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Hassan Usman
A Chartered Accountant, Hassan possesses the highly relevant experience, spanning over eighteen years in Finance and Investment Advisory and Privatization Services, covering various sectors and global regions. Mr. Hassan served as the MD/CEO of New Frontiers Developments, Aso Savings and Loans Plc, as well as Executive Director (Investments) at Abuja Investment and Property Development Company Ltd, the Federal Capital Territory’s premier development agency. He has also headed key units of the Bureau of Public Enterprises, including Petrochemicals and Gas, Transport Sector Reform, and Telecommunications.
At Citibank Nigeria, where he worked for 7 years, until 2000, Hassan headed the Structured and Cross-border Finance Team within its Corporate Finance Group. During this time, he helped to arrange over 500 million US dollars worth dollars’ worth of transactions and arranged millions more in developmental loans from multilateral institutions. This was followed by stints managing Capital Markets and Corporate Banking relationships. Prior to Citibank, he worked for 3 years within the Financial Markets Division of Arthur Andersen S.C. London, and before then, as a Research Assistant in the International Economic and Monetary Relations department of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Lagos. He has served on the boards of major corporations, including NITEL.
Roger Frank
Roger Frank is award-winning capital markets and social enterprise innovator. He has spent his career in emerging & international markets and has worked extensively in agriculture, microfinance, and technology.
Mr. Frank founded Innovare Advisors, a boutique advisory firm with a focus on climate-smart agriculture in Africa, and is a former partner at Developing World Markets (DWM) where he was part of the team that structured and placed the first, cross-border, commercial capital raise for microfinance.
Prior to Innovare and DWM, Mr. Frank worked on Wall Street at Lazard, Salomon Smith Barney/Citigroup, Schroders, Deutsche Bank, and HSBC. His focus was international and emerging markets where he introduced many global investors to emerging markets, raised over $1 billion in primary and secondary transactions, and traveled to and worked in over 90 countries worldwide.
Ayodeji Balogun is the CEO of AFEX Commodities Exchange Limited (AFEX) where he is leading a team of experts leveraging technology, innovative finance, and inclusive agriculture to connect smallholder farmers to commodity and financial markets.
Mr. Balogun holds an MBA from Lagos Business School and formed a part of the first cohort of the Global CEO Africa Program where he specialized in Management. He has also earned a certificate in Creative Leadership from the THNK School of Creative Leadership He is currently pushing while continuing to lead efforts to achieve food security and agriculture financing development in the Nigerian agricultural sector Nigeria and designing physical and derivative contracts for commodities across markets in Africa.
Ayodeji Balogun
Albert Momdjian is a seasoned investment banker with over 23 years of experience in the financial services industry, working for various prestigious financial institutions including HSBC, Credit Suisse First Boston, and Crédit Agricole CIB. Most recently, Mr. Momdjian spent almost three years with UBS AG, heading up the bank's Ultra High Net Worth ("UHNW") and Corporate Advisory Group businesses for the Middle East & Africa ("MEA") region. In this role, he was responsible for a team of over 55 professionals across Zurich, Geneva, and the Dubai International Financial Center ("DIFC") During his career, he has advised various blue-chip clients into and out of the MEA region on several landmark transactions and has developed extensive relationships at all levels with government officials, CEOs, and CFOs in the region.
Albert Momdjian
Kenny Washington
Kenny Washington has built a successful 34 year34-year career working across a number of industries and sectors including, technology and manufacturing start-ups and over 12 years in corporate and individual philanthropy. Kenny’s experience spans tech and media commercial markets, corporate philanthropy (CSR) where he has advised a number of multinational corporations on their community investment strategy and INGO’s on their high net worth donor strategies.
He has worked on a number of innovative development initiatives in Africa and is currently acting as the technical project lead for the African Foundation for Development’s (AFFORD) pioneering Diaspora Bond Investment fund for affordable housing in Rwanda, providing project design and coordination across the legal, compliance, investment and local affordable house building partnership strategies to support AFFORD’s entire value chain. This assignment has enabled him to work closely with international law firms, a number of government departments at senior levels as well as preparation of funding bids for development funds, foundations, foundations, family offices, and various impact investment firms.
Building capacity within the local African project development teams in Ghana, Burundi, Kenya, and Malawi, Kenny has developed a range of methods and models to realize commercial opportunities and address the challenges for both rural SME enterprises whilst gaining a deep understanding of the motivations and risks for donors and investors.