SuperReturn Africa 2012 Speakers Included:

Simon Harford joined Actis in 2006, based in Nigeria. He is a partner of the firm and now based in Johannesburg. He has held various roles including as Head of the West Africa business; building operational performance in investee companies in Africa; and as co-Head of the Africa region, in which Actis has ~$1.5 billion funds under management, 4 offices and 23 investment professionals.

Nick joined the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead in 2007 and is the Pension Fund Manager for the Royal County of Berkshire Pension Fund. He has been instrumental in conducting a thorough review of the Fund’s governance structure as well as instigating a major overhaul of the Fund’s investment strategy. In April 2008 the Fund announced its new investment strategy with a wholesale move away from equities into other return seeking assets

Helios Investment Partners (“Helios”) is an Africa-focused Private Equity firm, which operates a family of funds and their related co-investment entities, aggregating more than $1.8 billion in capital commitments. Henry is responsible for the operations of the firm and is a member of Helios’ investment committee. Prior to joining Helios, he was a Partner for several years at Aureos Capital in London. He started his investment career in the power investment team at CDC and has also worked at Actis and Dynegy, a US energy trader. Henry has an MBA from the London Business School. He is Chair of the Emerging Market Private Equity Association’s  Africa Council and sits on the advisory board of Maris Capital.
 

Citadel Capital is the leading private equity firm in the Middle East and Africa. Established in 2004, Citadel Capital now controls investments of US$ 9.5 billion in industries including mining, oil and gas, cement, transportation and food. Prior to joining Citadel Capital, Mr. Sadek was Managing Director of the Arab Investment Company (ABIC), one of the largest private-equity firms in Egypt. During his tenure, Mr. Sadek returned a substantial part of the firm's total investments (valued at over EGP 500 million [US$ 90.91 million]) to ABIC's shareholders in the form of dividends and share buybacks.

Mr. Erroz leads Allstate’s PE activities in Europe, Asia and Africa. He joined the firm in early 2010 and has completed over 14 commitments outside of the Americas since. Previously he worked at the Private Equity arm of GIC, where he was responsible for fund relationships and co-investments with a wide range of Europe-focused and global sponsors and attended to the advisory boards of several large European funds. Prior to GIC, he worked in the Mergers and Acquisitions group at Deutsche Bank in London.

Hassan Karimi is an Associate Director within the Private Equity team at Emirates Investment Authority. Before joining EIA, Hassan was at The Carlyle Group Dubai office looking at investment opportunities in the MENA region. Prior to this, he was an investment banker at UBS in London and Paris.



Based in Nairobi, Christoph Evard has co-responsibility for structuring and managing DEG’s equity and mezzanine investments in Africa, excluding the Financial Services and Infrastructure sectors. Prior to DEG, Christoph worked in M&A Corporate Finance for Deutsche Bank and JP Morgan, where he held several positions. Christoph is co-founder of a business in the services industry, working closely with CEOs of mid-sized corporations.

Kevin Njiraini, is a Senior Investment Officer in the International Finance Corporation’s Private Equity and Investment Fund’s department. Kevin left Washington DC in 2009 to set up IFC’s first Private Equity office in Africa (Nairobi). He previously worked with IFC’s Global Financial Markets department where he worked on transactions in Africa, Asia and Central America. Prior to joining IFC Kevin was the general manager of an investment bank.

Mr. Nairne has served as the Lundin Foundation's Managing Director since 2007. He serves on the Advisory Board of several SME funds and companies in Sub-Saharan Africa and is concurrently appointed as an Adjunct Professor at the University of British Columbia, where he teaches courses on Country and Project Risk Analysis and African Political Economy. Prior to joining the Lundin Foundation, Mr. Nairne served as Deputy Director with Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade's Pacific Office and as Senior Political Risk Analyst at Export Development Canada.

Alex Wolf joined HarbourVest’s London-based subsidiary’s primary partnership group in 2008 and became a senior associate in 2011.  He focuses on buyout, credit, cleantech, and venture capital partnership investments across Europe. In addition, Alex works on partnership investments in emerging markets, primarily in Africa.  He joined the Firm from Deloitte in London, where he was in the strategy consulting group working on a number of commercial due diligence and corporate strategy engagements. 

Linda joined the EPPF in September 2008 in the role of Investment Multi-Manager and was appointed as Chief Investment Officer in 2010. She held various positions in the financial industry, including investment management and consulting roles at the Transnet Pension Fund and Fifth Quadrant Actuaries and Consultants respectively.

IFC has commitments of more than $3.0 billion in over 180 private equity funds plus investments in two dozen fund managers, all dedicated exclusively to emerging markets.  Mr. Tropper joined the PE group in 2001, when it was formed originally as a portfolio workout unit for older funds. Prior to 2001, he was the HQ "anchor" for the supervision work of IFC’s South Asia Department, with a portfolio of 100 companies in the financial sector.  Until September 1999, Mr. Tropper served in IFC’s Latin America and Caribbean Department. Mr. Tropper joined IFC after several years as Deputy Director of the Northeast-Midwest Institute in Washington, D.C.

David Cowan is currently a Managing Director at Citi and the economist responsible for the banks economic research on Africa. Prior to joining Citi in July 2007, he held two posts at the Economist Intelligence Unit in London for a total of eight years. As Senior Economist for Africa he was responsible for their coverage of Ghana, Nigeria, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe and also the overall forecast for Sub-Saharan Africa. He then moved on to serve as Director of the Middle East and North Africa team, leading the coverage of Egypt and Morocco. Prior to joining the Economist Intelligence Unit he worked for six years as Principal Research Officer at the Bank of Botswana, the country’s central bank.

Stephen been involved for 25 years with ECI, which specialises in mid-market buy-outs and is now non-executive chairman. Jacana Venture Partnership,aims to expand the provision of funding and resources for African growth businesses. Jacana invests in and supports growth capital managers and has been working with InReturn Capital (covering the East African market) since January 2010 and with Fidelity Capital Partners (based in Ghana) since January 2011.

Patricia M. Dinneen has primary responsibility formanaging the BRIC Opportunities Funds, focusing on private equity investments in Brazil, Russia, India and China. Prior to joining Siguler Guff in 2004, she was at Cambridge Associates where she led the emerging markets private equity advisory business. Previously, she worked for 10 years at British Telecommunications. She has also held positions at Hughes Communications, RAND Corporation, and the White House.