WELCOME AND OPENING SESSION

Ms. Cooke previously worked for the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa in the U.S. Congress, as well as for the National Academy of Sciences. She has lived in Côte d’Ivoire and the Central African Republic and speaks French. She earned an M.A. in African studies and international economics from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and a B.A. in government, magna cum laude, from Harvard University.

Dennis Flemming began serving as Project Director of the Niger Delta Partnership Initiative in 2009 and has been based in the Nigerian capital of Abuja ever since. Most of his professional years were spent in Papua New Guinea, initially when he was assigned by the Peace Corps to serve as Business Development Officer in the South Pacific Island nation in 1986. Three years later, Flemming helped create Income Marketing Ltd, an organization established to provide small business development services and advice.

Flemming joined Chevron as Local Business Development Supervisor in 1992; and later on became Community Affairs Manager. He spent a year as Staff Planning Analyst in the company’s headquarters in San Ramon and came back to Papua New Guinea in 2000 as Sustainable Development Manager. In this capacity, he established and managed the CDI Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to socio-economic development of rural communities near the company’s field operations. In 2004, Flemming managed the Angola Partnership Initiative and other corporate responsibility and socio-economic development programs for Cabinda Gulf Oil Company, Chevron’s Angolan subsidiary. When he joined Chevron Nigeria Ltd, Flemming spearheaded community engagement strategies including renegotiation of agreements with regional development councils. Dennis Flemming holds a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from the University of Florida and a master’s degree in Sustainable Development specializing in Development Management from the University of London

Bisa Williams

Organization: US Department of State

Title: Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for West Africa

 

Bisa Williams is a career member of the Senior Foreign Service, with the rank of Minister Counselor, and is currently Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of African Affairs at the U.S. Department of State, responsible for West Africa and African economic policy issues. She served as U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Niger from 2010 to 2013. She was the Coordinator for Cuban Affairs in the Bureau for Western Hemisphere Affairs in the Department from 2007 to 2010 and also served as acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs covering Central America, the Caribbean and Cuba in 2010.

 

From 2005 to 2007, Ms. Williams served on the White House staff at the National Security Council as Director for International Organizations. Her other postings include Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Port Louis, Mauritius, “Africa Watcher” at the U.S. Embassy in Paris, France, Special Assistant to the Secretary of State, Advisor on African development and economic issues at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations in New York, Special Assistant to the Coordinator of Assistance to the Newly Independent States of the former Soviet Union, deputy country desk officer for Liberia and country desk officer for Sierra Leone and Cape Verde, political officer (twice) in Panama City, Panama, and general services officer in Conakry, Guinea. Ms. Williams speaks French, Spanish, and Portuguese. She is the recipient of five Superior Honor and four Meritorious Honor Awards.

 

A proud native of Trenton, New Jersey, Ms. Williams holds a Master of Science degree in National Security Strategy from the National War College of the National Defense University in Washington, DC, a Master of Arts degree in Comparative Literature from the University of California, Los Angeles, and she received her Bachelor of Arts degree cum laude in Black Literature of the Americas from Yale.

Mr. Joseph Chiedu Keshi, also known as Joe, OON, served as the Chairman of United Bank for Africa Plc from December 22, 2013 to August 2014. Mr. Keshi served as Vice Chairman of United Bank for Africa Plc from January 1, 2011 to December 22, 2013 and its Director since July 2010. Mr. Keshi joined the Nigerian Public Service in 1975 and has over thirty five years work experience, some of which were at the highest level of government. Apart from serving in a number of Nigeria’s diplomatic missions and heading a few, he was, at various times, Permanent Secretary, Cabinet Secretariat, the Presidency and Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

He serves as a Director of South Strategy and Chairman of Afrigrowth Foundation. He is both an alumnus of the John Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University and the Harvard Business School. Mr. Keshi holds a B.Sc. in political science from University of Ibadan Nigeria; M.A. in Administration and Development from Institute of Social Studies, the Hague, Netherlands and Post Graduate Diploma in International Relations and Diplomacy from Nigerian Institute of International Affairs, Lagos, Nigeria.

Sam Daibo - Executive Director, PIND Foundation

Experienced in both conflict management and in business, Sam Ogbemi Daibo serves as the PIND Foundation’s Executive Director. Previously, he acted as Plantation Manager for KB Rubber Industries and as Sales Manager for Procter & Gamble. An associate member of the Chartered Institute of Mediators and Conciliators, Daibo has received extensive training in negotiation, consensus building, and designing financial systems for the poor.

Until his move to PIND, he was Chevron’s Community Engagement Coordinator, West. In this capacity, Daibo implemented community development projects and evaluated government agreements with participating groups and other stakeholders. Daibo holds a bachelor’s degree in Agriculture and a Master of Business Administration

Prof. Obafemi Ajibola is the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of New Nigeria Foundation. He is a Professor of Agricultural Engineering, a Fellow of the Nigerian Society of Engineers, a Fellow of the Nigerian Academy of Engineering and a former Deputy Vice Chancellor of Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife.

He has extensive administrative, research, teaching and consultancy experience. He has undertaken consultancy activities for several reputable national and international Organizations including UNDP, Food and Agriculture Organization, DFID, Federal Department of Agriculture, Federal Environmental Protection Agency, National Strategic Grains Reserve Agency etc. Prof. Ajibola is blessed with a loving family whose support has contributed immensely to his successful career.

Eniola Mafe is the Program Manager for the Niger Delta Partnership Initiative Foundation (NDPI), established by Chevron Corporation in 2010 to invest in socioeconomic development programs in the Niger Delta region. Under this initiative, Chevron established a US$50 million fund to support a portfolio of projects and partnerships aimed at reducing poverty in the region. As a partnership initiative, NDPI generates collaboration among a diverse collection of partners including bilateral and multilateral aid donor agencies, federal and state government agencies in Nigeria, private companies and civil society organizations.

Eniola served as Program Manager on Africa at Vital Voices Global Partnership with a special focus on organizational development, entrepreneurship, and economic development in sub-Saharan Africa. Eniola managed the Africa Businesswomen’s Network (ABWN), a partnership among local African businesswomen’s organizations that enhances the management, business development, and leadership skills of businesswomen. Eniola also manages other programs focused on the growth of women-led small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Since its formation in 2008 the network has developed member associations in six countries and has served more than 21,000 women.

 

Prior to joining Vital Voices, Eniola worked with Women’s World Banking Ghana (WWBG), where she developed social impact methodology to quantify the social and community impact of the microfinance institution on its clients, investors, and wider community. She also worked at APCO worldwide, where she focused on corporate responsibility research and market analysis. Eniola began her career as an Equity Financing Analyst for Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

 

Eniola Mafe was named one of the 99 most influential foreign policy leaders under the age of 33, or the “99 Under 33,” by the by Diplomatic Courier and Young Professionals in Foreign Policy in 2011, as well as 13 Young Africans Business/Economic Leaders to Watch in 2013 by Ventures Africa Magazine. She is a frequent speaker and guest lecturer on the topic of economic development and women’s entrepreneurship development in Africa. Eniola holds a M.A. from Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, specializing in International Business and Development, and graduated Phi Beta Kappa with B.A in International Studies from Spelman College.

Ese Emerhi is currently serving as the Program Manager for NDLink, a new online collaborative space for development practitioners and stakeholders in the Niger Delta. With over 12 years of professional experience as a human rights activist and digital activist, civic mobilization trainer, knowledge management and community of practice (CoP) specialist, she previously worked as a knowledge management consultant and CoP Manager for the Knowledge Exchange Unit at the World Bank.

 

For the past 12 years, she has worked in both the public and non-profit sectors to build online communities, develop strategies for human rights defenders and advocates in the Middle East, and trained young people in civic engagement tactics from effective civic disobedience to voter registration and monitoring for such organizations as Amnesty International, Presidential Classroom, Freedom House, the Washington Peace Center, Education for Hope, and the Young Nonprofit Professionals Network (YNPN).

 

Ese also currently serves as the Team Lead and Principal for Vote or Quench, a 501 (c) 3 virtual organization with a social platform for connecting like-minded Nigerian youth everywhere on issues that matter to them, from job security to digital net freedom, from women's rights to building stronger educational foundations for children in Nigeria. Founder of Ihreme Consulting, she specializes on building strategies for thriving online communities of practice for the development sector in Africa. 

BREAKOUT 1: COLLECTIVE ACTION FOR PEACE AND SECURITY

Dr. J. Peter Pham is the director of the Atlantic Council's Africa Center.Pham was previously senior vice president of the National Committee on American Foreign Policy, and editor of its bimonthly journal, American Foreign Policy Interests. He was also a tenured associate professor of justice studies, political science, and Africana studies at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia, where he was director of the Nelson Institute for International and Public Affairs. He has served on the Senior Advisory Group of the US Africa Command since its creation.

Pham is the author of more than 300 essays and reviews and the author, editor, or translator of over a dozen books, including, most recently, Somalia: Fixing Africa's Most Failed State (Tafelberg, 2013; coauthored with Greg Mills and David Kilcullen). Pham also contributes to a number of publications including The National Interest and Foreign Policy, and regularly appears as a commentator on broadcast and print media outlets including CBS, PBS, VOA, CNN, the Fox News Channel, MSNBC, NPR, the BBC, Reuters, the Associated Press, Agence France-Presse, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Washington Times, USA Today, Newsweek, US News & World Report, The Times of London, New Statesman, Maclean's, Le Monde, and Le Temps.

Pham is the incumbent vice president of the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa (ASMEA), an academic organization which represents more than 1,300 scholars of Middle Eastern and African Studies at more than 300 colleges and universities in the United States and overseas, and is editor-in-chief of ASMEA's Journal of the Middle East and Africa.

A staunch advocate of robust American engagement with Africa, Pham served as member of the USAID-funded International Republican Institute (IRI) delegation monitoring the national elections in Liberia in 2005. He also served on the IRI pre-election assessment (2006) and election observation delegations to Nigeria (2007, 2011) and Somaliland (2010). He is also a frequent guest lecturer on African affairs at the Foreign Service Institute, the US Army War College, the Joint Special Operations University, and other US government professional educational institutions.

Krista Hendry became Executive Director of The Fund for Peace (FFP) in January of 2009 after nearly a decade at the organization. Ms. Hendry has played a critical role in the organization''s restructuring from a traditional think tank to an organization focused on building local capacity, utilizing partnerships across sectors, and creating a working environment that enables FFP to have a major impact globally through constant innovation, multi-stakeholder collaboration and the use of information technology. From 2004-2011, Ms. Hendry directed FFP’s Human Rights and Business Roundtable, a collaborative multi-stakeholder forum that focuses on issues related to businesses operating in conflict-sensitive areas

Ms. Hendry currently serves on the Steering Committee of the Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights, an international multi-stakeholder framework designed to provide practical guidance to strengthen human rights safeguards in company security arrangements in the extractive sector. Ms. Hendry is also a member of the Advisory Board to the Conflict Risk Network, a network of institutional investors, financial service providers and other stakeholders calling on corporate actors to fulfill their responsibility to respect human rights and take steps that support peace and stability in areas affected by genocide and mass atrocities

She received her MBA from the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University and is a graduate of the University of Virginia, where she concentrated on Foreign Affairs and German Literature. Ms. Hendry currently chairs the Board of Directors of Liberty’s Promise, a non-profit that develops programs to increase civic participation of and career opportunities for low-income immigrant youth in the United States.

 Peter W.  Aubrey (Colonel, U.S. Army, Ret.) is the owner and chief executive officer of Strategic Opportunities International (SOI). Mr. Aubrey is a recently retired senior U.S. Army Special Forces/Foreign Areas Officer with extensive Special Forces operational, security assistance  and diplomatic experience in both peacetime and combat environments. He was one of the U.S. Army’s leading experts on Africa prior to his retirement, with six tours on the African continent along with numerous operational deployments. Prior to starting SOI, Pete served as the Commander, U.S. Army Security Assistance Training Management Organization (USASATMO), the brigade-equivalent command, headquartered at Fort Bragg, N.C., that is responsible for executing foreign training assistance on a global basis on behalf of the U.S. Army.

Other key military assignments included service as the first Director, Security Cooperation for United States Army Africa located in Vicenza, Italy; Defense and Army Attaché to the Federal Republic of the Nigeria, Defense and Army Attaché  the Republics of the Cote d’Ivoire, Burundi and Mozambique, non-resident Army Attaché to the Republic of Burkina Faso, Malawi and Uganda and the Security Assistance Chief to the Republic of Djibouti. Diplomatic highlights include service as the delegation head for initial Army-to-Army talks with Algeria as well as duties as the delegation head for the Army-to-Army talks with Libya in 2009 . He has also served as the Military Delegation Lead for the Gulf of Guinea Energy Security discussions.  Other highlights include directing and supporting two non-combatant evacuations. He also served as the Deputy J3, US Forces Japan. He has two Masters degrees, a Master of Arts in Political Science (International Relations focus) from the University of Florida and a Masters of Arts in Strategic Studies from the U.S. Army War College.

Dr. Peter Lewis is Associate Professor and Director of the African Studies Program at the John Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. His research and teaching focus on economic reform and political transition in developing countries, with particular emphasis on governance and development in Sub-Saharan Africa. He has written extensively on questions of economic adjustment, democratization, and civil society in Africa; democratic reform and political economy in Nigeria; public attitudes toward reform and democracy in West Africa; and the comparative politics of economic change in Africa and Southeast Asia. His most recent book, Growing Apart: Politics and Economic Change in Indonesia and Nigeria is concerned with the institutional basis of economic development. Dr. Lewis has published several other coauthored and edited books, numerous book chapters, and articles in World Politics, World Development, the Journal of Democracy, the Journal of Modern African Studies, African Affairs and others. He is a member of Council on Foreign Relations and the Research Council of the International Forum for Democratic Studies, and a Senior Associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He has consulted for the Ford Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, the Carter Center, the Council on Foreign Relations, Freedom House, USAID, and the World Bank. He received a BA degree from the University of California, Berkeley, and MA and PhD degrees from Princeton University.

BREAKOUT 2: ACCESS TO ELECTRICITY IN THE NIGER DELTA

Andrew L. Fawthrop is the former Chairman and Managing Director at Chevron Nigeria Limited, Nigeria Mid Africa Strategic Business Unit of Chevron Corporation. Mr. Fawthrop served as Vice President of International Energy Operations and Senior Vice President of Unocal Corporation, U.S.A. He was responsible for the upstream and downstream activities in the South Asia region. He focused equally on operational excellence, significant growth opportunities and government and industry relations. He held various positions of increasing responsibility of exploration activities around the world including, China, Egypt, Indonesia, Mexico, Africa, Latin America and Europe.

Mr. Fawthrop served as a Director at Chevron Nigeria Limited. He served as a Member of Advisory Board of Eurasia Group. He served as a Director of Hindustan Oil Exploration Co. Ltd. from January 22, 2003 to February 2005 and served as Director of Hoec Bardahl India Limited. He was an active member of the United States Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce, the Asia Society of Texas and the Houston World Affairs Council. Mr. Fawthrop holds a Bachelor's Degree in Geology and Chemistry and a Master’s Degree in Marine Geology from the University of London.

Tunde Gbajumo is currently the Chief Executive Officer of US Symbion Power Nigeria (subsidiary of Symbion Power LLC). He has considerable experience of the power business globally, starting from his previous appointment as Commercial Director/Board member of AES Nigeria Barge Limited (subsidiary of AES Corporation, USA) and the first IPP in Nigeria. In that role, he was a member of the Europe, Middle East and Africa leadership team and participated in the first non-government project finance deal in the Nigerian power sector. Furthermore, he was a member of the energy committee of the Nigerian Presidents Vision 2020 program and co–authored the report which is currently being implemented through the road of map for power sector reform. Prior to Symbion, he advised several clients including ACTIS, Globeleq, AFGEN, AES Corporation, Omotoso Electric (winners of NIPP Omotoso Phase 2), Lagos State and Ogun State on projects in Nigeria, Ghana, Benin, Mauritania and Liberia.

Mr. O. Matthew Edevbie is the Chief Executive Officer and founder of Income Electrix limited, a leading electrical engineering company in Nigeria. Mr. Edevbie is also the Chairman of a number of Nigerian Companies, which include Consolidated Investments Limited and Kevtrics Nigeria Limited. Although he is known as a sales and business development guru, Matthew is also a seasoned engineer and astute administrator.

Prior to setting up Income Electrix, Matthew spent over 5 years with SOKO-TECH (Nig) Ltd a local Engineering Company, helping build its client and project base from 1986 to 1992. during his tenure.

After just a few years of working with SOKO-TECH, Mr. Edevbie decided to strike out on his own, and set up Income ELectrix Limited to pursue his passion for Power Engineering. For Matthew and Income Electrix, success was earned through hard work and dedication to innovation and satisfying the needs of clients.

Mr. Edevbie has attended a host of professional courses organized and delivered by leading international professional bodies and educational institutions. These include The Owner President Management Program at the Harvard Business School, Cambridge Massachusetts, USA, International Workshop on Nigeria Infrastructure Provision, Understanding Privatization and Public Private Partnerships for Senior Executives at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, Cambridge Massachusetts USA, Developing Leadership Competencies at the IESE Business School, University of Navarra, Barcelona, Spain, Electrical Protection by Basler Electrical Company in France and the USA, SCADA & Telementry Workshop (SCADTEL) in Coventry UK, the Lagos Business School Owner Managers Programme and several others with Philips Consulting and the Lagos Business school.

Mr. Edevbie is a registered member of the Nigerian Society of Engineers, the Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN) and the Nigerian Environmental Society. Matthew is an active member of Enterprise Development Services (EDS) of the Lagos Business School. Wharton Business School, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia USA.

BREAKOUT 3: EXPLORING COLLABORATION FOR DEVELOPMENT RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS

Mwangi S. Kimenyi is Senior Fellow and Director of the Africa Growth Initiative in the Global Economy and Development program of The Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. He has been a faculty member of the Department of Economics at the University of Mississippi and the University of Connecticut and is the Founding Executive Director of the Kenya Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis (KIPPRA).

Kimenyi is also a Research Associate with the Center for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford, U.K. He has been a visiting Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. Mwangi Kimenyi also served as member of the Board of Directors of Equity Bank, Kenya.

Kimenyi received his undergraduate degree at the University of Nairobi-Kenya, and completed graduate studies at Ohio University and George Mason University, where he obtained a Doctorate degree in Economics in 1986. He has also studied for certificate programs at the University of Michigan and Harvard University.

Kimenyi’s research focuses on institutions and economic development, Africa’s political economy, and policies for economic growth and poverty reduction. He has authored or co-edited 7 books, 6 policy monographs and has published widely in refereed journals and books.

Kimenyi is a recipient of many honors and awards including co-winner of the Outstanding Research Award (2001) by Global Development Network (GDN), the Georgescu-Roegen Prize in Economics (1991), and was recognized by the Senate and House of the State of Mississippi for work on Public Transit. In 1994, Kimenyi was named by the Policy Review (Washington DC) among the top ten young market economists in the United States. During his tenure as Executive Director of the Kenya Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis (KIPPRA), the Institute was ranked the top policy institution in Africa and recognized as an international center of excellence.

Christopher O’Connor is the Assistant Program Officer for West Africa at the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a private, nonprofit foundation dedicated to the growth and strengthening of democratic institutions around the world. At NED, Christopher oversees a multi-million dollar civil society grants program in Nigeria, analyzes political developments, designs country programs, and identifies policy gaps in human rights, peace building, democracy assistance, and corruption that can potentially be addressed by local partners through NED funding. 

NED partners in the Niger Delta work to address human rights, women’s political empowerment, and government transparency and accountability. Christopher has also participated in the Peace and Security Working Group in Abuja, which aims to better coordinate peacebuilding programs in Nigeria using data from Partners for Peace, UNLocK, and the Nigeria Security Tracker.

Prior to joining NED, Christopher served as an International Development Fellow with Catholic Relief Services in Abuja, Nigeria, where he worked on peacebuilding and good governance projects. He has also worked on the Fund for Peace’s UNLocK project.

Christopher received his MA in Conflict Resolution from Georgetown University and his BA in African, Asian, and Russian History from Washington and Lee University.

Boyd Montgomery consults on energy issues. He has been involved with natural gas and power issues for 35 years including stints at Unocal where he was VP South and East Asia and at Constellation where he built a portfolio of 24 power plants covering coal, wood, gas, solar and geothermal energy sources. He led consortiums that bid on Enugu and Benin distribution companies and has proposed several distributed generation projects in the Niger Delta region. He was active in US Chamber of Commerce sponsored Businesses councils for India, China and Bangladesh.

BREAKOUT 4: PARTNERING TO GROW BUSINESS IN THE NIGER DELTA

Ambassador Robert Perry is vice president at The Corporate Council on Africa (CCA) where he manages CCA’s conferences and programs to foster understanding of business opportunities in Africa and to build relationships for future partnerships. He also served as managing editor of CCA’s March 2009 report The United States and Africa – Policy Recommendations from the American Private Sector for the Obama Administration. Ambassador Perry joined CCA in 2003 after a career in the U.S. Foreign Service at the Department of State, where he served as Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of African Affairs (July 2001 – December 2002) following an assignment as U.S. Ambassador to the Central African Republic. Ambassador Perry is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the American Foreign Service Association, and has served on several NGO boards. He earned a B.A. in Political Science from Wittenberg University and a M.A. in International Relations from American University.

Clay Neff is managing director of the Nigeria/Mid-Africa business unit for Chevron Africa and Latin America Exploration and Production Company, based in Lagos, Nigeria.

Neff began his career as a drilling engineer in Chevron’s Gulf of Mexico business unit in Lafayette, Louisiana, in 1985. In 2000, he was named Midstream manager for Chevron North America Exploration and Production Company and assumed the same position following the Chevron-Texaco merger in 2001. He then led the team that formed the Chevron Natural Gas Marketing and Trading organization in 2003.

Later in 2003, Neff became general manager of Asset Development for the San Joaquin Valley business unit (SJVBU) in Bakersfield, California, responsible for drilling, field development, and reservoir management for SJVBU’s company-operated and non-operated joint venture assets. He was also a member of the Global Upstream Heavy Oil Technology Focus Area Steering Team, responsible for testing and deploying key heavy oil technologies worldwide. He held this position until 2006, when he was named general manager of Operations for the Gulf of Mexico business unit, now located in Covington, Louisiana.

 In 2009, Neff joined the Southern Africa strategic business unit (SASBU) as Production Operations manager, where he was responsible for Cabinda Gulf Oil Company’s shallow and deepwater operated production, maintenance, terminal and marine offloading operations in Malongo. He was then named general manager of Asset Development for SASBU in 2011. Neff earned a bachelor’s degree in petroleum engineering from Louisiana State University in 1984. He is married to Margaret Lyons Neff and has two children who are attending university in the United States.

Dr. Mima Nedelcovych is the President and CEO of the Initiative for Global Development (IGD), a nonprofit organization that engages corporate leaders to reduce poverty through business growth and investment in Africa.

Prior to joining IGD, Dr. Nedelcovych was the Chairman of Schaffer International, the successor company to the Schaffer Global Group. For the Schaffer Group, he is the lead Partner in the establishment of the Markala Sugar Project in Mali, and serves as the Chairman of the Société Sucrière de Markala.

He has also established an independent consulting practice focused on trade facilitation, project development, project finance, and public-private partnerships in Africa. Dr. Nedelcovych has worked with clients such as Carana Corporation, USAID, and Abt Associates to identify and advise investment opportunities in Africa, as well as with corporate clients such as International Green Structures, Illovo Sugar and JML Investments, Novel Commodities Group, and SATAREM Renewable Energies to develop specific investments.

Dr. Nedelcovych served in the Administration of President George Bush from 1989 to 1993 as the U.S. Executive Director to the African Development Bank (AfDB) in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire. He was instrumental in formulating the “private sector initiative” at the AfDB, the African Business Roundtable and the African Export-Import Bank. Prior to being named Executive Director to the AfDB, Dr. Nedelcovych held the position of Principal at Arthur Young’s International Consulting Group, specializing in privatizations and private investments in Africa.

He received a BA in Political Science from Yale University, an MA in International Relations from George Washington University, and a PhD in Comparative Political and Economic Development from Florida State University (in conjunction with Mohammed V University in Rabat, Morocco).