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Founding Partners & Global Advisors

Trustees

Senior Advisors

Harambean Advisors

Team

Founding Partners & Global Advisors

Irene Pritzker

IDP Foundation

Irene Pritzker is founder and President of the IDP Foundation, Inc. in 2008. The IDP Foundation is dedicated to developing and supporting programs that are sustainable and move away from aid dependent models. She believes a combination of smart philanthropy and investment solutions can be galvanized to make that future a reality, as demonstrated by the success of IDP Rising Schools Program in Ghana. In 2017, IDP became a Founding Partner of Harambeans and launched the Harambeans Global Access Program.

Michael Hastings CBE, Lord Hastings of Scarisbrick

British Parliament

Lord Dr Michael Hastings is Global Head of Citizenship for KPMG International. He has also served as a Member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Council on Diversity and Talent, the WEF’s Global Agenda Council on the Role of Business and joined the WEF Global Agenda Council on Migration. He was previously a non-executive Director of British Telecom (on the Board for Responsible and Sustainable Business) and was a Global Board member of Millennium Promise. In 2017 he was installed as the second Chancellor of Regent’s University London. Lord Hastings is a mentor to several Harambeans and Co-Chair of the Harambeans Global Advisory Board.

Bridget Fury

Oppenheimer Generations

Bridget Fury is Founding Director of the Oppenheimer Generations Foundation. The Foundation,  an accumulation of the Oppenheimer family’s philanthropic giving across Africa, intersects with Harambeans on its efforts to drive youth development, job creation and ethical leadership. In her previous role, Bridget advised a range of governments, donors, NGOs, corporations and individuals in social and impact investment strategies and structures. Bridget advises and mentors Harambeans.

Flaminia Giovanelli

Vatican

Flaminia Giovanelli is the retired Under-Secretary of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, and as such was recognized as the highest-ranking laywoman in the Roman Curia. Giovanelli is an expert on economics and political science, with a profound knowledge of ethical, work-related, economic, and financial issues and was able to make decisive contributions to the Holy See’s input on questions of integral development, poverty and social cohesion at international institutions such as the UN, the EU, the Council of Europe and the World Labour Organisation. She is author of several children’s books and co-founder and President of O Viveiro Girl School in Mozambique. Giovanelli has been mentoring and welcoming Harambeans to the Vatican since 2011.

Jeremy Johnson

Andela

Jeremy Johnson is the CEO and co-founder of Andela, a company co-founded with Harambean Iyinoluwa Aboyeji, H’09 on the idea that brilliance is evenly distributed. With that as their backbone, Andela invests in Africa’s most talented software developers to help companies build high-performing engineering teams. Prior to founding Andela, Johnson co-founded 2U, one of the world’s fastest growing education technology startups. 2U went public in 2014 (NASDAQ:TWOU) and continues to transform higher education by delivering the world’s best online degree programs with top tier universities. Johnson is a mentor and investor in several Harambeans.

Trustees

Mary de Wysocki

Cisco

Mary de Wysocki is Senior Director, Corporate Affairs at Cisco where she leads the Global Problem Solving Initiative, committed to positively impacting 1 billion people by 2025. Mary has over a decade of experience leading various corporate social responsibility and education initiatives for Cisco. She is a member of the World Economic Forum and a supporter of numerous Harambean-led ventures in education.

Pardon Makumbe

CRE Venture Capital

Pardon Makumbe is a Founding Partner at CRE Venture Capital. He served as a Principal at EL Rothschild in New York and London and is a graduate of Princeton University and the Wharton School of Business. Pardon is a mentor to Harambeans and, through CRE Venture Capital, has invested in Andela and several other Harambean-led ventures.

Yonas Beshawred H'08

Stackshare

Yonas Beshawred is the founder and CEO of Stackshare, a Silicon Valley startup on a mission to transform the way that all SaaS tools and infrastructure services are bought and sold. He studied Information Systems at University of Maryland, worked at Accenture and joined the inaugural class of Harambeans in 2008. Yonas is a founding member of the Harambe Board of Trustees.

Matthias Reichwald

Matthias Reichwald is a London-based freelance designer. He has worked with Interbrand and Pentagram in London and contributed articles to Design Indaba. Matthias served as Harambe’s Director of Design and is a founding member of the Harambe Board of Trustees.

Robert MacPherson

Reciprocus International Pte Ltd

Robert MacPherson is a Junior Partner at Reciprocus International Pte Ltd and Founder of Strathpoint LLC. He is also a researcher for the Centre for African Studies at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and his work on Asia-Africa affairs has been widely published. Robert is a founding member of the Harambe Board of Trustees.

Okendo Lewis Gayle

Harambeans

Okendo Lewis-Gayle is the author of Harambeans and founder of the Harambe Entrepreneur Alliance. He is the inaugural Schwarzman Founder in Residence at Tsinghua University in China and has served as Africa Advisor to the Vatican, Rhodes Scholars, and Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. Okendo is a graduate of Harvard University.

Senior Advisors

Kai-Uwe Ricke

Delta Partners

Kai-Uwe Ricke is the Executive Chairman of Delta Partners in Dubai. He served as CEO of Deutsche Telekom AG. Kai’s professional career has been dedicated to the telecoms, media and tech (TMT) industry where he has extensive experience as a senior executive, entrepreneur and private-equity investor. Kai is a mentor and investor in several Harambeans and is a founding member of the Harambe Advisory Board.

Alexander Pentland

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Professor Alex Pentland directs the MIT Connection Science and Human Dynamics labs and helped create and direct the MIT Media Lab and the Media Lab Asia in India. He is one of the most-cited computational scientists in the world. He is on the Board of the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data, co-led the World Economic Forum discussion in Davos that led to the EU privacy regulation GDPR, and was central in forging the transparency and accountability mechanisms in the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. He is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering, co-founder of Harvard-ODI-MIT DataPop Alliance and mentor of several MIT-educated Harambeans.

Jeremiah Gordon

CapitalG

Josephine & Jeremiah Gordon support and host Y Combinator Harambeans in Silicon Valley at their residence in San Matteo. Jeremiah joined Google in 2011 and has been the General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer of CapitalG since its creation. Jeremiah is a graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law School.

Alyne Kemunto Cistone

Eaton Peabody

Alyne Kemunto Cistone is a management consultant at the Maine-based law firm, Eaton Peabody. She is a Trustee of the College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor and a member of the Law Society of Kenya. Alyne and her family reside on Mount Desert Island, where she regularly welcomes Harambeans working on ventures related to climate change.

Francesco Tronci

Investindustrial

Francesco Tronci is Senior Vice President at Investindustrial, a leading ESG-responsible private equity group based in Switzerland. Tronci is a long-time officer for the NOVA-MBA Association (uniting thousands of Italian MBAs abroad), a volunteer/supporter of Mentors4u (pro-bono mentoring network for university students) and a co-founder of Sardinia in Business and Finance (bringing executives to teach pro-bono to students on the island).Tronci mentors Harambeans and hosts summer seminars for them in Switzerland.

Parminder Vir

Tony Elumelu Foundation

Parminder Vir has enjoyed a distinguished career as an awarding winning film and television producer and private equity investor in film and media. She has served as a Board Director on UK India Business Council, Department for Culture Media and Sports, the UK Film Council and The Indus Entrepreneurs UK. Vir also served as the CEO of the Tony Elumelu Foundation, one of Africa’s leading philanthropic organisation based in Lagos, Nigeria from April 2014 to April 2019. She brought her unique mix of skills, talent, and imagination to design, develop and launch the TEF Entrepreneurship Programme, a 10-year, $100 million commitment to identify, train, mentor, and fund 10,000 entrepreneurs from across the continent. Vir enjoys mentoring Lagos-based Harambeans.

Robin Roberts

Rehearse It!

Robin Roberts is the founder of Rehearse it! and was previously the senior partner for the global executive search firm Egon Zehnder. He commissioned with 1st The Queen’s Dragoon Guards as a regular officer. Robin is a mentor and investor in several Harambeans and is a founding member of the Harambe Advisory Board.

Oscar Adelman

Sinai Ventures

Oscar Adelman is an Associate at Sinai Ventures where he sourced several investments including Grow Mobility (50x markup), Swiftmile (lead investor), Skyryse, Doorport (lead investor) and Esusu (lead investor). In addition to sourcing and diligence, he supports the fund’s operations including running their quarterly and annual LP reporting process. Prior to joining Sinai Ventures, he was a leading young professional at Young Venture Capitalists Association, an analyst intern at BMWi Ventures and OurCrowd. Adelman is a graduate of the New York University Stern School of Business and serves on the Budget & Audit Committee of Harambeans.

Ben Beisswenger

Chan Zuckerberg Initiative

Ben Beisswenger is Senior Technical Program Manager, Business Systems, Infrastructure with the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. He previously worked directly with non profits at Salesforce.org for 2.5 years, facilitating 500+ successful implementations. Beisswenger serves as Secretary of the Board and technology architect for Selamta Family Project, an organization that unites orphaned children and marginalized women to create permanent families by providing stable homes, education and developmental resources. He is an engineer by education and by heart. Beisswenger oversees the Connectivity Initiative of Harambeans.

Harambean Advisors

Elizabeth Masiyiwa, H'18

Simba Education

Elizabeth Masiyiwa is a social entrepreneur and advocate for youth-led social change. She is the managing director of Delta and the co-founder of Simba Education, a leading African edutech company in early years education. She is a strategic advisor on talent and long-term investment at Higherlife Foundation, for which she is also a board member. She serves on Harvard University’s Leadership Council on Africa and advises a number of entrepreneurship and philanthropy networks. Masiyiwa also co-manages a social impact investment fund on behalf of the family office. She became a Harambean in 2018.

Iyinoluwa Aboyeji, H'10

Andela, Flutterwave & future africa

Iyinoluwa Aboyeji is a serial entrepreneur, passionate about partnering with missionary talent and capital to build an African future. He spent the last few years as the CEO of Flutterwave, a business building payments technology and infrastructure to connect Africa to the global economy. During that time, he led the company to become one of the fastest growing payments technology businesses of all-time processing over $2 billion across over 50 million transaction with annual revenues of millions of dollars a year. Prior to Flutterwave, he co-founded Andela, Africa’s largest engineering organization with over 1000 software engineers with investment from Mark Zuckerberg and Google Ventures amongst others. Aboyeji became a Harambean in 2010.

Yasmin Kumi, H'16

Africa Foresight Group

Yasmin Kumi is the founder of Africa Foresight Group, an African-owned and managed firm that provides locally accessible, world-class insights and advisory services to grow local companies into global champions. Their services include research, strategy development, implementation support and stakeholder engagement. Kumi became a Harambean in 2016.

Melvyn Lubega, H'16

GO1

Melvyn Lubega is the co-founder and director of the GO1 team in South Africa. After honing his skills with the Boston Consulting Group, he joined GO1, an established leader in online learning and education, working alongside some of the largest companies in the world covering a wide range of industries and regions. GO1 empowers organisations to offer world-class training and invest in their most important asset – their people. Lubega became a Harambean in 2016.

Maya Horgan-Famodu, H'17

Ingressive

Maya Horgan-Famodu is a Nigerian-American entrepreneur, founder and partner at Ingressive, a firm that provides market entry, technology research and market operations services for firms and businesses expanding into Africa. She also founded Ingressive Capital, a venture capital fund investing in Africa-based technology companies. Horgan-Famodu became a Harambean in 2017.

Christian Okoye, H'13

Emerson Elemental

Christian Okoye is an Investment Manager at Emerson Collective where he manages late stage VC and growth equity investments in emerging market energy access and sustainable infrastructure. Prior to this he was an Associate with Endeavor Energy / Denham Capital in Ghana, a company that invested in infrastructure development in emerging markets, with a focus on Africa. Okoye became a Harambean in 2013.

TEAM

Lindy Larson

Chief of Staff

Lindy Larson is Chief of Staff at Harambeans. Prior to joining the Alliance she was the Global Programs Lead and Acting Regional director of Reach for Change – a Swedish social venture philanthropy that runs innovative accelerators and incubators for social entrepreneurs in 18 markets globally. Larson earned a BA in International Relations from Agnes Scott College in Atlanta, Georgia.

Ryan Lee

Venture Partner

Ryan Lee is a graduate of Harvard University with a passion for integrating emerging tech solutions in areas of greatest need. He co-founded two edtech startups involving virtual reality and served as co-director of the Harvard Vatican Leadership Summit.

Mary Eshun

Program Assistant

Based in Accra, Ghana, Mary Eshun has a Bachelors in Business Administration from the Ashesi University, and has interned at Global Media Alliance, Multimedia Group as well as completed the Ashesi University National Service.

Daniel Boateng

Admissions & Bretton Woods Manager

Daniel Boateng is an entrepreneur and the founder of an international education consultancy. He previously worked in admissions and recruitment at Lancaster University Ghana and is an alumnus of Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology where he obtained a Bachelor of Science degree in Agriculture.

FRANKLIN HIAGBE

EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT

Before joining the HEA team Franklin worked as office manager and program assistant at SEO Africa. He currently volunteers as a subgroup leader with The Rheumatology Initiative for Autoimmune advocacy, a mentor with the Ahaspora Changing Mindsets mentoring program, and general secretary of The Great Thinkers Club, a social impact organisation. Franklin obtained a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from the University of Ghana.

Christiaan Heydenrych

Cheymaxim

Christiaan Heydenrych is the creative director and founder of Cheymaxim Creative, a branding and omnichannel digital marketing agency based in Cape Town, South Africa. With over 20 years’ experience in the industry he has positioned, developed and marketed a number of national and international brands.

Matthew Weyers

Cheymaxim

Matthew Weyers studied Business Management at the University of Stellenbosch and is the Head of Digital Marketing at Cheymaxim, a branding and omnichannel digital marketing agency based in Cape Town, South Africa.
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