Directors »
Samuel Mensah
Sam is Intel Capital's Director for South and Sub-Saharan Africa. He leads Intel's strategic investments in east, west and southern Africa, focusing on investing in the continent's most innovative and scalable technology start-ups. Intel Capital supports companies through its global operations and network of highly-successful entrepreneurs.
Intel Capital has supported close to 1000 companies worldwide, investing over US$7.5 billion since 1991. In the past two decades, more than 350 of its portfolio companies have successfully exited in various economic market conditions. Over 150 of Intel Capital's investments lead to IPOs, and 212 of them have been acquired outright or merged with other companies. By the end of 2008, Intel Capital's active portfolio value exceeded US$ 2 billion globally.
Prior to joining Intel Capital, Sam led Intel's expansion efforts into Sub-Saharan Africa, driving the adoption of PC's and Internet access through Digital Inclusion programs. Before Intel, Sam worked for Deutsche Bank (London) and for Gresham Financial Systems, a technology consulting firm. Sam is a graduate of Oxford University with an MA and BA in Economics and Management.
Sammy Olagbaju
Sammy is a retired senior executive with four decades of experience in opening up West African finance and services markets to Western companies. Over his career, he has repeatedly helped companies expand successfully into West Africa amidst some of the most challenging economic and business environments. As the chairman of Marius Ltd, a Nigerian trading and investment company specializing in the energy and communications sectors, he represented a number of European security printing and anti-counterfeiting companies, many with over 50 years track record and several million dollars in sales today. He has served as the chairman and director of fifteen companies in Nigeria and the United Kingdom.
In the past, Sammy was the CEO of Nigerian Stockbrokers Ltd and the Head of Corporate Finance, Nal Bank in Nigeria. He is currently a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Stockbrokers Nigeria and an Honorary Senior Member at the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria.
Sammy holds Masters degrees in Economics and Political Science from the University of Dublin. He is a business mentor to many West African entrepreneurs and an avid fine art connoisseur.
Alden Zecha
Alden is a serial entrepreneur and Principal at the Adz Group. He was formerly co-founder and CFO of PrivatSea a luxury travel company now part of the multi-billion dollar Latsis group. He has also co-founded an OTC drug distribution company and worked with the Japanese MHW (FDA equivalent) on regulatory compliance issues. He has experience across 3 continents including numerous successful multimillion dollar, multinational launches. Alden currently serves as director for companies in the US, UK, British Virgin Islands and Hong Kong.
Alden received his MSE and BSE with honors in Chemical Engineering from Princeton University where he was a United Technologies Scholar and has a certificate in finance from the University of Virginia’s Darden Graduate School of Business.
Ashifi Gogo
Ashifi's venture into social entrepreneurship has continuously enjoyed a strong link with academia. Ashifi holds degrees in mathematics and physics and is now the Holekamp Family PhD Innovation Fellow in engineering at Dartmouth College. At Dartmouth, he earned an IEEE GOLD Humanitarian Fellowship by virtue of social enterprise, and honed his professional acumen with Six Sigma Back Belt training. The Clinton Foundation, GSVC Berkeley, Princeton Entrepreneurs' Network, NCIIA Venture Well and Nokia have acknowledged his work through a variety of prizes and fellowships.
Ashifi also frequently presents at conferences including those organized by the U. S. Department of Commerce, The World Bank, Global Health Council, The African Network and the Corporate Council on Africa’s U.S.-Africa Business Summit.
Chike Asiodu
Chike manages one of the leading SMS companies in the Nigerian market, having provided solutions for numerous multinationals including Pfizer, Nokia, Coca Cola, Guinness, Virgin Atlantic and UNICEF. His efforts have lead to some of Nigeria’s most successful mobile interactive reality TV shows, attracting well-known international brands like, Big Brother Nigeria, Pop Idols Nigeria, Play TV (Nigeria’s first SMS Interactive TV game show), and The Apprentice Africa.
He also serves on the boards of Ecobank Gambia, Icon Stockbrokers, Sterling Beverages and Lube Oils. Chike earned a BA in Modern History from the University of Buckingham in England. He is also a member of the Lagos Business School Alumni.
Tomi Davies
Tomi is a veteran executive in operations with extensive experience in FTSE 100 companies in the UK, US and Africa. He has served as the Chief Executive at One Laptop Per Child, Nigeria, and as the Chief Operating Officer at Alteq.ict, a public sector IT consultancy, which has over $500M of projects under management. Prior to that, he was the Director of Business Strategy at Sapient where he designed, developed and managed IT systems for clients such as the UK Government, Vodafone, BT, Hutchison3G and Siemens in Munich Germany.
Tomi has a BSc in Systems Analysis and an MSc in Operations Research both from the University of Miami.
Advisors »
Ethan Zuckerman
Ethan is a senior researcher at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University. His research focuses on the distribution of attention in mainstream and new media, the use of technology for international development, and the use of new media technologies by activists. With Rebecca MacKinnon, Ethan co-founded international blogging community Global Voices. Global Voices showcases news and opinions from citizen media in over 150 nations and thirty languages, publishing editions in twenty languages. In 2000, Ethan founded Geekcorps, a technology volunteer corps that sends IT specialists to work on projects in developing nations, with a focus on West Africa.
Previously Ethan helped found Tripod.com, one of the web's first "personal publishing" sites. Tripod, a venture-backed startup, was sold in 1998 to Lycos for $58 million. He blogs at ethanzuckerman.com/blog and lives in the Berkshire Mountains of western Massachusetts, USA.
Joseph Steig
Joseph Steig is Venture Development Manager at the National Collegiate Inventors & Innovators Alliance and directs the Venture Well program. NCIIA is a non-profit that provides grant funding and support to collegiate entrepreneurship at colleges and universities across the United States. Venture Well is a new initiative that helps seed stage ventures emerge from the university environment and secure equity investment. It focuses on ventures that are addressing issues of human health and the environment.
Joseph is also CFO of Long River Ventures, a seed and early stage New England-based venture fund. Joseph has a background with technology start-ups, ranging from aquaculture companies to Internet ventures. He is founder of River Valley Investors, an angel investor group, and also has extensive experience in economic development. Joseph has a B.A. from Hampshire College, grew up in Vancouver, Canada and now lives in Massachusetts.
Mitul Shah
Mitul is the Senior Director of Technology Partnerships at the United Nations Foundation. He is directing a partnership between the Vodafone Group Foundation and the UN Foundation. The partnership leverages Vodafone’s core strengths – its mobile technology, global infrastructure, and capacity for mass consumer outreach – with the UN’s scale, mission, and human capital. Its goal is to support activities and manage initiatives that use technology tools to help the UN address the world’s toughest challenges more effectively and efficiently. He is also directing the United Nations Foundation’s efforts on program evaluation and performance measurement.
Prior to joining UNF, Mitul was the Director of Programs at the International Youth Foundation (IYF) in Baltimore, MD. At IYF, Mitul created and directed the Bridgeit program, a distance education program using mobile technology to empower teachers in the classroom. The program consisted of a multi-sector partnership consisting of UNDP, Nokia and Pearson. Along with Bridgeit, Mitul directed a USAID funded program in the Philippines called the Education and Livelihood Skills Alliance. Prior to working at IYF, Mitul was a senior consultant at Inforte Corporation, an information technology and strategy consulting company. Mitul holds a Masters in Business Administration degree at the University of Maryland at College Park and a Bachelor of Science Degree in Business Administration from the University of California at Riverside.
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