#BreakTheBias: ACA celebrates International Women’s Day (IWD) 2022
The month of “March” is observed annually as the women’s month, and March 8th commemorates International Women’s Day (IWD).
This year, African Capital Alliance (ACA) marked the IWD 2022 with the theme #BreakTheBias, contributing to the conversation “#BreakingtheBias: Transformational Journey- Professional and Personal Experience” in a roundtable event. The event focused on the ACA women sharing their experiences. More importantly, it presented an opportunity to take stock and re-strategize on how to drive better parity within the communities free of bias, stereotypes, labels, and discrimination, as well as empower others.
The keynote speaker, Dr. Ogechi Adeola, Associate Professor of Marketing and Head of the Department of Operations, Marketing and Information Systems at the Lagos Business School, Pan-Atlantic University, Nigeria, talked about her transformational journey and shared insights on navigating through stereotypes and biases. The event culminated with fun and engaging conversations in Q & A style.
International Women’s Day (IWD) is a global movement dedicated to celebrating progress, raising awareness, and showcasing commitment toward strengthening gender equality and empowerment of all women.
Ashraf Deenmahomed Speaks at the CISI Wealth Summit
A global network of professionals working in wealth, investment management, and financial services came together for the CISI’s Global Wealth Summit 2021, a three-event series on November 16, 2021. The summit, which was hosted, virtually attracted eminent speakers from this sector, including some of the most well-known thought leaders in the world.
Ashraf Deenmahomed, COO of African Capital Alliance; Ononuju Irukwu, Chartered MCSI, MCBI, HCIB, Head of Private Banking, First Bank of Nigeria; Erica Bruce, President of the South African Institute of Stockbrokers, and Paul Njoki, CEO of Standard Chartered Investment Services engaged in an insightful panel discussion to explore the African business ecosystems, its divergence, and ease of doing business across the different regions.
Ashraf highlighted many opportunities to explore in the energy sector- as everyone is transitioning to renewable energy, and energy infrastructure is expected to boom shortly. He explained that African countries could take advantage of the diverse energy infrastructural prospects through high-level government commitments like subsidies.
In his closing statement, he remarked that everything in Africa is an opportunity. He further said that in relation to more developed continents, Africa adapts easier to innovation and new elements. However, there is a gap between the poor and uneducated, which, when closed, would result in lots of competition as Africans are both talented and passionate.
Okey Enelamah Speaks at the FT Live 2021 Conference
The Financial Times’ inaugural tech summit: #TechFTlive, themed “Aligning Policy, Strategy and Innovation”, gathered over 2,000 leading business innovators, policymakers, and industry-leading speakers across two days; 30 September – 1 October 2021, sharing deep insights on how technology is transforming business and society.
Okechukwu Enelamah, Chairman, African Capital Alliance (ACA) was a speaker on a panel that discussed the “Emerging Tech Hubs: Africa on the Horizon”. Discussions focused on the opportunities arising for the youngest, fastest-growing, and hyper-connected populations in Africa, and highlighted the most available sectors for digitisation, as well as possible barriers that could limit the impact of tech in Africa, which stakeholders need to be aware of.
The insights gathered from the discussions, reflected a booming tech scene in various countries in Africa, the spike in innovation as well as investment in recent years. There was a clear emphasis that boosting the overall tech potential in Africa would need to be a deliberate process of identifying the opportunities as well as the right funding levels & partners, backed by the right government policies. It was agreed that many countries, like Nigeria, have the ingredients, including the growing talent pool (that could benefit from further development). Conclusions were that though progress was slower than desired, inevitably, the right things are being done and therefore positive, predictable outcomes can be expected to materialise over time. In Okey’s words, “The cooperation and partnership between governments, privates, academic institutions, and trade associations, would be instrumental in building out the talent in Nigeria”.
About #TechFTlive
#TechFTLive is a Financial Times’ technology summit that held virtually, alongside its European leading tech festival, the TNW Conference. The summit explored new ways to harness the learnings on digitization amid lockdowns and provided insight on the key technology trends for the year ahead.
Ron Mincy Speaks at the UN Youth SDG Summit
The Youth SDG Summit, hosted by UNITE 2030 held as a virtual event from September 22- 24, 2021. UNITE 2030 is focused on mobilizing participation to accelerate the SDGs by 2030. The summit-themed “Power on Energizing a Greener and Sustainable World” focused on how organizations and individuals alike can achieve a greener and more sustainable world, united under one message: to plug in and power on!
Ron Mincy, Partner, ACA, was a speaker on the panel that comprised Lisa Kurbiel, Head of the Joint SDG Fund Secretariat; AY Young, Founder of the Battery Tour; Henry Mcloughlin, Strategy, Partnerships, and Advocacy Lead of Capricorn Investment Group; and Gemma Styles, Influencer.
Highlighting the role of capital mobilization to Africa in moving the continent closer to the 2030 goals, Ron emphasized the need to invest in companies and businesses that are directly producing renewable energy, as well as those that offer renewable solutions or use renewable energy to power their services and distributions.
The insightful panel discussions explored their passions, platforms, and the opportunities available for everyone to lend their voices, join forces, take action, and move towards achieving the SDGs by 2030 to reach those most affected by extreme hunger, poverty, and climate crises, and injustices.
One of the discussion highlights was captured in a few inspiring words by Ron Mincy, “We need to make more and more raindrops to make an ocean. We need more people and more people to achieve the SDGs. We can do it. We have the platforms; we have people like AY Young and Gemma Styles mobilizing youth participation. We need to share with everyone the importance of plugging into the SDGs and powering on to achieve our 2030 goal.”
ACA Foundation hosts Stakeholder Outreach
July 27, 2021
The ACA Foundation hosted a Stakeholder outreach-themed “Doing Good; Doing Well – a Symbiotic Approach” on Friday, July 23, 2021. This event had in attendance Investors, CEOs, Business Executives, Professionals, and Social Entrepreneurs within ACA’s network and across Africa.
The keynote address, a major highlight of the event, was delivered by Mr. Piet Colruyt, an experienced (impact) investor and board member of several organisations, including Korys (the holding company of the Colruyt Group). The session was moderated by Simi Nwogugu, Executive Director of Junior Achievement Africa (JAA).
The inspiring and insightful session provided stakeholders in attendance with an enriched perspective on being change agents in a post-Covid reality. It also emphasized the need to be deliberate at doing good with their respective platforms.