2022 AFRICA PROPTECH FORUM SPEAKERS
2022 AFRICA PROPTECH FORUM SPEAKERS
Africa Proptech Forum is privileged to host some of the foremost professionals working in property investment today. As the goal of our virtual forum is to enrich the working experience of our delegates through relevant information and insights, we take great care in selecting a high calibre of speakers, who, in many respects, set the tone for the virtual forum. Furthermore, as a speaker you get the most visibility and the most significant corporate brand exposure. If you would like to get in touch with us about speaking at Africa Proptech Forum 2022, please contact Susan Swartz on susan@apievents.com.
Sean Howe currently heads up Client Support Services for MRI’s Africa division. He believes in the importance of continuous learning and has experience in Implementation, Training and Project Management under the MRI brand. He holds dual qualifications in Financial Management and Property Studies. When not at work, you will find him out in nature with his dogs, enjoying good food or with his nose in a book.
Ross Fitzcharles is the Founder and CEO of Preferental, a PropTech company focusing on changing the renting game. Ross started his professional career at Momentum Investments, initially as a pricing specialist and later moved into the front office, where he assisted with managing an R140bn investment portfolio. In 2014 Ross joined Deloitte Consulting as part of the strategy and innovation team, where he focused on delivering innovative solutions for their clients, focusing on technology in banking and insurance. In 2017, while working on a short-term insurance project for Liberty, Ross founded Preferental. He negotiated a sabbatical with his Director (at Deloitte), and within the 6-month sabbatical, he drafted a business plan, found an investor and signed up a developer to help him build out SA’s first digital property management platform with built-in protection for property owners. Looking back today, Ross Fitzcharles built a successful business that makes managing properties simple and easy while taking away the financial stress for property investors. During the last five years, Ross secured Venture Capital funding through empowerment capital, has a 51% black-owned business, acquired SA’s largest property investor network and bought out a competitor. He is on a mission to build SA’s largest property ecosystem, focusing on value creation for property investors, reducing their financial exposure and empowering property owners to build generational wealth.
Paul is a entrepreneur with various successful and unsuccessful ventures! He was the CEO of Ithemba Property Management for 4 years where he learned his trade in the property industry. Paul is the current Founder & CEO of LeaseSurance. LeaseSurance is an InsureTech business that aims to disrupt the residential rental property sector through eliminating security deposits and offering improved tenant affordability and an increase in landlord’s bottom line through additional protection of rent loss and damages, on every lease!
Amrish is a qualified Chartered Accountant with more than nine years of private equity experience. He is head of Private Equity & Venture Capital at Futuregrowth Asset Management, overseeing the origination and exiting of investments across a wide range of industries. He also serves on various portfolio company boards.
I am a highly motivated and optimistic individual that believes our world is outdated and we are in need of innovation in all sectors. Fortunately, we have the technologies and brilliant people that can put us onto the right path. I have spent the past 6 years through my tenure at the University of Michigan and beyond working for an array of Bitcoin and Blockchain organizations which has been an exciting ride seeing the industry and community develop. I am currently based in Lagos Nigeria, where I work as the Chief Executive Officer of Seso Global; a company that digitizes paper land records received the government to provide a digital, transparent solution to open up the African real estate markets.
George Turck is the Vice President for Platform Portals and Africa Product Development for MRI Software, a leading provider of real estate software solutions. After completing his B.Bus. Sci degree in Information Systems from the University of Cape Town in 2002, George started as a software developer at MDA Property Systems and has been designing and building real estate software ever since. More recently George has been leading MRIs Platform Portals development in both the Commercial and Residential spaces, connecting communities through the first AI-first, open and connected PropTech platform.
Experienced Managing Director with a demonstrated history of working in the information technology and services industry. Strong business development professional skilled in Business Process, Requirements Analysis, Business Development, Strategic Planning, and Thought Leadership.
I’m a generalizing specialist with a great passion for Agile, self-improvement and getting the job done. One of my biggest passions is to be the bridge between business and the technical specialists. With the necessary technical knowledge and background combined with my desire to build relationships and work with people, I am able to fulfill this passion. I enjoy working in a fast-paced environment together with people who share high standards of quality, efficiency and the desire to have fun.
Kevin is the Group CIO at Excellerate Holdings, a multi-national property management company. During his time with the business he has successfully transformed the technology division through the introduction of new ways of work and by introducing intelligent automation to streamline the business. A strategically and commercially focused senior technology leader with over 25 years’ experience, Kevin is passionate about IT transformation, innovation, automation and operations. His previous experience spans across multiple industries and includes technology leadership roles at ABSA, Accenture, Old Mutual and The Unlimited, amongst others. As a member of the SAPOA Proptech committee, Kevin believes that the property industry is ready for disruption through technological innovation underpinned by data, IOT and Intelligent Automation.
Adriaan is the founder and CEO of Entegral, a leading provider of real estate SaaS products in Africa, its largest footprint is in South Africa and Namibia, where they serve thousands of real estate agents and companies through its open platforms. Growing up in a real estate family, Adriaan has a deep understanding of the industry, its challenges, and opportunities. With a passion for programming and problem solving since primary school, he pursued a degree in engineering and applied mathematics before embarking on a journey designing and developing platforms for companies in the industrial and banking sectors. After identifying an opportunity to bring web-based real estate systems to the market when dial-up internet and PC-based applications were still a popular choice, Entegral was bootstrapped in 2004. Through the years, the company has taken similar bold steps to escape competition and prides itself in still being self-funded with its distributed international team. Adriaan loves researching, debating, and writing about the latest industry trends. He is passionate about advancing the real estate transaction by simplifying technology and creating better transparency and easier access to data. You can catch him on the trails at his home in the beautiful Garden Route of South Africa.
Having spent 25 years in Proptech in the UK at Countrywide/Connells, but more notably I spent 15 years at Reapit as CEO turning it into the largest CRM Platform within UK and APAC and created the first industry Platform As A Service (PAAS) allowing open connectivity and for apps to be developed within the solution. I am also a Non-Exec at Nurtur group a Proptech company that delivers marketing and lead nurturing technology to its network of over 4,000 offices. More recently I have the privilege of joining the Betterhome group where I am leading their Proptech strategy across the group.
Ashwin is a true believer in networks and entrepreneurs. With a background in Computer Science and Engineering and previous experience working in the innovation team at Honeywell and building tech startups in India (2 exits), Ashwin joined MEST in 2015 as a Technology Teaching Fellow and has since served as the Incubator Manager for MEST Accra, Director of Portfolio Support and finally climbed up the ladder to become the Managing Director of MEST Africa in 2019. At the end of 2021, Ashwin decided to transition out of his role and became a Portfolio Advisor.
Brian Sango (Your Property Guy) aged 31 – is the Strategic Partnerships & Sales Manager of Property Inspect which is a Proptech software solution we created to help automate the property inspection process using our robust mobile APP which means for any type of inspection the entire process can be done from a single app. The scheduling, geo-pinning location, taking of photos / videos, voice to text converter, creation of work orders etc. Aside from this he is also the Co-Owner of Property Made Easy which is a real estate investment consultancy in South Africa whose priority is to strategically assist investors both locally and foreign based in creating income streams through strategic property purchases.
Appointed as the new CEO for Transcend effective from 1 January 2021. Previously served as CFO of the company for nearly three years, from the date of original appointment on 9 March 2018. Eight years’ experience in the affordable housing market and private equity. Involved in new fund development for IHS and formerly Dealmaker at IHS. Previously a Manager at Deloitte & Touche, former Financial Analyst at Absa Capital and Absa Retail banks and former consultant at Nimble Risk Services.
Mr Laurence Rapp, Chairman and Non-Executive Proprietary Director of Castellana Properties Socimi. Mr. Rapp, graduated with Honors from the Universality of the Witwatersrand as well as having attended Wharton University’s Business Executive Development Program. For the past 11 years, Mr Rapp has being the Chief Executive Officer of Vukile Property Fund Limited, Castellana’s majority shareholder. He has extensive experience in the financial services environment, spanning investment banking, private equity, retail banking and insurance and asset management. He was previously director of Standard Bank, having headed the Insurance and Asset Management division and, prior to that, heading Strategic Investment and Alliances. Additionally, he is the former President of the South African REIT Association.
Thompson is the Managing Broker of eXp South Africa, appointed by eXp Global President, Michael Valdes in 2020. Thompson has more than two decades experience as a key role-player in property development, marketing, sales and tourism across Southern Africa and Mauritius. Born in the Eastern Cape, Thompson worked his way up the tourism industry ladder in positions with prestigious hotel groups in Southern Africa, including Protea Hotels, Southern Sun, Cresta, Tsogo Sun and The Three Cities Group. He has travelled extensively throughout Africa, and at 26, he was the youngest general manager at the Cresta Thapama Lodge, Botswana. Thompson held the position of Sales Director for a catalytic property developer on the North Coast of KwaZulu-Natal, for over 10 years. Additionally, he headed real estate agency franchise, Keller Williams, Umhlanga Rocks as agency Principal before eXp Realty invited him to head up their expansion into South Africa. Captivated by the dynamic company, its visionary operating model and the warmth of the team, Thompson viewed joining eXp as a golden opportunity to be part of the property industry’s most disruptive real estate brokerage in modern history. In just 18-months from launch, eXp SA has grown to over 500 agents, with representation in all 9 of South Africa’s provinces. The cloud-based brokerage operates seamlessly out of a highly sophisticated virtual workplace, and the agent-centric company culture is wholly embraced by a rapidly growing team of property professionals. Thompson brings a unique perspective with both his hospitality and property development experience to the global eXp leadership structure within eXp World Holdings and eXp Realty. Powered by eXp’s technology, an authentic company culture focussed on agent success, the ongoing global interaction and learning, he’s determined to establish eXp SA as a vibrant community of thriving, property entrepreneurs.
Grace Legodi is a Venture Partner and Investment Committee Member at an SA VC Fund, Grindstone Ventures, and consults to The World Bank Group, helping them execute on Entrepreneurship Ecosystem Development in Southern Africa. She’s also an angel investor and sits on the investment committee/advisory board of various ventures. Prior to her current roles she was the SA Director Country Manager for Plug and Play in California. She also has work experience in Investment Banking. This experience was gained over 10 years, 5 years of which was spent working at Goldman Sachs based in New York and Johannesburg.
Raylene is a Professionally Registered Scientific Professional with the South African Council of Natural Sciences. She managed the sustainability portfolio for a large multinational engineering firm across Africa for six years spanning across 12 offices providing support to over 1000 employees. She has over 20 years’ experience as a technical expert in sustainable infrastructure design, with a focus on process optimisation, green building and green road design, with the application of climate change adaption initiatives focused on the protection of bulk infrastructure and the provision of advisory services to integrating business supply chain by applying the principles of the circular economy. Raylene has multi sector experience having advised on deals across the alternative asset classes in over 200 countries.
Bhongolwethu has spent the last ten years working in the field of sustainability and sustainable development. Working as a Youth Advisor to UNFPA, as a member of various Commonwealth Secretariat working groups, leading the Organization of African Youth and development organisations such as Greenpop and Tore’s Foundation. He gained valuable experience in policy planning, implementation, and innovation. He currently leads Plug and Play’s sustainability investments in Africa. Plug and Play is the most active Silicon Valley investor and a global innovation platform. He is also a UNLEASH talent evaluator, Innovation Lab facilitator, and Africa Business Heroes judge.
David is an advocate of lean start-up principles and has used them as a guide in building ideas and businesses. His career has been in project management and business analysis with majority of it spent on deploying Airtel Money across different markets in Africa. He is well versed with how financial systems work and has combined that with his interest in Proptech to be one of the founders at RentScore; a startup that is building real estate financial infrastructure in Africa.
Ann-Maree is a portfolio manager responsible for South African real estate investment portfolios within Ninety One’s global 4Factor team. She started her career at Ninety One as an Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance research analyst within the firm’s Sustainability team and currently drives the sustainability agenda within the South African Equity team at Ninety One. She holds a Bachelor of Business Science in Actuarial Science from the University of Cape Town (UCT) and a Master of Commerce in Development Finance from UCT’s Graduate School of Business. Ann-Maree’s interest in social responsibility extends beyond the realm of investments, as a trustee on the Abe Bailey Trust board.
John Oamen is the CEO of Cutstruct Technology, creators of LiveVend. He is passionate about helping the construction industry achieve its full potential, and has created the LiveVend platform to digitize and solve some of the major pain points surrounding pricing, material procurement, workforce, and construction project management that currently exist in the construction industry. His goal is to help stakeholders build quality structures with a keen eye on environmental impact. He is a key player in the Nigerian prop-tech space, and his life’s purpose is to convert his practical experiences to learnings for the next person in need.
Michael completed articles as a Chartered Accountant at Mazars in Cape Town working on various industry sectors. A five-month secondment to New York City stimulated Michael’s entrepreneurial spirit and he resigned as an audit manager in 2008. Thereafter, Michael was co-owner and owner of an agricultural retail business and commercial cleaning services company, respectively, before moving into the property sector. Michael is a qualified CA(SA) and also completed all 3 Levels of the CFA examination program. He successfully completed the 12 month LEAD program in Corporate Innovation at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. In 2014, Michael joined Atterbury as the Asset Manager responsible for the Attacq
owned retail assets. In July 2015 Michael, joined Attacq assuming the role, Head of Asset and Property Management for Retail. During his tenure, he managed a regional and super-regional retail assets portfolio and ensured the group’s assets offered sustainable community spaces for all its stakeholders. Michael was appointed into his new executive role on 01 June 2021. Michael is committed to the success of the South Africa property sector and currently serves the SA Proptech Association and is a Director on the South African Council of Shopping Centres board. From his years of experience and depth of expertise, Michael is well-placed to offer robust and engaging insights at the African Property Investment Summit.
Peter has broader real estate responsibilities including management of public equity real estate strategies. Peter was instrumental in the launch of the Africa Real Estate Platform as well as the Global Real Estate Securities Fund having been involved in both since inception. He joined Investec in 2008 initially in the property division, and later moved to the asset management division in 2010. He has a broad range of property experience having been the portfolio manager for listed property funds, as well as being involved in property development and property finance. Peter graduated from the University of Cape Town with a Bachelor of Science (Hons) degree in Property Studies along with majors in Accounting and Finance. Peter is a CFA Charterholder.
Roelof Opperman is a Partner and Co-Head of the Europe team at Fifth Wall, where he focuses on technology and innovations within all real estate asset classes. Roelof has led Fifth Wall’s investments in Lyric, Eden, Appear Here, Hippo, Industrious, Loggi, Recharge, Lime, and Aurora Solar. Roelof is Co-Founding Chair of ULI Europe Technology and Real Estate Product Council, a member of the ULI UK Executive Committee, and Chair of GRI Global Venture Capital/PropTech Committee. Previously, Roelof worked at Norwest Venture Partners, Evercore Partners, Goldman Sachs, and Bridgewater Associates. Roelof is originally from Johannesburg, South Africa, and graduated Phi Beta Kappa, magna cum laude, from Emory University. He is also a Chartered Financial Analyst.
Dr. Puleng has a passion for creativity, design thinking and innovation. She has twenty years of experience working in the private sector, government and in higher educational institutions. Her academic background entails a BSc in Computer Science and Statistics, an MBA and a PhD in Business Management from the University of Cape Town. Her international peers have recognised Makhoalibe as a global leader in creativity and innovation. In 2013, she received an award recognising her contribution to the international community of innovators and creatives. In 2016, she received an Africa Social Innovation Leadership Award. In 2019 she received an award to be part of the women leaders of the world and became a lead for the cohort. She had now joined the women leaders of the world council. She headed up the center of Innovation, Creativity and Entrepreneurship (ICE) at Henley Business School from 2015 t0 2020. She founded the Alchemy Inspiration, an Edu-tech company that works closely with global organisations that accelerate innovation in various fields. Puleng is a passionate speaker, panelist, author, facilitator, and an innovation and design thinking consultant.
Zachariah (Zach) George is a Managing Partner at Launch Africa Ventures – Africa’s leading Seed Venture Capital Fund solving the significant gap in the pre-Series A investment landscape in Africa. He is also the co-founder and Chief Investment Officer at Startupbootcamp AfriTech – the leading multi-corporate backed venture accelerator program in Africa. Zach is widely recognized as one of Africa’s most prominent Angel investors, with investments in 50+ of the leading tech startups in Africa including Flutterwave, Kudabank, MPost, Peach Payments, RecoMed and several others. He was co-featured on the cover of Fast Company Africa in May 2018, Destiny Man Magazine in November 2019, and in December 2019 was recognized as one of the Top 10 Most Influential People in Technology in Africa. In January 2020, he was listed as one of the Top Four Movers and Shapers of Technology in Africa by the prestigious French business daily – Les Echos. Zach was formerly the head of Africa Investments for U-Start – the largest network of private Multi-Family offices in Europe. Prior to moving to South Africa, he was an investment banker on Wall Street covering M&A, corporate finance strategy and risk management at Lehman Brothers and Barclays Capital. Zach has a Master’s degree in Finance & Management from Stanford University and a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology. Outside of his professional life, Zach is a father to 3 children, and is an acoustic guitarist/vocalist with cover albums ‘Give A Little’ (2010) and ‘Humans with Hearts’ (2018) on iTunes and Spotify. He is an avid lover of theater and the performing arts, likes hiking and a good game of tennis and squash. He enjoys creative writing and is currently busy finishing a work of non-fiction.
Gil Sperling is Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Flow, a proptech company that goes straight to the source of the largest social platforms in the world, to match people with property. The Flow platform empowers the agent of the future to take ownership of their business and earn more money, providing stability in a fragmented and previously undisrupted industry. With Flow’s latest feature addition, agents are able to automatically create a digital presence for themselves and generate 100’s of ads from their profile and property listings on social media, the largest platforms in the world. Sperling started his career as an engineer, and was one of three founding partners of Popimedia, one of Africa’s biggest adtech and performance marketing companies – a Facebook Marketing Partner. Popimedia was the largest buyer of Facebook media inventory in Africa, representing some of the world’s biggest brands, when the company was acquired by global communications group Publicis in 2015. Through his experience and expertise within the tech industry, Sperling, together with Daniel Levy, co-CEO of Flow, has developed proprietary technology which automatically creates powerful, effective ads on social platforms, delivering better business leads, faster than ever before – and more cost effectively – to estate agents, landlords and developers.
Ronald Philip heads strategy across the Middle East, Africa and South Asia for Agility Logistics Parks, a leading developer of warehouse parks and part of the $9Bn Agility conglomerate. In his role, Ronald leads strategic planning, partnerships and growth into new markets, new asset classes and building new capabilities. In Africa, Agility Logistics Parks already has a presence in 5 countries and is expanding further. Prior to Agility, Ronald worked with McKinsey & Company, focused on real estate and infrastructure sectors, serving CxO and Minister-level clients globally. He worked with the World Economic Forum, PwC’s infrastructure practice, GE Consumer Finance and the World Bank earlier in his career. Ronald was educated at Harvard University and the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Kozhikode. Ronald is engaged in the proptech space in his day job at Agility and personally as an angel investor in and advisor to proptech startups in Africa.
Dolapo Omidire is the Founder and Team Lead at Estate Intel. He spent over 2 years at Broll in Nigeria as the Lead Research Analyst working on market and feasibility studies for international and local institutional real estate investors. Dolapo also spent over a year at AXA Mansard Investments as an Alternative Investment Analyst. Dolapo is a member of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (UK) with a specialty in Commercial Property Research and also holds a BSc in Investment and Finance in Property from the University of Reading, UK.
Sean Godoy is a property professional with 10 years’ experience in the property industry. Most of his professional experience has been in property market analysis where he has developed a strong understanding. He has a strong interest in cities and emerging economies. Sean is passionate about SA, Africa, poverty alleviation, and education. In his own capacity and through his role on the executive committee of the South Africa Chamber of Commerce in London, he actively promotes and facilitates business and charitable activity between the UK, SA, and afield.
Rupert’s career in the property market spans 18 years, during which he has held several positions of senior leadership. He left the conventional real estate sector to pursue his interests in the disruptive proptech sector, and in 2020 he helped establish EasyProperties. He is a former English teacher with advanced degrees in business and management from the UNISA Business School and Proptech from the University of Oxford Business School.
Jarrod is the Divisional Director: Technology as well as Account Director at Cushman & Wakefield | Broll, with experience in large multi-national portfolio management, strategy management and transaction management. He leans specially on Technology and Proptech influences to being key drivers of his strategic outlook. He identifies with innovative solution
making and cutting-edge industry thought-leadership.
Kundayi is a co-founder and executive director of Sesfikile Capital. He holds a BSc. (Hons) in Property Studies from the University of Cape Town (UCT) and a CFA designation. He recently completed his Private Equity and Venture Capital course and Program for Leadership Development (PLD) at Harvard Business School. He began his career at Old Mutual Properties and moved to Investec Bank as a property valuer. He then moved to Investec Property Investments as a buy-side analyst and was appointed head of research leading the team of analysts in SA, UK, and Australia.
A civil engineer turn entrepreneur, Joshua Raphael is intent on using technology to create solutions that disrupt and significantly shift the needle. Since childhood, he has envisioned himself as an inventor and problem solver. At Parket his aim is to disrupt the parking industry – to put parking real estate to better use – in a way that creates value for landlords and retailers across the sector, while providing effortless convenience for consumers and positively benefitting the planet. An avid and long time proponent of Crypto. Josh believes that the move towards decentralization in money, government and authority is another example of technology taking us to a utilitarian future.
Will Harris is the CEO of Gmaven – a business focused on digitising businesses in the commercial real estate (CRE) industry. A Chartered Accountant by training, after time at Silicon Valley Bank, and declining a promotion at Sasol, he instead accepted an offer in the world of commercial property. Since then, together with a team of extremely talented and dedicated team mates, he has bet fourteen years, and counting, of his working life on driving efficiencies and reducing massive human pain in the enormously complicated $29T CRE industry.
A thought leader and independent consultant on real estate investment and ESG strategies, Phil Barttram has over 25 years’ experience in the financial sector having worked in the UK, South Africa and the Middle East He previously spent close to a decade as an Executive Director at MSCI and recently joined the ranks of entrepreneurship Phil’s interest lies in investment strategy and portfolio optimization, underpinned by his conviction that early adopters of data virtualisation and next gen analytics will benefit from both pricing and strategic advantage Phil holds an MBA from UCT’s GSB and currently serves on the boards of GBCSA and the SACSC, and as a member of the SA Reits Association Research Committee
Kevin Teeroovengadum has an MBA and M.Sc. in Finance. He worked for KPMG, Deloitte, Ernst & Young in corporate finance and business consultancy before moving to Loita Capital Partners Group. Kevin joined Actis as a Director as part of their Africa real estate team. At Actis, he led the origination of a number of new developments and assisted in fund raising for Actis’ 2 nd real estate fund. He also led the sale of 2 major assets i.e. Accra Mall in Ghana and Capital Properties in Tanzania to offshore buyers and setting the pricing benchmark for investment grade properties in Africa.
Mostafa El Beltagy spent over 12 years in Vodafone, managing the company’s $2billion prepaid card business in South Africa, commercial operations across Europe and heading the consumer business in Romania. In parallel, Mostafa was a co-founder in two start-ups and sat on the board of several others. Today, Mostafa is the CEO of Nawy, a leading proptech startup in the MENA region.
Experienced Sales Development & Client Experience Director with a demonstrated history of success working in highly strategic yet hands on roles in technology and services industry, currently managing the South Africa Sales Teams. Skilled in, Sales, Management, Communication, and Strategic planning.
Tola is the co-founder and CEO at Spleet, a financial services and prop-tech startup fractionalizing rent into monthly payments. Tola is an accomplished product manager and designer with over 11 years of experience working on products in the fintech, real estate and banking industry. In addition to product management and design, Tola has experience in operations management and project coordination. His passion for solving problems in Africa and for social impact led him to create Spleet: a property tech company that is changing the way people rent homes in Nigeria and beyond. Tola is an avid chess player and a collector and enthusiast of contemporary African art.
A passionate green economy entrepreneur, Kevin James, is dedicated to driving opportunities that have a positive environmental and social impact. Inspired by his sustainability vision, Kevin founded Global Carbon Exchange (GCX) in 2012. GCX is an environmental sustainability and data analytics company that helps large corporations navigate their environmental and business performance. In addition to his role as CEO of GCX, Kevin is a Director at Zero Waste Technologies, an engineering and waste project development company focused on the commercialisation of waste-to-energy and other circular economy opportunities. He also serves as a Non-Executive Director of Green Building Council South Africa (GBCSA). As a sustainability specialist, Kevin is seasoned in strategic corporate sustainability, as well as in the development of green, low carbon projects. Known as the “carbon expert” in sustainability
circles, he regularly contributes his thought-leadership to both mainstream and specialist media. He hosted a feature on Radio 2000’s drivetime show with Ernest Pillay that tackled climate and sustainability current affairs from 2011 – 2018. He has also spoken on various esteemed event platforms about carbon matters and sustainability.
Dennis Papa Odenyi Quansah is Program Lead for IFC EDGE Green Building Market Transformation Program in Ghana and Nigeria. He is an Urban Development professional with experience in the built environment in Ghana. His expertise includes Sustainable Real Estate Development, Real Estate Marketing and Agency, Real Estate Management, Real Estate Valuation and Business Development. He has also undertaken socio-economic surveys for voluntary relocation and other resettlement packages. He holds an MSc in Urban Policy and Development and an Undergraduate degree in Land Economy in Ghana. He is also a member of the Ghana Institution of Surveyors.
Mr. Annechino has 10+ years of international business experience working in emerging markets including Europe, Middle East, and Africa. Mr. Annechino joined EchoStone after leading international business development activities for an innovative technology company. He comes to EchoStone with direct experience working with governments, the United Nations, USAID, and other international development organizations. Mr. Annechino has presented at major international events including the United Nations General Assembly and World Health Assembly, in addition to contributing to relevant published articles in global health. Mr. Annechino holds an undergraduate degree from Saint John Fisher College as well as an MBA from the University of Rochester.