Hany Assaad is Co-founder and Chief Portfolio & Risk Officer of Avanz Capital and a member of the Investment Committees of the Avanz Capital funds. He leads the sourcing, screening and negotiation of investments and risk management, including the environmental, social and governance aspects. He serves on a number of LP Advisory Committees. He is the executive director of the Avanz Growth Markets Limited, an investment firm listed on the Stock Exchange of Mauritius and investing in emerging markets private equity.

Mr. Assaad has had a long career in emerging markets investments, including two decades at International Finance Corporation, the private sector arm of the World Bank Group. He was Chief Investment Officer in IFC’s Private Equity and Investment Funds. He oversaw IFC’s funds business for new investments and portfolio in the Middle East and North Africa, East Africa, South Asia, Central, Eastern and Southern Europe and Central Asia. Mr. Assaad was responsible for selecting IFC’s investment criteria and screening its deal pipeline, overseeing the due diligence teams, negotiating investment terms, and presenting investment recommendations to IFC’s Board of Directors. He managed a substantial portfolio of funds, shaping governance, strategy, and deal pipelines and was a member of several advisory committees.

Mr Assaad has extensive experience in training on private equity funds management, corporate governance and funds governance. Over the past decade, he designed, organized and led a number of training programs to investors and fund managers. Mr. Assaad is widely recognized for and has notable knowledge and commitment to sustainable and impact investing, and gender-lens investing.

Mr Assaad is an active member the Gender Smart Advisory Council and is the chair of the Emerging Markets Private Equity Association ESG Community. He is an advisor to I Squared Capital on ESG and SDG strategy and implementation. He has assisted I Squared Capital to develop a best practice and ambitious ESG and SDG strategy targeting Sustainable infrastructure Goals to specifically deliver on the SDGs through infrastructure investments.

Nicholas is the CEO of African Alliance Asset Management – a leading pan-African private market investor. He has 25 years’ experience investing across all asset classes in developed, emerging and frontier markets. Nicholas holds a Doctor of Engineering degree, and is a CFA and CAIA charter holder.

Victoria is a corporate lawyer who has specialised in advising investment funds and their managers and other advisers on all aspects from set-up, fund raising, governance, acquisitions, disposals and mergers to restructuring and winding-up. The funds may be open-ended or closed-ended, onshore or offshore, authorised or unregulated and in a number of different legal structures. Much of her work is cross-border with the managers, funds or underlying assets being based worldwide, including in particular the USA, continental Europe, Asia-Pacific and Africa. In the quoted funds arena, she acts for sponsors on occasion, as well as for the funds themselves, or their managers. She has been an expert witness in a dispute on the terms of an investment management agreement.

She is a member of the Company Law Committee of the City of London Law Society and led their Joint Working Group on Market Abuse. She is also a member of the technical committee of the Association of Investment Companies (AIC) and a member of various working groups of the Alternative Investment Management Association (AIMA). She is ranked as a leading individual for Investment Funds in Chambers  and Legal 500, and recognised as an expert in Who’s Who Legal: Private Funds and is highly regarded for investment funds in IFLR1000. She is also a member of the 100 Women in Finance London Legal and Compliance Peer Advisory Group.

Victoria is admitted to practise in England and Wales and in Hong Kong (where she lived and worked for four years). 

John has a track record of more than 22 years as a business founder, venture capitalist and private equity investor. As executive chairman of the Sanlam Investments private equity business, he is responsible for managing portfolios of over ZAR4 billion. He was also Venture Partner for Rand Merchant Investment Holdings, co-founder of a USD 150million private equity-backed Sub-Saharan Africa FMCG investment platform, member of RMB’s Management Board, Credit and Investment Committee, director of South Africa’s first No-Load Mutual Fund platform and founding member of Deloitte & Touche Capital Markets Group. John sits on several company boards and is a mentor for the Endeavor Entrepreneur network. John is a qualified Chartered Accountant – CA(SA) with a Bachelor of Accounting (Hons) from the University of Natal.

Paul is joint-CEO of Old Mutual Alternative Investments (OMAI). He has been involved with the business since its inception and was CEO of OMAI from 2014 – 2019. During this time OMAI has grown into the largest private alternative investment manager in Africa with over R60 billion in assets under management across 27 active funds and over 160 portfolio companies.

Paul has a total of nearly 30 years’ experience in investments and capital markets. He currently chairs the Alternative Assets Investment Committee and serves on the boards of African Infrastructure Investment Managers (AIIM), African Clean Energy Development, the Southern African Venture Capital and Private Equity Association, Tourvest, J&J, Phembani and Lesedi and Letsatsi.

Paul served his articles with Deloitte in Johannesburg where he qualified as a chartered accountant. He then spent 7 years as an investment banker with Investec before moving to Cape Town to join Old Mutual in 1995. He was the portfolio manager of the Old Mutual Life Funds for 5 years and spent a further 3 years as Head of Investment Views for Old Mutual Asset Managers before being appointed Head of Alternative Investments in 2004.

He completed an Honours degree in Operations Research and holds an MBA from the University of Cape Town.