I am a private equity lawyer by background, having started my career at international law firm, White & Case LLP working in London and Singapore.

While in private practice, I spent almost a decade advising a diverse range of UK and international financial sponsors on investments into emerging markets, particularly Africa. My clients comprised of leading private equity firms, development institutions and other financial sponsors.

I was raised in the North East of England but moved to London to study law at the London School of Economics. As a person of African origin, I have always been interested in the development of the African investment landscape and have been fortunate to have the opportunity to combine this with my legal background.

I currently work as the General Counsel of private investment firm Juven, which is the spin off of Goldman Sachs’ Africa investing business. Having advised Goldman Sachs’ Special Situations Group on all of its investments into Africa since 2016, I was invited to join Juven’s founding team in 2020. Juven primarily invests in high growth, tech-enabled and consumer businesses in Africa, by providing flexible growth capital to fill the gap between venture capital funding and late stage private equity.

As part of my role, I also provide direct strategic support to investee companies and their legal teams, either by supporting legal work or providing mentoring and training. I was fortunate enough to be seconded to Kobo360, a technology start-up and one of Juven’s portfolio companies in Lagos for 9 months as acting Head of Legal and Investor Relations.

I am also passionate about mentoring the next generation, having mentored a large number of junior lawyers over my career and as a mentor for leading diversity platform, Aspiring Solicitors, since 2018. Practising law over the last decade has highlighted the importance of good governance and the rule of law globally, which is why I was pleased to be appointed as an Advisory Board member of charity, Laws.Africa in 2021. As there is no free source of up-to-date legislation in most African countries, its mission is to enable governments to provide access to reliable digital legislation to empower local people.