The Trajectory Africa is a “pop-up” podcast exploring the trajectory, or pathway, of venture capital and startup formation in Africa. With the unique African landscape—market characteristics, business environment, goals, and culture—as a starting point, The Trajectory Africa aims to identify a destination for African tech, as well as the sign posts that signal direction of travel. It’s modeled on the concept of a mixtape, in which each episode, or “track” will feature a conversation with a “guest artist”, and a playlist for inspiration. https://spoti.fi/37cDtsH

Query Insights helps organizations make sense of ambiguous areas of inquiry through research, design thinking, and systems thinking. Produced exploratory research for Kinyungu Ventures, the ITC, OSIWA, and the RSA.

Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA) works through a unique combination of grant making, advocacy, partnership building and technical assistance. I have conducted research on emerging models of shared business ownership in Africa with a focus on agricultural cooperatives in Nigeria, women-led enterprises in South Africa, and the gig economy in Kenya. https://osiwa.yux.digital/

I supported a research, innovation mapping, and network building project for the RSA and the Autodesk Foundation focused on the Future of Work in Europe and Sub-Saharan Africa.

Primary author, researcher, and co-publisher of Chasing Outliers: Why Context Matters for Early Stage Investing in Africa. Tony Chen, Managing Director of Kinyungu Ventures, Osarumen Osamuyi, Founder of The Subtext, and I explored what drives outcomes for early stage venture deals in Africa. After interviewing 100 investors, founders, and LPs, we learned: 1) how assumptions behind the Silicon Valley VC model contradict African market realities; 2) how investors and founders navigate these mismatches; and 3) how people and company characteristics influence African startups. https://kinyungu.com/chasing-outliers

I organized virtual conversations about the role of tech hubs in African startup ecosystems and their business models in the era of COVID-19, rooted in a report I co-authored:https://www.intracen.org/publication/Tech-Hubs-in-Africa-Supporting-Start-Ups-Second-edition/

The International Trade Centre is a multilateral agency that has a joint mandate with the World Trade Organization and the United Nations through the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. I co-authored a technical paper on the role of tech hubs in African startup ecosystems with an emphasis on financial sustainability and business models.

infoDev was a multi-donor program in the World Bank Group's Trade & Competitiveness Global Practice that supported entrepreneurs in developing economies.XL Africa was the World Bank Group's three-month post-acceleration pilot program. XL Africa engaged 20 of the most promising digital start-ups from Sub-Saharan Africa with the goal of helping selected start-ups raise between $250,000 and $1.5 million in early stage capital.Key accomplishment:I created a starter pack for XL Africa’s implementing consortium including suggested investors, ecosystem builders, and mentors as well as accelerator design insights from 30+ stakeholder interviews; 9 mentors, 4 investors, and 2 media partnerships emerged from this effort. I also identified and scheduled meetings with key contacts for 3 partnership building trips to Silicon Valley and South Africa.

The ITU is the United Nations' specialized agency for information and communication technologies. I drafted an innovation ecosystem assessment toolkit based on the ITU's methodology, which was tested in multiple countries. It was refined, edited and published by the ITU in mid 2017.

AfriLabs is a pan-African network of 200+ technology innovation hubs. I was AfriLabs' first Executive Director, and my primary responsibilities included: fundraising and financial management, strategic partnership development, project management and activity execution, member and external stakeholder engagement, website and marketing management, performance assessment, and board facilitation.Key accomplishments:*Raised $300,000+ in programmatic funding*Shepherded network growth by 200% from 13 to 40 members*Oversaw the successful board transition from a founding board to a member-composed board*Brokered major partnerships with funders such as the Rockefeller Foundation, OSIWA, Hivos, the British Council, and Microsoft 4Afrika*Designed and piloted three new programs, including Hub-in-a-Box (HiAB), a workshop focused on hub sustainability models, organized in partnership with iceHubs Global and Impact Hub*Represented AfriLabs as a speaker at key events such as the Global Entrepreneur Summit (Nairobi), ITU Telecom World (Doha, Budapest), and UNICEF's Innovation Summit (Helsinki)*Organized two network-wide annual gatherings

I engaged in academic research on impact enterprises, as well as fundraising support and marketing content development for four entrepreneurial ventures, two of which are highlighted below.*The William Davidson Institute (WDI) is a non-profit research and educational institute established at the University of Michigan. At WDI, I supported a Rockefeller Foundation funded research study to understand what drives the success and failure of impact enterprises, or businesses designed to deliver social impact, and how their scale and impact varied by sector, region and business model. My primary deliverables were: extracting impact enterprise influence factors through literature review, helping to create a framework of influence factors, and writing the initial draft of the research report.*Cinemart was an African digital cinema chain that aimed to provide entertainment (movies, television-style programming, and premium sports) at affordable prices to Africa’s middle-class and base of the pyramid consumers. Its mini mall format would also enable retail access to third party partners such as primary health clinics, mobile payment agencies, pharmacies and grocery stores. I helped the founder think through fundraising options with a focus on impact investors, and potential partnerships with a focus on social enterprises selling critical goods and services, such as solar lanterns.*Neighbor Capital was a Chicago-based social enterprise that had developed outdoor vending carts to provide entrepreneurship opportunities for at-risk individuals and fresh, affordable fruit and vegetables to customers living in food deserts. I analyzed three models of employee compensation and incentive management for the founder: direct selling, microfranchising, and conversion franchising.

African Leadership Academy (ALA) develops the next generation of African leaders. I worked closely with ALA's Co-Founder to launch its Entrepreneurial Leadership Center, with an emphasis on initiating the Anzisha Prize, ALA's signature award for young African entrepreneurs. Key accomplishments:*Led the recruitment of two new hires associated with the Center, one of whom still works for ALA*Drafted and executed an implementation plan for the Anzisha Prize launch, including finalizing the website and completing a soft launch with key partners*Facilitated the selection of the current prize name (Anzisha) by polling students and faculty for African words that embodied the spirit of the prize; Anzisha, which was eventually selected, means "to initiate" in Swahili

Mission Measurement supports influential decision makers by connecting them to a new generation of research for standardizing, measuring and predicting social outcomes. I was a consultant for the nascent international development practice.Key accomplishments:*Initiated internal dialogue about MM's core purpose, mission, and vision and the connection of these to business strategy*Helped revise the M&E strategy of the Frontier Leader network, an Initiative for Global Development program that brings together senior executives from sector-leading companies that drive poverty reduction through strategic investments in Africa. The core challenge was to strengthen and clarify the link between SME investment and engaging the poor as producers, consumers, and employees.

Endeavor works to catalyze long-term economic growth by selecting, mentoring, and accelerating the best high-impact entrepreneurs around the world. I participated in Endeavor's eMBA program.Key accomplishment:Developed a strategy to facilitate the US entry of a shoe-fit diagnostic technology, creating a partnership with a technology commercialization firm and yielding an offer for product placement in 500 US retail locations

I executed marketing and business development projects for the following three entrepreneurial ventures:*Burke & Partners was a startup boutique consulting firm focused on providing market research and due diligence support to medium size companies. As one of two employees, I supported business development, edited the business plan, and advised on brand identity. *TaxHelpers was a startup retail tax preparation company launched by the founder of Burke & Partners. As a consultant to the founder, I performed a post-mortem analysis of the company's first few months of operation to help him decide whether to revamp his business model or shut down.*Suburban Telecom is a supplier of wholesale internet solutions to Nigeria’s GSM operators and ISPs. As a new member of the fledgling marketing team, and with the support of the CMO, I conceived and implemented a planning retreat for the marketing staff in order to educate the team, and secure alignment with the marketing strategy.

Princeton in Africa develops young leaders committed to Africa’s advancement by offering year-long fellowship opportunities with a variety of organizations that work across the African continent. I served as a PIAF Fellow for 1.5 years in Nigeria, extending the fellowship after the initial 1-year commitment. The focus was leadership training and capacity building for political parties after civilian elections in 2003.Key accomplishments:*Organized a 60-person forum attended by multiple stakeholders, including women political party leaders and National Assembly members, which culminated in the launch of a coalition to support women’s electoral participation.*Designed six training modules that were incorporated into a state political party leadership academy and helped to develop a training manual to guide future facilitators.*Trained the leadership of nine national parties on organizational effectiveness, strategic planning, and the inclusion of women and youth in party activities.

Catalyst is a NY-based nonprofit with a mission to accelerate progress for women through workplace inclusion. I was a member of the newly-created marketing team.Key accomplishments:*Managed a major redesign of Catalyst's website, which included coordinating the efforts of the marketing department, a design firm and two technical consultants, at a fraction of the original bid offer *Assessed the effectiveness of the external communication strategy for six research studies by tracking media hits garnered, consulting engagements generated, and publications sold, creating a platform for impact measurement