Hangwi Muambadzi is the Head of Africa at CommerzVentures, a specialist growth-stage fintech venture capital fund. As a tech investor and strategic advisor, she has built a career that connects investment, innovation and technology, with significant experience across the African continent. She began her investment career as a mergers and acquisitions (M&A) specialist at Deutsche Bank, then went on to early-stage venture capital and impact investing in South Africa. Following that, she continued to build her investment portfolio across sub-Saharan Africa and joined the CDC Group (now British International Investment – “BII”) in London.

Most recently, Hangwi was Vice President at Barclays Africa (now Absa), driving the digital transformation and innovation strategy for the bank across its African markets, as well as leading various new business ventures within the bank, positioning it to seize growth opportunities across the continent. Hangwi sits on several boards in private equity, fintech, and agriculture across South Africa, Nigeria, Egypt and Zambia. She serves as an ambassador for One Young World, is a coach to young professionals and an honoured Desmond Tutu Fellow. Hangwi, a Saïd Scholar, holds an MBA from the University of Oxford and a Business Science degree from the University of Cape Town.

Mika is a business operator turned investor. He launched new products and scaled up ventures at early stage startups and Fortune 500 companies in the U.S., South Africa, China & France. He started angel investing in Africa in 2014 and founded P1 Ventures in 2020 that invested in the likes of Reliance Health and VertoFX in Nigeria, MoneyFellows in Egypt, Yassir in Algeria and Chari in Morocco. He was born in Dakar, Senegal and raised in Nouakchott, Mauritania. He grew empathy and inspiration for founders from a young age coming from an entrepreneurial family as his parents and grandparents-built businesses in West Africa for the past decades. He is a Berkeley engineer and Stanford MBA graduate.

Babs Ogundeyi is the Group CEO and founder of Kuda Technologies, a fintech company on a mission to make financial services more affordable, accessible and rewarding for every African.

Kuda’s money app for Africans is giving over 7 million people access to personal and business banking, free money transfers, investments, remittance and instant credit.

Before starting Kuda, Babs advised some of Africa's biggest banks whilst at PricewaterhouseCoopers and was a Special Adviser on Finance in the Nigerian government. He is also a founder of two other companies.

Art is a Managing Partner at Baobab Network, Africa’s #1 accelerator and early-stage investor. Art’s main focus is selecting and scaling the startups in Baobab Networks portfolio, helping them increase their traction, build partnerships and raise the capital they need to dominate their market. Art’s core expertise is in global investment banking, and the startup & venture capital landscape in emerging markets. Art is a Manchester United fan, amateur DJ, a lover of Afrobeats, and passionate about all things African.

Melvyn Lubega is an experienced technology entrepreneur and investor who has built businesses that serve customers on multiple continents. Most notably he built and scaled Go1, a leading technology platform used by 17,000 organisations and governments in over 60 countries. Go1 became the first South African unicorn (valued at +$2 billion) attracting over $450 million in investment from SoftBank, Salesforce Ventures and M12 (Microsoft Ventures) among other tier-1 international investors. Built through his passion for developing people, every 1.2 seconds someone somewhere in the world starts a course on Go1. Prior to Go1, he built, exited and invested in leading fintech companies in South Africa. He is a Partner at Breega, one of the fastest growing early stage venture capital investors in Europe and Africa, with over EUR600 million in assets under management, investing in disruptive technologies that solve significant economic and social challenges. He is also a referenced thought leader and invited speaker both abroad and locally on digital transformation, the future of work, venture capital, disruptive innovation, corporate governance as well as business strategy.

He has been recognized by Forbes and was the first-ever African recipient of The Lindas in 2021, Endeavor Global’s most prestigious accolade. The award is given by a community of 2,300 leaders from many of the fastest-growing companies in the world to the person to embodies the spirit of “dreaming big, scaling up, and paying it forward”. In 2023, given his success in building businesses from Africa that scale globally, Melvyn was recognized as a leading business person on the continent at the 11th All Africa Business Leadership Awards.

He began his career as one of Boston Consulting Group’s first consultants in Africa, where he worked in over 10 countries, advising forward thinking organizations on topics including financial inclusion and digital disruption. Today, he is a trusted advisor to governments and leading enterprises across Europe and Africa: serving on boards of listed companies as a non-executive director as well as on presidential and ministerial committees. His expertise are primarily focused on investments and the how to harnessthe global transition to both digital and green economies.

Giving back and paying it forward resonate strongly with Melvyn. He serves on the Council (Board of Governors) at St John’s College, where he is Deputy Chairperson of the St John’s College Foundation Board and its Investment Committee as well as Chairperson of the IT Committee leading the school’s digital transformation. An advocate for bolstering entrepreneur ecosystems, in South Africa he serves on the board of Endeavor where he remains one of its most active mentors, and is part of the team pioneering the Startup Act, which aims to create a policy framework conducive for ambitious tech entrepreneurs and high growth businesses.

An actuary by training, he holds an undergraduate degree from the University of Cape Town and postgraduate degrees from the University of Oxford where he was a Rhodes Scholar. At Oxford, Melvyn completed a double masters (MPP and MSc), receiving a distinction for his research into disruptive technologies in emerging markets.

Maelis Carraro is the Managing Partner of Catalyst Fund, a VC fund and venture builder dedicated to backing tech startups shaping a climate-resilient future in Africa. With a career spanning impact investing and tech, Maelis works closely with startups, investors, funders and ecosystem players to drive transformative solutions across emerging markets, benefiting people and the planet. She focuses on investing in and supporting early-stage entrepreneurs building tech-enabled solutions in areas such as fintech, agtech, insurtech, carbon finance, and energy and water access for underserved communities. Having backed over 80 startups across Africa, Asia, and Latin America, Maelis has played a vital role in nurturing the innovation ecosystem in emerging markets. Prior to Catalyst Fund, she also worked at the International Finance Corporation, the OECD, Grameen Bank, and impact fund Global Partnerships, where she supported impact investing strategies, inclusive finance product innovation and research on microfinance schemes to enable climate adaptation and resilience. Maelis also co-founded RemitMas, an inclusive fintech startup that empowers immigrants through cross-border remittances, enabling them to save for long-term goals in their home countries. She holds a dual MBA and Master's in International Affairs from Columbia Business School and the School of International and Public Affairs, and a BA Cum Laude in Political Science and Development Economics from University College London.

Mrs. Lam is the Director General of the Investment Promotion Agency of Mauritania (APIM), the Governmental entity in charge of National and Foreign Direct Investments, as well as the business climate of the country.

Through the Agency, Mrs. Lam promotes and implements the vision of Mauritania, led by H.E President Mohamed Cheikh Ould Ghazouani, for a sustainable and more inclusive development driven by stronger productive sectors.

Ms. Lam is passionate about youth and women economic empowerment matters on the continent, pertaining to access to finance for start-ups & SMES and enabling the ecosystem for women entrepreneurs. She is the co-founder of the Youth Chamber of Commerce of Mauritania, an organization created with the mission to bridge the gap for young Mauritanian Professionals and Entrepreneurs, mainly through the i-Lab, an Innovation Lab and Venture Fund - launched in partnership with the National Bank of Mauritania.

Moreover, Ms. Lam sits on the monitoring committee of the Covid-19 $290M fund established in 2020 by the Mauritanian President. She is also a member of the advisory councils of the G7 Gender Equality Council and the Middle East Institute and an ambassador for the Affirmative Finance Action for Women in Africa (AFAWA) initiative led by the African Development Bank.

Ms Lam is a Tutu fellow and a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader.

Tosin Eniolorunda is a leading innovator in the African Fintech space, with a passion for creating financial happiness and a track record of groundbreaking contributions to financial technology in Africa.

He is the founder and CEO of Moniepoint Inc., an all-in-one, digital payments and banking platform, and the second-fastest growing company in Africa.

With operations in Nigeria and an ongoing expansion into other emerging markets, Moniepoint has over 3 million users across its business and personal banking products. It aims to power the dreams of businesses and individuals by providing them with the financial technology tools they need to grow, no matter their digital literacy level.

He programmed the first point-of-sale software for Interswitch, on which the majority of POS terminals in Nigeria are being run, and is currently revolutionising payments for businesses in emerging markets. Moniepoint processes the majority of in-person payment transactions in Nigeria with over $12 billion processed monthly.

Tosin has been recognised by several leading institutions, among them The Central Bank of Nigeria, Financial Times, CB Insights, Endeavor, and PYMNTS, in appreciation for the impact of his work to create innovative solutions. He was listed among the 100 most influential people in Africa in 2022, and 100 Iconic African Leaders in 2023.

Marcel Kasumovich is the Deputy CIO at Coinbase Asset Management. He leads a team focused on digital asset investment strategies. Marcel has been engaged in digital assets since 2012 as a Visiting Scholar at the International Monetary Fund.

He has more than 25 years of experience in financial markets ranging from policy (Bank of Canada, International Monetary Fund) to banking (Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch) and hedge funds (Soros Fund Management, Tse Capital).

Marcel has strong connections to finance professionals, policymakers, and entrepreneurs. He has published research ranging from academic journals to op-eds and holds advisory roles in startup financial technology companies.

Romanna is PwC’s Head of Ventures with 17 years experience across Venture Capital, Investment Banking, and as an investor and serial entrepreneur across global markets. Romanna has managed global teams and scaled and exited Scaleups globally. An advisor to the largest Government and Corporate entities in the Middle East region, building innovation channels and the venture ecosystem. Romanna works directly with our clients to build unique venture propositions that accelerate time to market of new products and services and/ or that become greater catalysts for innovation. This may be through introducing a pipeline of disruptive startups, building Corporate Venture Capital Units, developing an internal investment thesis and structure around existing investments, making investments in companies we're convicted in and/or supporting startups to scale and access the best possible resources from our networks.

Renaud Glenisson joined Jumia Côte d'Ivoire in 2015 as CFO. He became CFO for West Africa (Côte d’Ivoire, Cameroon, Ghana and Senegal) from 2017 to 2020. Between 2020 and 2022, Renaud was head of Finance and Risk for JumiaPay. He was the CEO of Jumia Côte d’Ivoire from April 2022 to November 2023. In December 2023, Renaud became the Regional CEO leading a cluster of 5 countries: Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Senegal, Tunisia and Algeria.

Before joining Jumia, Renaud worked in Paris (France) with Deloitte where he was an auditor from 2009 to 2012 (main clients: LVMH, Accor, and Orange) and then worked from 2012 to 2015 as Manager in the Transaction Services department focusing on Retail and Industry.

Renaud holds a MSc from HEC Paris Business School (France), a Master's degree in Business Law from La Sorbonne University (France), and is a Chartered Accountant.