NABA - in partnership with Norfund - will start the year by looking into the future: what will happen on the continent in 2022?

Ms. Razia Khan is Chief Economist for Africa in Standard Chartered Bank and a well-known commentator on African markets. She advises clients on Africa's strategy and provides regular updates to African central banks, finance ministries, and multilateral institutions. She joined the Standard Chartered Bank in 1997. She currently serves on the World Economic Forum Global Future Council on Migration and on the Advisory Board of the Royal Africa Society.

Mr. Lanre Akinola is Head of Content at NABA. He is the former editor of This Is Africa, a Financial Times publication, and African Business Magazine. He has worked with the Bloomberg Media Initiative Africa, and is a 2014 Desmond Tutu Leadership Fellow.

Simbah is currently the Regional Director for Southern Africa at Norfund.
Simbah started his career at Citi in London in 2007 in the Telecoms, Media and Technology team where he advised on over 15 transactions. Following the completion of his Master in Finance in 2013, he joined the M&A team at Liberty Global focusing on Europe and Latin America. Whilst at Liberty Global he executed transactions resulting in over US$6bn of investment in the cable sector. Simbah re-joined Citi in 2015 based in Johannesburg firstly as a Vice President and was subsequently promoted to Director in 2018. Throughout this period, he lead the execution of transactions totalling over US$10bn across Africa.
Simbah holds a BSc (Hons) in Business Mathematics and Statistics from the London School of Economics and a Master in Finance from the University of Cambridge.

Wale Shonibare has over three decades experience spanning Asia, Europe, Middle East and Africa in Investment Banking and Consulting. He joined the African Development Bank (AfDB) in 2017 as the inaugural Director responsible for Energy Financial Solutions, Policy and Regulation. The Financial Solutions team has since established itself as a leading transactions team across Africa, having undertaken several Mandated Lead Arranger roles and facilitated total investment of approximately USD 29 billion in numerous projects ranging from solar PV, concentrated solar, hydro-electric dams, gas-fired power plants, LNG facilities, battery storage solutions and geothermal energy plants. The Policy, Regulation and Statistics team has, under his leadership, launched well-acclaimed flagship initiatives such as the Electricity Regulatory Index to improve the enabling environment for private sector investment in the energy sector.
Wale is currently a Non-Executive Director on the Board of the Africa Guarantee Fund, and an Advisory Board Member of the Nigeria Infrastructure Debt Fund and Inspired Evolution Investment Management respectively. Prior to joining the AfDB, he held various senior management-level positions at Investment Banks and Consulting Organisations in the UK, UAE and Nigeria.
Wale holds a B.Eng (hons) in Civil Engineering from Glasgow University and an MBA from Imperial College, University of London.

Hutch leads & manages the Control Risks’ East Africa business where he supports clients to be secure, resilient and compliant in their market entry, operations and growth across a footprint of ten countries. Hutch is based in Nairobi, Kenya and specialises in advice to business leaders and investors on matters relating to enterprise risk, business resilience and crisis management.
Before joining Control Risks, Hutch served, as a commissioned officer in the British Army, for ten years and served on active duty on three operational deployments. Hutch’s career culminated, after Staff College, in developing cross governmental cyber policy.
Following his time in the military, Hutch worked in support a FTSE registered extractive company before joining PwC as their Africa Business Resilience Director supporting over 9,000 partners and staff across over 16 countries in the sub-Saharan region.

Mr. Jens Thomassen has 20 years of experience with principal investments and business development from the energy sector in industry and private equity. At Denham Capital he was the director of the Power Deal Team from 2012-2017, responsible for origination, analysis, structuring, valuation and execution of investments. Jens Thomassen has previously been director at Hg Capital, where he originated, executed and managed investments in the wind, solar, hydro and conventional energy sectors across Europe. Before Hg, he was with GE Energy Financial Services, BHP Billiton, BP and Enron.
Mr. Thomassen holds a Master of Science in Finance from the Norwegian School of Economics and the University of St. Gallen.

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