Charles Cadwell

Charles Cadwell is director of the Center on International Development and Governance at the Urban Institute. A lawyer with 30 years' experience in economic reform, deregulation, research oversight, and nonprofit leadership in the United States and developing countries, Cadwell joined Urban in 2007. As director of the center, he coordinates the research and technical assistance efforts of Urban staff and partners on projects around the globe. His own work targets governance reform, aid effectiveness, and integrating research and policy reform. Current projects include support for think tank capacity building in Indonesia, collaboration with colleagues supporting public sector system strengthening in Tanzania, developing new multicountry data on the structure and operation of the local public sector and service delivery, and addressing political economy barriers to implementation of poverty-reducing reforms.

Cadwell has also worked in the White House Office of Consumer Affairs, the Office of Advocacy at the US Small Business Administration, in private law practice, and—in the pre-Internet era—in the export information business. From 1990 to 2006, Cadwell was director of the IRIS Center in the Department of Economics at the University of Maryland. IRIS conducted research on economic development and reform in developing countries, working with reform leaders in 70 countries to understand and improve governance and economic policies.

Cadwell is a graduate of Yale College and the National Law Center at George Washington University. He is an adjunct professor at the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University.

Charles Adeyemi Candide-Johnson

Yemi is the senior partner at Strachan Partners and President of the Lagos Court of Arbitration (LCA), an independent, private-sector driven, international centre for the resolution of commercial disputes via arbitration and other forms of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) mechanisms. He is also a supporting member of the London Maritime Arbitration Association, and sits on the Board of Directors of the Nigeria Mortgage Refinance Company, and was Chairman of the Nigeria Bar Association, Section on Business Law.

He was called to the Nigerian Bar in July 1984 after obtaining his LLM degree (University of London) in the year 1985 and appointed as notary public for Nigeria in 1988. He was conferred with the rank of Senior Advocate of Nigeria in September 2003 and is a fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators of England (FCIArb). He is an approved examiner for the same institute and an honorary fellow at the Centre for International Legal Studies in Salzburg, Austria.

Yemi has also authored several scholarly papers, and co-authored a book entitled 'Commercial Arbitration Law and International Practice in Nigeria', a significant and substantial contribution to arbitration practice in Nigeria and West Africa. He is continuously engaged as leading counsel in on-going major and high profile commercial and public policy litigation across the courts in Nigeria and has been either counsel or arbitrator in several domestic and international commercial arbitrations in the maritime, petroleum, banking and construction industries.

Dr Anton Didenko

Anton is a Research Fellow in Business and the Rule of Law at the Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law. His primary role is to conduct research and organise events on rule of law issues in banking and finance. Anton holds a Doctor of Philosophy degree from the University of Oxford, where he completed his dissertation on the documentary history of the Cape Town Convention on International Interests in Mobile Equipment. He also holds a Masters degree from the Russian Foreign Trade Academy and a Magister Juris degree from the University of Oxford. Anton is a Russian qualified lawyer with ten years' experience in the area of banking and finance law and has worked as in-house counsel for major private commercial banks in Moscow and as senior associate at CIS London & Partners LLP in London. His experience covers a wide range of financing transactions, including those involving syndicated and subordinated bank lending, trade finance, ISDA and GMRA documentation, as well as banking regulations and conflict of law matters.

Oulimata Fall Sarr

Passionate about trade and development, Oulimata is a current Mo Ibrahim Leadership Fellow. In this latter capacity, she serves as the Advisor of the Executive Director of the International Trade Centre, a UNCTAD and WTO parent's organization, based in Geneva. She comes from the Senegalese Export Promotion Agency where she worked as the Head of Trade Promotion and Economic Intelligence Department. She has successfully implemented aid for trade projects that strengthened SMEs' international competitiveness, connected companies to global value chains and helped generate sustainable profits and social inclusion on the ground. Over the past 10 years, Oulimata developed and promoted exports of 'Made in Senegal' products from various sectors, including agriculture, seafood, handcrafts and textiles, in targeted international markets. She holds a MBA in Marketing and Strategies from the African Centre for Higher Studies in Management (CESAG) and a Master in Arts, Literature, Languages, and Communication (major in International Trade) from Charles De Gaulle Lille III University.

Tazeen Hasan

Tazeen Hasan is a Senior Legal Specialist in the Gender and Development Unit. She is the co-author of a recent book on Empowering Women: Legal Rights and Economic Opportunities in Africa. She was the legal specialist for the World Development Report (WDR) 2012: Gender Equality and Development and the WDR Companion Report Opening Doors: Gender Equality in the Middle East and North Africa. She worked on a multiregional initiative focusing on legal constraints over fifty years impacting on women's economic empowerment together with the Women Business and the Law Program. Prior to joining the World Bank Group, she practiced as a barrister in the UK and subsequently worked in Kenya as a legal advisor to NGOs. She obtained a Masters in International Law from the London School of Economics and a B.A. in Law from Pembroke College, University of Oxford.

Dr Donald Kaberuka

Dr Donald Kaberuka is former President of the African Development Bank Group and Chairman of the Board of Directors. He stepped down on September 1, 2015 after ten years, and is considered to be one of the most transformational leaders at the Bank. Between 1997 and 2005, Dr Kaberuka was Minister of Finance and Economic Planning for the Republic of Rwanda where he led the economic team with the government of Rwanda. In that capacity, he served as Governor for Rwanda for the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Prior to becoming Minister of Finance, Dr Kaberuka worked in the private sector in the commodities business, including a term as Chief Economist of the Inter-African Coffee Organization.

He is a former Hauser Leader in Residence within the Center for Public Leadership at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University (2015 - 2017). In January 2016, he was appointed as the African Union High Representative for the Peace Fund. Dr Kaberuka is also member of the Pan-African Advisory Team on African Union Reforms which is being led by President Paul Kagame of Rwanda.

Dr Kaberuka studied at the University of Dar es Salaam as an undergraduate and obtained his MPhil in Development Studies from University of East Anglia in 1979. He received his PhD in economics from the University of Glasgow.

Timothy Kakuru

Tim is a founding member at BarefootLaw and the Head of the mSME Garage Project. Academically, he holds a Bachelor of Laws Degree (LLB) and a Postgraduate Diploma in Legal Practice (Dip LP). Tim underwent clerkship with the Uganda Law Council, has worked as a researcher/reporter on the law making processes in the Parliament of Uganda and worked in a law firm specializing in commercial transactions. He has carried out research on the effects of the legal and economic environment on enterprises and the factors affecting business survival in Uganda. He led the team which planned and launched the mSME Garage Project in 2016.

Stuart Kerr

Stuart Kerr has 35 years of experience handling legal, regulatory, trade, dispute resolution, legal reform, and technical assistance issues throughout the developing world. He has advised international organizations, corporations, and governments in scores of developing and emerging economies.

Stuart is a member of Jones Day's Africa Practice. He joined the Firm in 2015 after serving as the legal and regulatory director of the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) for 10 years. MCC, founded in 2004, is an independent U.S. government development agency that provides major project grants — averaging $350 million per country — to developing countries, primarily in Africa, that demonstrate better governance practices than their peer countries. While at MCC, Stuart developed and helped implement projects in judicial reform (including commercial courts, small claims, arbitration and mediation), trade, and anticorruption. He also was senior counsel for Europe and Eurasia at the Department of Commerce's Commercial Law Development Program for three years and served for 15 years as executive director of the International Law Institute, a 60-year old international nongovernmental organization with branches in several countries that serve senior government officials in 175 countries through legal training, technical assistance, research, and publishing.

Stuart is a regular speaker and writer on law and development subjects. While at MCC, he gave more than 100 presentations on rule of law issues at locations as diverse as the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo, the Supreme Court of Singapore, the Palais Royal (Conseil Constitutionnel) in Paris, and the House of Lords in London. Stuart has served on the boards of academic organizations, foundations, NGOs, and bar groups in the U.S. and internationally.

Sheila Khama

As Practice Manager for the World Bank's Energy and Extractive Industries Global Practice, Ms. Khama is responsible for a variety of programs in the Extractives unit, with a particular focus on east and southern Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, Europe and central Asia, and the Extractives Global Programmatic Support Trust Fund. Ms. Khama joined the World Bank after serving as Director of the African Natural Resources Center at the African Development Bank (AfDB). In that role she helped African countries improve their development outcomes from natural resources. Prior to joining AfDB, Ms. Khama worked as Corporate Secretary for twenty subsidiaries of the Anglo American Corporation and De Beers Group. She was the CEO of De Beers Botswana serving on several corporate boards, including Debswana, the world's largest gem diamond producer by value. A native of Botswana, Ms. Khama holds an MBA from Edinburgh University Business School.

Justice Geoffrey Kiryabwire

Justice Geoffrey Kiryabwire is a Justice of the Court of Appeal and Constitutional Court of Uganda, and was previously Justice of the Commercial Division of the High Court of Uganda. He also sits as a Justice of Appeal at the East African Court of Justice in Arusha, Tanzania. He is also a part time Judge of the Arbitration Tribunal of the East African Development Bank in Kampala Uganda. He is a graduate of the School of Law of Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda and Kings College London School of Law, where he obtained a Master's Degree in Law.

Justice Geoffrey Kiryabwire also served as Chairman of the UNSECO Appeals Tribunal in Paris France (2010-2013). Before his appointment as a Judge in 2013, Justice Geoffrey Kiryabwire served as a CEO of Pan World Insurance Company Ltd and a State Counsel at the Attorney General's Chambers in Uganda.

Justice Geoffrey Kiryabwire was first appointed as a Judge in 2003 where he served at the Commercial Court Division of the High Court of Uganda. He went on to become Head of that Court in 2010. While at the Commercial Court, Justice Geoffrey Kiryabwire was involved in a number of case backlog reducing initiatives. One significant initiative was the introduction of Small Claims Court in Uganda which was an instant success and won The Public Sector Process Innovation Award in the category of Winner in 2013. He has also been instrumental in the introduction of court annexed ADR and court room technology.

Justice Geoffrey Kiryabwire has presented several professional papers on the subject of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) and Case Management and is also a contributor to the book "Arbitration in Africa" published by Graham & Trotman.

Katrin Kuhlmann

Katrin Kuhlmann is the President and Founder of the New Markets Lab, a non-profit law and development center. Her areas of focus include trade and development, economic law and regulation, entrepreneurship, and international legal and regulatory reform. She is published widely and frequently speaks on these topics, and she has testified before Congress on several occasions.

Ms. Kuhlmann is also a Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School and an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University Law Center, and she serves as a member of the Trade Advisory Committee on Africa of the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR). In addition, she is a member of the Advisory Boards of a number of organisations such as the Law and International Development Society (LIDS) at Harvard and Georgetown Law Schools, the Bretton Woods Committee, the Trade Policy Forum, and the Trade, Finance, and Development Experts Group of the E15 Initiative led by the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development and the World Economic Forum. Ms. Kuhlmann also led leadership positions in several non-profit organisations and think tanks, and was previously a Wasserstein Public Interest Fellow at Harvard Law School and a Senior Advisor at the Corporate Council on Africa.

Odunoluwa Longe

Odun is co-founder and CEO at DIYlaw, Nigeria's foremost legal technology startup. Odun is also Co-founder and Lead Counsel of The Longe Practice LP, (TLP), a law practice focused on proving legal solutions for entrepreneurship in Africa, representing both founders and early stage investors within Africa. She is an early stage angel investor and in her former life worked in the investment banking sector. In addition to her LLB from the Lagos State University and BL from the Nigerian Law School, Odun has a Masters in Law (Business Concentration) from Northwestern University School of Law and a Certificate in Business Administration from the Kellogg School of Management of Northwestern University. Odun is a HiiL Innovating Justice Fellow. She is a Board member of 'Ventures Platform Startup Foundation', a non-profit that supports entrepreneurs and innovators who leverage technology to create solutions to Africa's most urgent problems and is also a Board member of 'Bunmi Adedayo Foundation', a non-profit focused on improving primary school education for less affluent children in Nigeria.

Dr Moeketsi Majoro

Dr Moeketsi Majoro has recently been appointed Lesotho's Finance Minister. He is presently Member of Parliament representing the Thetsane #33 Constituency. He previously served as Minister responsible for development planning in the Kingdom of Lesotho where he spearheaded policies for structural transformation through integrating several cluster solutions and dialogues. Before joining the Government of the Kingdom of Lesotho as Minister and MP, he served as executive director at the International Monetary Fund representing 21 African countries on the Executive Board (2008-2012). He also served as fiscal analyst and Principal Secretary responsible for public finance as well as teaching economics at the National University of Lesotho during 1991-2000. He also serves as consultant in the areas of business and economics under his company, QE, and has served as a director on many boards. Dr Majoro earned his Ph.D at Washington State University

Eva Mappy Morgan

Madam Chief Judge, Eva Mappy Morgan, was called to the Bench in June 2010 and has been a member of the Honorable Supreme Court Bar since September 1992. She holds a Masters of Law (LL.M) degree with emphasis in Transnational Business from Harvard Law School, Cambridge MA, USA, a Bachelors of Law (LL.B) degree from the Louis Arthur Grimes School of Law; and Bachelors of Arts (B.A), Political Science from the University of Liberia. As Senior Chevening Fellow of York University, UK she studied Post-Conflict Reconstruction and Development with concentration in the Justice and Security Sectors; and is also a graduate of the West African Insurance Institute, Liberia. Judge Mappy Morgan is Assistant Professor of Law at the Louis Arthur Grimes School of Law, University of Liberia where she teaches Torts, Ethics and Moot court; and former Adjunct Professor of Washington and Lee University, Virginia USA lecturing on Access to Justice and Anti-Corruption. She is former Judge of the Tax Court for Montserrado County, Liberia, former Deputy Minister of Justice for Administration and Public Safety, Liberia, and has served in various legal capacities both in the private and public sectors. Judge Mappy Morgan is a former Registered Yoga Teacher, a student of Martial Arts and enjoys listening to a genre of music.

Andreja Marusic

Andreja Marusic is the Global Lead for Business Environment at the World Bank Group's Trade & Competitiveness Global Practice. She has over 20 year's expertise in investment climate and regulatory governance, including implementation of institutional reforms and capacity strengthening with public sector agencies. In her professional career, she worked on designing and implementing business environment and regulatory reform programs in many countries, in Central and Eastern Europe, Central Asia and Africa. Prior to joining the World Bank Group, she held several high level government advisory positions such as Head of the Regulatory Reform Unit at the Prime Minister's Office in Serbia and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Serbian Business Registers Agency. She also managed her own corporate law firm for a number of years, which enabled her to keep in touch with "real life" problems investors' face in complex regulatory environments.

Brian Milder

Brian is the Executive Vice President for Strategy & Innovation at Root Capital, a leading impact investor that provides debt financing and capacity building for agricultural businesses that aggregate smallholder farmers in Africa, Latin America, and Indonesia. He serves on Root Capital's Executive Leadership Team and leads R&D on new products and services, social & environmental impact assessment, and field building related to agricultural finance and impact investing. In this latter capacity, he serves as Coordinator for the Council on Smallholder Agricultural Finance, an alliance of 11 social lending institutions that collectively deploy $700 million in lending annually to the agricultural "missing middle." Prior to joining Root Capital in 2007, he served on the leadership team for Health Leads, a pioneer in addressing the social factors affecting patient health in the United States, and was part of the team that launched a venture fund to incubate social enterprises for the Nonprofit Enterprise and Self-sustainability Team (NESsT) in Santiago, Chile. He holds an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School and a B.A. in social studies from Harvard College.

Kazuhiro Numasawa

Kazuhiro Numasawa, CFA, is a Principal Investment Officer at the Financial Sector Development Department of the African Development Bank. Across more than 15 countries in Africa, he has identified and analyzed more than 30 investment projects - commercial banks, microfinance banks and various private equity funds to support SMEs. He appraised almost USD 1 billion investments in Africa over the past 7 years to scale up investments across sectors. Before joining the AfDB, he worked for: the World Bank in Washington, DC, focusing on financial sector reform and poverty reduction; the United Nations Development Program in India on various rural development and microfinance projects; and Accenture Co. Ltd as a business management advisor covering financial sector and other industries. He is a CFA charterholder and holds a Master Degree in Development Economics and International Development from the Fletcher School at Tufts University, USA

Coryell Stout

Coryell is the Portfolio Engagement Manager for Venture Lab at Accion, providing strategic and operational support to portfolio companies across Africa. Coryell has eight years of experience across business strategy and operations in emerging markets. Prior to joining Accion, Coryell advised early-stage, East African-based hardware companies on their manufacturing, distribution, and go-to-market strategies. Previously, she was the COO at One Degree Solar, where she founded the Kenya office, expanded operations across East Africa, and oversaw the launch of 4 new products in 13 markets. She was also COO at Generation Enterprise, a business incubator for youth entrepreneurs in Nigeria, and worked on microfinance initiatives for CARE International and Plan International in Ghana and The Jaipur Rugs Foundation in India. Additionally, Coryell brings consulting experience from her time at the Foundation Management Group, during which she advised award-winning nonprofits on board governance and donor management, as well as the Corporate Executive Board, where she worked with Fortune 500 companies on customer service and retention strategies. Coryell holds a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and African Studies Minor from the University of Pennsylvania and a Graduate Certificate in Social Enterprise and Impact Investing from the Monterey Institute of International Studies.

Toni Weis

Toni is a Program Officer at the Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE, a program of the US Chamber of Commerce), where he manages a portfolio of projects focusing on business collective action and policy advocacy across Africa. He is also a visiting researcher at Johns Hopkins University (SAIS), where he teaches on state-business relations in Africa, and a research associate at the University of Oxford's Global Economic Governance Program. Prior to joining CIPE, he worked as an independent consultant for the World Bank, risk analysis firms, and private investors. Toni's work has been published in Foreign Affairs, Africa Confidential, and other academic and news media. He holds a DPhil in Politics from the University of Oxford as well as an MSc in African Studies (Oxford) and an MA in International Relations (Sciences Po Paris).

Dr Jan van Zyl Smit

Dr Jan van Zyl Smit is an Associate Senior Research Fellow at the Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law, having joined as a Research Fellow in 2013. Much of his work at the Centre has focused on the independence of the judiciary and judicial reform. He is the author of The Appointment, Tenure and Removal of Judges under Commonwealth Principles: A Compendium and Analysis of Best Practice, a study commissioned by the Commonwealth Secretariat, and was involved in the development of the Cape Town Principles on the Role of Independent Commissions in the Selection and Appointment of Judges. He has worked for the Judges and Magistrates Vetting Board in Kenya as a consultant and has advised the Truth and Dignity Commission in Tunisia on vetting and institutional reform

Affiong Williams

Affiong is the CEO/ Founder of ReelFruit a fruit processing, packaging and marketing company focused on being the 'leading fruit agribusiess in Nigeria' The company, founded in 2012, retails a range of dried fruit and nut snacks through a variety of channels including over 250 Supermarkets, Airlines, Schools, Hotels, and concluding export sales. ReelFruit won the 'International Women In Business' Competition in the Netherlands. Affiong was also recognized by Forbes Magazine as one of the most promising '30 under 30' entrepreneurs in 2015. Previous to founding ReeFruit, she worked for 4 years for Endeavor Global, a global non-profit which catalyzes economic development by supporting small to medium enterprises in developing markets. Affiong obtained a post graduate diploma in Business Administration from Wits Business School, Johannesburg, South Africa.