Chief ICT & Innovation Expert · African Development Bank Group
Chief ICT and Innovation Expert at the African Development Bank. An $850M+ portfolio across digital infrastructure, AI policy, venture financing, and youth employment.
About
People sometimes describe me as a complex problem solver. That's part of it. But it doesn't quite capture how I actually work. I immerse. I sit with a problem long enough to understand its texture, who it hurts, who benefits, what nobody is saying out loud. The context isn't separate from the analysis. Often it is the analysis.
That's partly because Africa isn't a case study to me. It's where I'm from. The young person who can't find work, the entrepreneur waiting six years for a license, the country trying to leapfrog into a digital economy without the rails to do it, these aren't abstractions. They're the lived experience I carry into the room.
The work itself takes many forms. Strategy and structuring large investments. Drafting policy with governments. Designing institutions where none exist. Negotiating with global partners. Writing research and op-eds. Mentoring the next generation. Sometimes building the system. Sometimes redesigning the one that's there. Sometimes just naming the problem properly so others can move.
My career has run through that thread. Management consulting at KPMG and PwC in London, advising multinationals on innovation, risk, and data-driven strategy. Then development finance, where I've spent over a decade contributing to digital transformation, human capital, and youth employment programs that have reached hundreds of thousands of young Africans.
Today I serve as Chief ICT and Innovation Expert at the African Development Bank, contributing to Africa's digital transformation strategy and an $850M+ portfolio of programs spanning digital infrastructure, AI policy, venture financing, regulatory sandboxes, and institutional design. The work sits at the intersection of government, private sector, development finance, and technology.
My conviction: this is a pivotal moment for the continent. The potential of digital-enabled development to transform our economies, rapidly, is too significant to miss. Africa's task now is to rebuild around economic development powered by innovation and digital. I want to be useful in that.
Education
Where I Work
Fiber, technology parks, data centers. The unglamorous backbone that decides whether everything else is even possible.
Shaping AI policy at the G20 and continental level. Making sure Africa is in the room when the rules get written, not after.
University-led innovation hubs, fintech sandboxes, and demand-led skills programs. Over 200,000 young Africans have come through them.
Sovereign-backed venture funds, blended finance, structured capital. New ways to move money to founders who would otherwise be locked out.
Cross-border digital trade, startup acts, regulatory sandboxes across ten-plus countries. Often the slowest, most consequential work.
Selected Work
At the African Development Bank, alongside its partners
A $2 billion program to build 90,000km of fiber infrastructure in Nigeria, structured as a blended public-private investment backed by AfDB, the World Bank, EU, Islamic Development Bank, and other partners.
A $618M investment in digital and creative enterprises, one of the largest innovation-focused sovereign operations in Africa.
A $60.8M sovereign-backed venture fund designed to catalyze Rwanda's startup ecosystem.
A $51M initiative transforming a tourism-dependent island economy into an international digital hub.
Academic-led innovation hubs developed in collaboration with the African Union and East African Community, extending the triple-helix model through the Pan African University and Nelson Mandela Institutes across seven countries.
Leading the Bank's work on AI strategy at the G20 Digital Transformation Working Group, including the flagship 2025 report projecting up to $1 trillion in additional GDP for Africa by 2035, and contributing to the African Union's 2024 AI Strategy.
Training over 200,000 youth in demand-led digital skills across multiple African countries.
Pioneering regulatory sandboxes for the WAMI region to accelerate fintech innovation and inclusion.
Thinking
Inclusively deployed AI could generate up to $1 trillion in additional GDP for Africa by 2035, close to one-third of current output. The question is no longer whether, but how fast and how inclusively.
Digital economies cannot be built on rhetoric. Fiber, data centers, and tech parks are the unglamorous prerequisites that determine whether the AI dividend arrives at all.
Sovereign venture funds, blended finance, and SPVs represent the next frontier of innovation financing in Africa, moving beyond donor cycles toward sustainable, returnable capital.
Africa stands at a rare inflection point where digital-enabled development could rapidly reshape its economies. Demographics, digital capacity, and sectoral reform have aligned. The cost of missing this window is generational.
Publications & Reports
Academic research, policy reports, and op-eds on digital transformation, regulation, and Africa's innovation ecosystems.
Speaking & Engagements
Conferences, panels, and policy dialogues on digital transformation, AI, and innovation, in Africa and beyond.
Advisory & Board Roles
Beyond Work
Mother. Daughter. Researcher. Creative.
All of it shows up in the work.
A quiet creative at heart; author of a children’s book titled Feast on Arufa Street, and a ‘baby designer’ behind Kutuliza, where I design pieces for myself and a close circle. For me Faith, profession and creativity aren’t separate threads they’re the same one. I am because of of all of that...
Contact
Speaking engagements, advisory work, or a conversation about where things are heading. Always open to good thinking and good people.