity) Ltd. She is also a member of the World Economic Forums (WEF) Regional Advisory Group for Africa and has previously served as co-Chair for the Global Agenda Councils of the WEF. Other advisory and board roles she has held include with MIT, African Economic Research Consortium (AERC), Institute for Security Studies (ISS), King Badouin Foundation US (KBFUS), and Nelson Mandela Institute for Science and Technology (NM-AIST).
She is skilled in Development Finance, Sustainable Development and Climate, Strategic and Analytical Skills, Investing in Emerging Markets, International Business, International Relations, and Management.
Tokunboh Ishmael is an impact investor with over 20 years’ experience spanning investment banking, private equity investing, technology, and business development in Africa, Europe, and North America.
She is the Managing Director and co-founder of Alitheia Capital, a Nigeria-based investment management and advisory firm focused on channelling private equity investments into small
and medium sized businesses in West Africa.
In 2015, she co-founded Alitheia IDF to scale investments into women-led SMEs across Sub-Saharan Africa. ‘Tokunboh is a CFA charter-holder, corporate financier and M&A banker, and has historically worked on over $5.6 billion transactions in the UK, USA and Africa. In her past role as Managing Director of Avante Capital Ltd, she advised on a number of acquisitions in the oil and gas sector including the acquisition and financing of a government owned refinery and led the first secondary listing of a Nigerian company on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange.
Anne-Marie is CIO of FSD Africa Investments, the investment arm of FSD Africa and is a member of the FSD Africa Board. She is the former CEO of FSD Mozambique, and Co-founder of Alitheia IDF Managers, a private equity fund manager investing in women-led businesses.
Anne-Marie has a wealth of experience in building African financial markets. Across her career, she has led a range of development finance investments and implemented strategies for private sector growth, in roles at the World Bank Group, CGAP, and UK Aid – among other development finance institutions. She has held Board and Advisory positions at pioonering inclusive finance organisations in Africa
Mark Napier is the Chief Executive Officer of FSD Africa and a member of its Board. He has led the organisation since its establishment in Nairobi in 2012, bringing over three decades of experience in investment banking, financial sector development, and innovative finance.
Mark began his career in the City of London (1989–2003), advising growth companies on mergers, acquisitions, and capital raising. From 2004–2009, he served as CEO of FinMark Trust in Johannesburg before returning to London as an independent consultant specialising in financial sector development across Africa. He later joined CDC Group (now British International Investment) as Director of Investment Innovation.
A recognised contributor to the field, Mark has authored papers and articles on financial sector development and served as commissioning editor for Real Money, New Frontiers (2010), a collection of case studies on financial innovation in Africa. He holds an MA in Modern Languages from Cambridge University.
Greta joined the Gates Foundation in August 2021 as the Director, Women’s Economic Empowerment. Until recently, she was the CEO of CGAP and a Director at the World Bank Group.
She has 20 years of experience in development finance, primarily focused on small and medium enterprise finance, microfinance, and digital financial services. She has worked with both financial services providers and policy makers in Latin America, Central and Eastern Europe, Sub-Saharan Africa, and South Asia. Her clients and partners have included banks, microfinance institutions, mobile network operators, fintechs and bigtechs.
Before joining CGAP, Bull was a manager for Financial Institutions Advisory Services at the International Finance Corporation. As Director of Finance, Banking and Enterprise at DAI Europe, she held overall responsibility for the micro/small business finance and enterprise development consulting practice.
Kanini is a UK Chartered Accountant with extensive audit chair experience gained in East Africa, Europe, and the United States. She is currently responsible for the Africa portfolio of DRK, a US foundation that invests in early and growth-stage entrepreneurs that are providing private sector solutions to global problems. She is the former Board Chair of The Global Innovation Fund, a $250M investment vehicle supported by the UK, US, Canadian, Australian and Swedish Governments. The fund focuses on investing a range of capital for innovations in emerging markets that impact those living on $5 a day and below with a focus on Food and Agriculture, Healthcare, clean energy, and Fintech.
She has worked at the Board level in leadership positions at investment banks in London and the US, such as Bank of America-Merrill Lynch and Dresdner Kleinwort Benson. She continues to provide strategic advisory support to a number of Africa focused impact funds such as the $100m African Agriculture SME Fund and the $30m AHL Venture Fund.