Richard Howe |
An Honours graduate of King’s College London, Richard Howe started his career with Unilever and spent his first professional years in advertising and marketing positions in London, before joining British American Tobacco in 1976. He retired in 2004 from British American Tobacco after nearly thirty years with the Group, having held four senior General Manager positions in three continents (Africa, Sri Lanka, Russia and Africa again) including three years as non-executive Chairman of BAT Cameroon. He founded Runyard Consulting (IOM) Ltd in 2004. Runyard advises foreign investors in Cameroon, especially in energy (D1 Oils plc, Helius Energy); mining (Geovic Mining Corp, Afferro Mining Inc, Legend Mining), and industry generally (Jindal Steel and Power, Diageo, Guinness). |
Ayo Ighodaro |
Dr Ayo Ighodaro has a 1st Class Honours degree in Physics from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria and a PhD in Management Science from Cornell University, USA. He has over thirty years’ experience in management consulting and corporate development in North America, Europe and Africa. He was recently Acting MD of a Nigerian estate and property development company with large land holdings, including the largest private industrial and residential estate in West Africa. He is Partner in a UK-based management firm set up to purchase, invest in and turnaround under-performing companies in sub-Saharan Africa. The firm also manages, purchases or disposes of non-core businesses for companies operating in Africa. He is also an Executive Director of another UK-based company specialising in the project development and enhancement of port facilities across sub-Saharan Africa. |
Emeka Onwuka |
Mr. Emeka Onwuka was born and bred in Nigeria. He has 20 years of banking experience in Nigeria, 6 years as Chief Executive Officer of Diamond Bank where he successfully handled the industry consolidation and recapitalization challenges in 2004/05 and increase of the banks shareholder value over 2000% through private placement, listing on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) and Initial Public Offering in 2005, and the acquisition of Lion Bank Plc. and its integration into the Bank in 2005. He also led the $120 million USD strategic equity partnership of Diamond Bank with Actis Private Equity, the Global Depository Receipts (GDR) offering in December 2007, and listing on the Professional Securities Market of the London Stock Exchange (LSE) in January 2008. He had 4 years consulting experience with Arthur Andersen, now KPMG Nigeria. He has also had a number of pan-African transaction experiences. He holds a B.Sc. from the University of Nigeria Nsukka and an MBA (1987) from the University of Benin. He is a Chartered Accountant and a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants Nigeria. He is also an alumnus of Wharton Business School and Harvard Business School (OPM 39). He recently resigned from the board of Enterprise Bank Limited as the Chairman on 1st October, 2013 and prior to this, he was the Group Managing Director of Diamond Bank up till April 30th, 2011. |
Mahesh Ramachandran |
Mahesh Ramachandran is co-founder and Managing Director of Commonwealth Inclusive Growth Services Ltd, an initiative focussed on banking the unbanked in India. Mahesh is a distinguished Sloan Fellow of the London Business School and holds a Masters degree in Management from University of London and MBA from University of Westminster. As a successful serial social entrepreneur, Mahesh has extensive experience in bringing concepts and start-ups to successful businesses. Mahesh advises in the areas of corporate governance, systems thinking, leadership development, emerging markets and social entrepreneurship. Mahesh’s earlier corporate experience includes working in Dun & Bradstreet Software, Head of IT & Business Strategy for Ford of Europe, Tata Consultancy EMEA Head of Strategy & Governance. |