Private Equity in Africa - An Investor's and Entrepreneur's Perspective

Baily Blair Kempner

Principal

The Abraaj Group

Baily Blair Kempner is a Principal on The Abraaj GroupÔÇÖs Global Markets team, focusing on investor coverage in the Americas. Based in New York, Baily has been involved in business development and fundraising for a number of The Abraaj Group's private equity funds. Baily joined The Abraaj Group after several years of experience with private fund investment and emerging markets. She joined the Group from Endeavor Global, where she managed the investments of Catalyst, a co-investment venture fund investing across emerging markets and in which she also played a key role in launching. Previously, she worked at Grassroots Capital, a private equity fund that invests in financial institutions throughout the emerging markets. Baily began her career at Lehman Brothers in the alternative asset management group.

Dabo Horsfall

Managing Partner

TriCap Investments

Dabo Horsfall is the Managing Partner of TriCap Investments. TriCap targets investments in private power and growth infrastructure companies in Sub-Saharan Africa. Dabo has over 13 years of Gas & Power Infrastructure sector work experience - in North America, South America, Europe and Africa. Dabo has executed Power deals worth over $3 billion. Prior to founding TriCap, he was responsible for energy infrastructure investing at African Capital Alliance in Nigeria. He had previously worked at Morgan Stanley Infrastructure Partners (MSIP), a $4 billion global Infrastructure investment fund in New York. Prior to Morgan Stanley, he was an investment banker at Lehman Brothers (later Barclays Capital) where he focused on Mergers and Acquisitions advisory. He began his career as a Chemical Engineer in Texas. Dabo holds a BSc. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin, an MPA from Columbia University and an MBA from New York University.

Nicolas Martin

Founding Partner

Baylis PE

Nicolas Martin is a founding partner of Baylis, a private equity firm that focuses on middle-market investments in industrial and manufacturing assets in Africa. Nicolas was previously a portfolio manager in the private equity group of Ashmore, one of the largest specialist investors in emerging markets with over $60B under management (2014). Nicolas led several of the highest return investments of the group, in a variety of emerging economies. As head of Africa for Ashmore, he led the firm through is first private equity investment in the continent. NicolasÔÇÖs private equity experience in emerging markets focuses on ÔÇ£frontierÔÇØ (non-BRIC) markets and spans South East Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America, in a wide range of industries. Nicolas holds an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and a MS in engineering from Supelec in Paris. He is a CFA Charterholder.

Richard Remy

Founder

PAN Africa Expert Network

Richard Remy is the Managing Partner of PAN Diaspora Capital Management LLC. He also works with PAN African Network, a non-profit African Expert Network that serves as an accelerator for fueling collective work on African ventures. He comes to the team with 10 years of international finance and investment banking experience gained from his work in Africa, Asia, Europe and the USA.

Femi Akinde

Founder

SlimTrader

Femi Akinde founded SlimTrader in 2010, a technology company that transformed the airline industry in Nigeria by providing consumers with the ability to purchase airline tickets through their mobile phones, something they were never able to do before. In 2015, SlimTrader expanded into the hospitality industry, providing thousands of African hotels with a real-time reservation system for connecting to the global travel economy. Prior to becoming CEO of SlimTrader, Femi worked at some of the most respected software and telecommunications firms in the world including, Gateway Communications, T-Mobile and Microsoft, where he served as Senior Finance Manager. Femi is a TED Fellow who earned his MBA from the University of Chicago.

William Thomas

Executive Director

E&Y Advisory

William R. Thomas is an Executive Director within Ernst & YoungÔÇÖs Advisory Practice and has over 16 years delivering external audit, internal audit, internal controls in large-scale transformations (ERP, Finance, Shared Services, Divestitures, Acquisitions, etc.) and risk management services. William currently serves as the Risk Sector Leader for the Americas Advisory Industrial Products (IP) Sector. He is also a founding member and executive sponsor for EYÔÇÖs Americas-Africa Market Network (AAMN). The AAMN is comprised of professional chapters designed to enhance the marketplace teaming between EYÔÇÖs Americas practice and Africa practice to support our Americas-based clients looking to grow within the Africa market. William is a Certified Public Accountant in Pennsylvania and Connecticut and he currently sits on the Board of Advisors for Saint Vincent College's Alex G. McKenna School of Business, Economics, and Government.