Investment Committee
Unparalleled Financial Insight In Selecting High-growth Opportunities
Mr. David Johnson currently runs his own corporate finance advisory firm Alwyne Partners. He is a seasoned corporate finance and investment banking practitioner with over 30 years’ experience having completed US$ 9.4 Billion in international advisory deals and ZAR 32 Billion of principal bids and acquisition transactions in South Africa.
Ms. Geetha Tharmaratnam is the Chief Impact Investment Officer of the WHO Foundation. Previously she was Partner – Africa & Head of Impact for LGT Impact, founding partner of T5 Africa Capital Partners, portfolio management team member and a principal in the CIO Office at Aureos Capital. Geetha is an advisor to Capria Ventures, an accelerator for impact fund managers and acts as Advisor for Capria Ventures, a global investment firm facilitating the flow of impact capital by providing fund managers with acceleration and advisory services, funding, and access to a growing network of leading fund managers around the world.
She was previously with Abraaj Group, a growth markets private equity (PE) firm investing $7.5 Billion in 160+ businesses in Africa, Latin America, Middle East and Asia as Director, Portfolio Management. Prior to Abraaj she was with Aureos Capital, the largest SME Emerging Markets PE firm investing $1.3 Billion in Africa, Latin America and Asia, as Principal, Investments and ESG.
She brings over 16 years international work experience in banking, insurance/reinsurance, PE and development finance in Emerging Markets. Geetha has served on several industry and economic forums such the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council on Sustainable Development, the African Venture Capital & Private Equity Sustainability Board Sub-Committee, Emerging Markets Private Equity Association and Principles for Responsible Investing Working and the G8 taskforce on Impact Investing.
She is an MBA and MSc Mgmt. Research (Private Equity as an instrument of development in Africa) Graduate of Said Business School, Oxford University. Her first degree was a BSc (Hons) in Finance from University of Bridgeport, Connecticut, USA.
Mr. Boikanyo Kgosidintsi was previously Managing Director of Western Life Insurance and has also acted as the Group Investor Relations Head at Letshego Holdings Limited. His primary responsibilities are to develop and maintain strategic dialogue with key domestic and international capital market participants, as well to assist with on-going capital raising and liquidity initiatives that are key to diversifying the Group’s sources of funding and bringing down its overall cost of funding.
Boikanyo joined Letshego from Barclays Africa in Johannesburg – he started there with Absa Capital in 2008, initially working in the Africa Debt Capital Markets team, subsequently moving to the Investment Banking Africa desk to assist in the sub-Saharan Africa coverage build out. Prior to that, over a period of 15 years, he developed his broader financial services experience working at the Botswana Stock Exchange, some of the leading commercial banks and other non-bank financial institutions in Botswana. Boikanyo has deep African capital markets experience having been involved in debt capital market raisings in excess of US1 .5bn for sovereign issuers, blue chip corporates and Government related entities.
Specifically, Boikanyo has been involved structuring, execution and marketing of transactions to domestic and international institutional fixed income investors.
Mr. Nigel Dixon-Warren has over 30 years of tax, accounting, audit, risk and corporate advisory experience, of which 24 were with KPMG Botswana where he served as Country Senior and Managing Partner until September 2018 as the firm’s primary point of contact for investment related advisory covering market entry, corporate structures, tax and compliance. Some of his career highlights include successful liquidation of a fast food business with over 350 employees which was eventually sold as a going concern, successful operation and handover of a major mining group with over 500 employees for nearly 3 years and successful temporary management of life insurance company with no redundancies.
He is currently a Director at Desert Secretarial Services a firm that provides Company Secretarial Services, Accounting, Taxation, Payroll and Business Consultancy Services.
Nigel is a Fellow Member of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants ( FCCA-UK) and Fellow Certified Professional Accountant (FCPA – Botswana.)
Mr. Bishy Butale is the Chief Finance Officer at Orange Botswana, having cut his teeth as a graduate trainee at BTC in 1998 and ascended to several senior management positions among them beMOBILE Head of Finance and Head of Financial Planning & Control of the BTC Group. He has been privileged enough to be at the nerve centre of game charging projects of BTC such as setting up of a mobile greenfield, process re-engineering, organizational transformation, initial public listing among others. He has also served as the chairman of the Investment & Finance subcommittee of the BTC Pension Fund.
Bishy holds a Bachelors degree in Accounting from University Botswana, MSC in Strategic Management from University of Derby and SMDP from University of Stellenbosch. He qualified as a Chartered Accountant at the Financial Training Company in London and is an alumnus of Orange Business School (AAA New Excellence Programme) which targeted top talent from the Group’s affiliates. Bishy was appointed ambassador of ACCA in 2015.
Mr. Yaw Keteku is a finance professional and investor with 20 years of experience in the US, Europe, and Africa. He has spent the last 10 years focused on private debt and equity investments in Africa. Yaw co-founded Aleph Commodities, a London based investment and trading business focused on energy opportunities in the EMEA region. Previously, Yaw was an Associate Partner at Vantage Capital in South Africa focused on mezzanine investments in West and Southern Africa.
Prior to that, he worked in the energy investment banking group of Credit Suisse in New York, and the corporate finance group at American Express. Yaw represents Norfund on the Investment Committee of AgDevCo and serves as the board chairman of InterTank Nordic AB in Sweden and IC Liquidity Fund in Ghana. He holds a BA in Economics from Dartmouth College and an MBA from the University of Michigan.
