The Future of Finance and Trade in Africa

Bio

Kola has more than 24 years of financial services experience, an astute professional with a diverse background and proven record of establishing strategic cross-functional partnerships. He has deep operating working knowledge of Fortune 500 companies and has held various senior level management rolls across Strategy, Corporate Development, Operations, Process Development and Risk Management in global companies across three continents.

Kola is currently the Senior Vice President, Strategy & Operations NAM, and prior to joining Mastercard was Vice President Corporate Strategy for Broadridge Financial Solutions Inc. where he had responsibility for driving revenue growth by helping to refine the firm's strategic vision to deliver future competitive advantages that align with an ever-changing industry landscape. He has also held roles as Executive Director of Global Commercial Services for American Express, and previously worked at Capital One Bank NA, Bank of America NA, Halifax Bank of Scotland (HBOS) Plc. as well as several banks in Nigeria including Leadbank Plc. and United Bank for Africa.

Kola is highly qualified holds a bachelors from Ahmadu Bello University, a Master’s degree from Lagos State University, an MBA from Strathclyde Business School in Glasgow Scotland as well as a Certificate in Leadership Excellence from Harvard; he also holds certifications in Business Process Management, Six Sigma Black Belt, and is a Certified Scrum Master

Bio

Akol Ayii is the Founder and Chairman of Trinity Group. The group owns investments in various sectors including Energy, Power, Infrastructure, Mining, Media and Technology. Since 2006, the company has grown to lead five business units with staff of 400 and USD 500 million annual Turnover.

Mr. Akol Ayii is a business leader with verifiable year-after-year success of achieving revenue, profit, and business growth objectives within startup, turnaround, and rapid-change environments. He has extensive experience with highly engineered systems, which require deep understanding of critical business drivers in multiple markets and industries.

Mr. Akol started building businesses from very humble beginnings. With the initial capital from his father and some from family businesses, Akol ventured into hardware & general trading. Then he invested in real estate business in the capital city of Juba. Other notable achievements by Mr. Akol included the founding of the Nile Commercial Bank (NCB) which set the pace for the development of the Banking industry of South Sudan. NCB also played a very important role in the establishment of the Central Bank of South Sudan today known as the Bank of South Sudan. He is also supporting South Sudan to achieve financial inclusion through mobile money transfer services through a premiere mobile money transfer services company M-Gurush. Through M-Gurush nearly 1.2 million South Sudanese can send and receive money from anywhere within the country as well international other countries in the world. This provides the huge South Sudanese diaspora a channel to support their families back home.

His investments in the Energy sector through Trinity Energy Ltd have supported South Sudan and by extension the East African region to achieve fuel stability. Trinity Energy's relationship with global and regional petroleum trading companies has made the retail supply of fuel products in South Sudan stable and predictable. The company now has a growing global footprint to structure bespoke solutions to customers with established offices in South Sudan, Kenya, DRC, Malawi and the United Arab Emirates.

Mr. Akol has repeatedly produced and sustained revenue and EBITA growth in dynamic and changing markets. His achievements in Infrastructure, Oil & Gas, Information Technology, Print Media, and construction speak to a highly ambitious and dedicated leader.

Mr. Akol has a bachelor degree in Accounting & Business Finance from EU Business School, and MBA U.S. International University and certificate in Owner/ President Management from Harvard Business School. He currently serves on the board of Director of the Corporate Council on Africa.

Bio

Isaac Barnes, the CEO of Unified State Group (USG) and President of Eminent Future, is a tech industry leader whose vision focuses on using technology to foster societal progress. His strategic acumen has not only secured over $13 billion in federal contracts but also highlighted his role in transcending political divides, notably under Presidents Obama and Trump. At USG, Mr. Barnes is committed to bridging the technological divide, particularly by enhancing Africa's tech potential and addressing disparities within Black and Brown communities, aiming for a more inclusive tech industry. 

With a background that includes distinguished marine corps service, Isaac brings a unique perspective to his leadership roles, blending ethical, moral, and spiritual values into his projects. This approach earned him the “Black Business of the Year” award in 2023 by the National Black Chamber of Commerce. 

Barnes's dedication to community service, mentorship, and philanthropy, alongside his aspirations for future political involvement, underscore his holistic vision for using technology to create a more equitable, ethical, and interconnected world.

Bio

Congresswoman Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, the first Black woman to represent Florida’s 20th congressional district, was re-elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in January 2023 to serve a second term.

Congresswoman Cherfilus-McCormick is honored to serve on the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs as the Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Technology Modernization. She is also the Chair of the Diversity & Inclusion Task Force for the Democratic Women's Caucus, a Co-Chair of the Haiti Caucus, and serves as a member of the Congressional Black Caucus.

Congresswoman Cherfilus-McCormick earned her Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and Government from Howard University. In further pursuit of education, the Congresswoman also earned a Juris Doctorate from St. Thomas University.

While in office, Congresswoman Cherfilus-McCormick remains committed to tackling the growing housing crisis, inadequate access to quality health care, and lack of equitable opportunities throughout our district and country.

Bio

Reid W. Click is Associate Professor of International Business and International Affairs at George Washington University in Washington, DC. He received his MBA and PhD degrees from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, where he studied economics and international business. His research and teaching interests are in the fields of global financial markets, international financial management, macroeconomics in the global economy, and finance for development. An expert on international financial risk and risk management, his academic work has been published in leading journals, including the Journal of International Business Studies and the Journal of Money, Credit and Banking. After research appointments in Asia, including one as a Fulbright Scholar at the Asian Institute of Management in the Philippines, he served as Associate Editor of the Journal of Asian Economics for 13 years. More recently, he has been a Fulbright Scholar at LUISS Guido Carli University in Italy. At George Washington University, he has served in leadership positions to develop the international business programs. He has been chair of the renowned Department of International Business, and has organized nine student and faculty programs investigating business institutions, finance, and economic development in Rwanda. He was the Founding Director of the joint International Finance Corporation—Milken Institute Capital Markets Program at GW. Previously, he served as the Faculty Director of the Center for International Business Education and Research (GW-CIBER), part of the national CIBER network funded by a grant from the U.S. Department of Education. He is a coauthor of the textbook, International Business: Environments & Operations, with John Daniels, Lee Radebaugh, and Daniel Sullivan (17th edition, Pearson, 2022). In addition to his academic work, he has been a consultant to several international organizations, notably the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Office of Development Credit and the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC), on matters pertaining to international banking, financial risk, and risk management.

Bio

Dr. Ky Dele, recipient of the President Joseph R. Biden Lifetime Achievement Award, is a distinguished figure in government affairs, community engagement, and public relations strategy. Renowned as a strategic consultant to leaders worldwide, she excels in fostering stakeholder relations across government, corporate, and community domains. Dr. Ky Dele's vision focuses on fostering collaborative ecosystems for sustainable change, bridging grassroots and high-level spheres. Her work has garnered numerous accolades, including recognition from the U.S. White House, Senate, House of Representatives, and international agencies. Featured in over a billion media impressions globally, she is a prominent voice in media outlets like CNN, Huffington Post, and BBC. With a vast network spanning from government officials to celebrities, she influences discourse on a national and international scale. Dr. Ky Dele's impact extends from the White House to corporate boardrooms, shaping dialogues across the Americas, the Caribbean, and Africa.

Bio

Mike Glatzer is the current Vice Provost of Finance for The George Washington University, as
well as the Managing Director of the Global Food Institute in partnership with the celebrated
chef and humanitarian, Jose Andres.  He previously served as the Deputy CFO of Howard
University, the leading HBCU in the U.S.  Before entering higher education, Mike oversaw global
mergers & acquisitions and financial planning for Northrop Grumman Corporation, a Fortune
500, government contractor & technology manufacturer.  He began his career as a private
equity and mergers & acquisitions advisor with the consulting firm, Alvarez & Marsal, where he
focused on the manufacturing and industrials sectors.  Mike is a Certified Public Accountant
(CPA), who received both his Bachelors and Masters Degrees in Accounting (MACC) from the
University of Georgia.   He also attended Brooklyn Law School in New York City, and is a co-
founder of ROH Global, an Africa-focused development firm.

Bio

Dr. Ijjasz has 30 years of senior technical and management experience at the World Bank, academia, and consulting. His areas of expertise include climate change, finance, infrastructure, global environment, and sustainable development.

Mr. Ijjasz worked for 23 years at the World Bank, where he worked in more than 90 developing and emerging economies in all regions of the world – from fragile and conflict-affected countries to high-middle-income countries. He was responsible for $80B of investments in and close to 800 policy reports in infrastructure and sustainable development during his World Bank career.

Mr. Ijjasz is currently a non-resident Senior Fellow at the Africa Growth Initiative of the Brookings Institution. He is a Board member of the Cadasta Foundation, the Global Reporting Initiative, and Miyamoto International. He is a Senior Advisor to several international organizations.

Mr. Ijjasz has a Ph.D. and an M.Sc. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He has been a lecturer at Johns Hopkins University, Tsinghua University in Beijing, the National University of Singapore, and Georgetown University.

Bio

Chairman Of the Board of Directors, Winrock International; Chairman, SubSahara Africa Advisory Committee; U.S. Export Import Bank; Managing Partner, ASAFO & CO. (U.S.) LLP

Jude Kearney is a specialist in African transactions and a versatile project finance and project development lawyer. He has a long history serving as advisor and consultant to public and private sector entities and institutions in Africa in need of complex legal and transactional analysis and support. Kearney is highly specialized in project finance, oil and gas development, international mergers and acquisitions and the financing and development of power generation. His experience spans throughout Africa, the Gulf States, Eastern Europe, Latin America, China and other Asian countries.  Kearney is a pioneer in the development of Africa-based practice groups within major law firms. He has been a leader in the legal profession and a frequent speaker/commentator on trending commercial issues in the context of markets in developing regions, particularly in the project finance and energy sectors.

Kearney has also recently been selected as Chairman of the Board of Winrock International, the renowned non-profit international development organization named in honor the late Arkansas Governor, farmer and philanthropist Winthrop Rockefeller. Winrock operates in parts of Africa, Asia, and Latin America, among other regions, bringing economic development, humanitarian and sustainable community services to those regions.

Bio

Dr. Danny Leipziger is Professor of International Business and International Affairs at George Washington University, where he is concurrently the Managing Director of the Growth Dialogue. Professor Leipziger has been a faculty member in the highly-ranked International Business Department since 2009, where he has taught both undergraduate and graduate courses on macroeconomics, applied development, financial crises, and international economics, and he has taught in the GW/IFC/Milken Capital Markets Graduate Program for mid-career government officials since its inception. He has been an advisor to the governments of South Korea, Vietnam, Ivory Coast, Uzbekistan, Argentina, and South Africa, among others.

A former Vice President for Poverty Reduction and Economic Management at the World Bank (2004-2009), he served three World Bank Presidents and held senior management positions in the East Asia and Latin America Regions. While at the World Bank, he led the team preparing the emergency financial bailout loan to Korea in 1997. He was the World Bank’s Director for Finance, Private Sector and Infrastructure for Latin America (1998-2004). He served previously in the U.S. Department of State and was a Member of the Secretary’s Policy Planning Staff. Dr. Leipziger was Vice Chair of the Spence Commission on Growth and Development and he served on the WEF Council on Economic Progress.

An economist with a Ph. D. from Brown, he has published widely in development economics, finance and banking, and on East Asia and Latin America. He is the author of several books, including Lessons of East Asia (U. of Michigan Press), Stuck in the Middle (Brookings Institution), and Globalization and Growth and more than 50 refereed and published articles in journals and other outlets. He is a frequent contributor to VoxEU, Project Syndicate, and other media, and he has appeared on Bloomberg, BBC, CCTV and Korean TV as an expert commentator.

Bio

Busie Matsiko is an award-winning global strategist, entrepreneur and Board Trustee who has held positions on Wall Street at Smith Barney, Oppenheimer & Co., and Citibank. She is a serial entrepreneur who is widely recognized for her impact leadership. As a global strategist and CEO of Pont Global, Busie Matsiko has been instrumental in successfully scaling and growing companies and organizations (industry agnostic). She is the Executive Director of The Africa Future Summit which brings together investors and leaders in technology, entrepreneurship, and politics to address the challenges that affect Africa’s future. She is also the first black woman trustee of Berkeley College. Busie Matsiko currently advises multilaterals like the African Union, Afreximbank, Duke CE, National Sepsis Alliance, XX Coders, the African Renaissance and Diaspora Network, Lalela Project, and the Heritage and Cultural Society of Africa among others on private-sector scaling and development. She is also a Special Advisor on Private Sector Development and Celebrity Outreach on a Project created under the auspices of the UN Deputy Secretary-General Ms. Amina J. Mohammed to promote and popularize the UN SDGs in Africa and the Diaspora.

Bio

Dr. Uzziel Ndagijimana is the Minister of Finance and Economic Planning. Before his appointment, Dr. Ndagijimana was the Minister of State in charge of Economic Planning. Prior to that, he was the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Health from May 2011 to July 2014.

Dr. Ndagijimana has served in different leadership positions in academia. He was Vice Rector at the National University of Rwanda (2007 – 2011), and as the Rector of School of Finance and Banking (2002 -2007).

Dr. Uzziel Ndagijimana holds a PhD in Economics (1998) and an MSc. Economics specializing in International Trade. He started his career as a Lecturer at the National University of Rwanda in 1999, Faculty of Economics, Social Sciences and Management. He is the author of papers in national and international journals. He speaks Kinyarwanda, French, English, Swahili, Polish, and basic Portuguese.

Bio

Eric Osiakwan is an investor and developer of new businesses with 25 years of experience spanning 32 countries in Africa gained through a number of successful tech start-ups. Eric is a leading pioneer of internet in Africa having worked in multiple countries building internet service providers (“ISP”) and ICT businesses. Some of his successful exits include iBurst in South Africa, One2Net in Uganda, BusyInternet in Ghana, etc. Eric also founded and ran the Africa ISP Association for eight years, during which the ISP industry grew by almost 120%. He then moved on to leading efforts to build submarine cables on the continent. Eric was part of a public-private partnership in Kenya that built and launched the TEAMS submarine fibre cable, the first to connect East Africa to the rest of the world. He subsequently contributed to the building of terrestrial fibre networks in Ghana and Nigeria. 

Eric has been seeding and investing in early-stage tech ventures across the continent. In 2013, he co-founded AngelAfrica.net, an Africa-wide network of angel investors, and then Angel Fair Africa which brings select entrepreneurs to present to potential investors. Over the 10 years of the event, $58M of investments have been made with one exit in 2019. He was an ICT Consultant for the World Bank, Soros Foundations, UNDP, USAID, USDoJ, USDoS, African governments, and private firms. 

Eric currently serves on the board of the Pan Africa Project, Ghana Cyber City, Nyaho Medical Centre, Star Assurance and StarLife Assurance. 

He authored “The KINGS of Africa’s Digital Economy”, co-authored the “Open Access Model”, adopted globally by the telecommunications industry, “Negotiating the Net” – the politics of Internet Diffusion in Africa and “The Internet in Ghana” with the Mosaic Group. He was invited to contribute ideas to Prime Minister Tony Blair’s Commission for Africa. Eric is an MIT, Harvard and Stanford Fellow and holds a master’s in Finance and Investment Management from Salford Business School.

Bio

Justin Thomas Russell, an eminent figure with over three decades of expertise in government relations and foreign policy, stands at the forefront of international politics. Leading the charge with Believe in Africa, he demonstrates an unwavering dedication to fostering U.S.-Africa relations, pushing for economic development, and actively participating in congressional affairs. His previous roles, including as Principal Director at the New York Center for Foreign Policy Affairs and Director of Corporate Strategy and International Affairs for Nortel Government Solutions / Avaya Government Solutions, underscore his significant influence on global policy and discourse shaping. Beyond his professional contributions, Justin’s service in the U.S. Coast Guard and as a guest lecturer and media analyst enriches his comprehensive understanding of foreign policy, geo-political challenges, and the intersection of business and government. Residing at the crossroads of Florida and Washington DC, Justin Thomas Russell is a visionary in the international political arena, committed to driving meaningful change with unparalleled expertise.

Bio

Kafuti Talahumbu is an Associate Director of Corporate Partnerships at George Washington University (GW). In this capacity, Kafuti fosters collaborative and dynamic partnerships among the 10 GW schools, GW senior leaders, and private sectors. Additionally, he facilitates industry collaborations within the portfolio of 81 Institutes and works closely with Institute directors, faculty, and corporate partners to secure resources for strategic educational initiatives across the GW community.

Prior to his tenure at GW, Kafuti excelled as a Channel Partner Manager at Verizon Enterprise, where he harnessed data insights to forge strategic alliances in the healthcare, education, and public sectors. His proficiency in data analysis was pivotal in shaping the Verizon Public Sector Partner Ecosystem.

With a rich background at IBM, Kafuti orchestrated key initiatives, including the market roll-out strategy for the Watson Education (AI) Partner Ecosystem, and successfully delivered government contractor projects. Before stepping into the technology realm, Kafuti contributed his analytical prowess for seven years at the Investment Company Institute, providing invaluable market insights to the Federal Reserve Board, US Treasury, and Mutual Funds industry.

Kafuti holds a bachelor’s degree in economics and public policy from Saint Mary's College of Maryland and an MBA from The George Washington University School of Business.

The conference will be held on GW's Foggy Bottom campus in the City View Room and State Room at 1957 E Street NW, Washington, DC.

Our Foggy Bottom campus is conveniently located in the heart of Washington, D.C., close to three major airports — Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA), Washington Dulles International (IAD), and Baltimore Washington International (BWI) — as well as the train and intercity bus hub at Union Station. The Foggy Bottom/GWU Metro stop is located on campus, with service to the Orange, Blue and Silver Metro lines. Taxis and rideshare programs are available throughout the city, and there are more than 4,000 bikes and 500+ bike stations around the District; visit Capital Bikeshare for maps and details on how to access a bike.