Tarek Mouganie is a Ghanaian entrepreneur, driven by the mission of generating a positive impact in Africa. Tarek founded Affinity Africa, a digital banking platform that provides affordable and accessible services for unbanked and underserved individuals and MSMEs. Under his leadership, Affinity Africa has significantly impacted financial inclusion in the region, with 65% of its customers previously unbanked, and over 60% being women operating in the informal sector. Tarek earned an engineering degree from Imperial College London a PhD in Physics from the University of Cambridge. He began his career as an academic at Cambridge before transitioning to investing, where he served as a Director at Man Group, managing a financials portfolio within the $160 billion global investment fund. Tarek is a 2022 Tutu Fellow, a 2024 Yale World Fellow, was an Entrepreneurship Tutor at Oxford University, the Consul to Cape Verde in Ghana, and a national triathlete for Ghana.

Michael leads product development at Affinity, driving our research, user understanding, and solution design to ensure every product decision puts our customers first. Since joining Affinity in 2019, he has championed a user-first, data-driven approach that has played a key role in making Affinity the most loved mobile banking app on the market. With a background in product and UX, Michael brings deep experience in building intuitive, impactful digital experiences. His leadership blends strategic insight with a passion for solving real problems—ensuring we do not just build products, but ones our customers truly value.

Andrew has over 16 years of experience spanning banking, telecommunications, IT, and financial services. With a strong track record of delivering high-impact, innovative solutions at scale, he led the design and deployment of the world’s first USSD IPO platform for MTN Ghana, and the Novartis Pharmaceuticals Get On Track Program, which helps patients monitor and control blood pressure through mobile technology. Earlier in his career, he taught software engineering at NIIT and served as the OSS/BSS Integration Architect at Vodafone Ghana. Since 2020, Andrew has served as Head of Technology at Affinity, where he has spearheaded the end-to-end architecture and execution of the Affinity platform—including its mobile app, cloud infrastructure, and core systems.

Tarek Mouganie is a Ghanaian entrepreneur, driven by the mission of generating a positive impact in Africa. Tarek founded Affinity Africa, a digital banking platform that provides affordable and accessible services for unbanked and underserved individuals and MSMEs. Under his leadership, Affinity Africa has significantly impacted financial inclusion in the region, with 65% of its customers previously unbanked, and over 60% being women operating in the informal sector. Tarek earned an engineering degree from Imperial College London a PhD in Physics from the University of Cambridge. He began his career as an academic at Cambridge before transitioning to investing, where he served as a Director at Man Group, managing a financials portfolio within the $160 billion global investment fund. Tarek is a 2022 Tutu Fellow, a 2024 Yale World Fellow, was an Entrepreneurship Tutor at Oxford University, the Consul to Cape Verde in Ghana, and a national triathlete for Ghana.

Benedikt is an economist by training (London School of Economics), and shaped corporate strategies in the high-tech and energy sector at McKinsey. During his PhD on Energy Storage in Zurich (ETH) he discovered his passion for technological innovation. When he was responsible for the CASE portfolio (Connectivity, Autonomous, Service, Electrification) at Daimler he developed corporate venture strategy, prepared investment decisions, and supported start-ups. During this time he invested in Chargepoint, Turo, Anagog, and Volocopter. He also values the societal aspect of entrepreneurship, which is why he worked as coach for startsocial and ETH pioneer fellowship. Benedikt loves working with founders that are driven by the ambition to move the world. As an investor, he sees himself as a passionate partner of entrepreneurs actively supporting them wherever possible.

Andre is the Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Backed VC. He also serves as Board Member and Investor at Travizory, Garten, Jelly, and Thought Machine. He covers fundraising and investing at Backed, and has raised over €200m across 3 funds and overseen over 80+ seed, SPV and growth investments. He is a board director on 17 portfolio companies and focuses on investing in Fintech, Biotech, Blockchain and Advanced Manufacturing. He oversees many of the firm’s strategic initiatives such as Events Strategy and Backed’s Founder Experience educational programme.

Jan is the managing partner of Eldon Capital Management Limited, an investment advisory firm focussed on international growth investments and buy-out opportunities. Prior to launching Eldon, he was a Managing Director in the Merchant Banking Division of Goldman Sachs. He commenced his career as a consultant in the technology sector of McKinsey & Company. He holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a Master of Engineering from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and was a Visiting Scholar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Mary is a capital markets and investment expert and one of UK’s leading authorities on Africa. She has had an international career with global firms, Allen & Overy and Dentons LLP, in New York, London, South Africa and Hong Kong. Previously a partner and Head of Dentons’ Africa Financial Markets Group, she shared the strategic leadership and development of the firm’s Africa practice and jointly supervised its transformation into a leading and globally recognised practice. Mary is the founder and CEO of strategic advisory firm, Oriol Associates Ltd and a consultant to Dentons. Mary founded and co-Chair’s Dentons’ Black Professionals Network, and is a former member of Dentons’ I&D Council. She sits on various boards including The Fore Trust, National Philanthropic Trust UK, NPT Transatlantic and the Royal College of Art. Mary was recently appointed part of the Aspen Institute UK.

Marcus is on the board of TCX fund Amsterdam and the Investment Committee of Alterfin, a Belgian microfinance and agriculture impact investor. Previously he was a co-founder of Agora Microfinance Partners UK, served as Vice Chair of TD Securities, the Toronto Dominion Bank and as Treasurer of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. Marcus holds a PhD in politics from the Freie Universitaet Berlin and degrees from Cambridge University and the London School of Economics.

Domenic is a Partner at Pentagram, the world’s largest independently owned design studio, whose clients include CitiBank, American Express, Mastercard & Coutts. Domenic is internationally recognised for his work in identity and branding. His clients range from Swarovski, H&M, Imperial College London, and Virgin. Since 2007, he has been the Design Director for the London Design Festival and Biennale. The recipient of many awards, his work has been featured in numerous publications and exhibitions throughout the world. Domenic has lectured extensively on design-related subjects throughout Europe and the USA and is a member of numerous design bodies including D&AD, RSA and AGI. Domenic studied graphic design at the London College of Printing

Nilan is the Chief Product Officer at Wise (LON: WISE) where he is responsible for product, design, analytics, and sales across Wise’s multiple product lines and geographies. He joined Wise in 2014 as VP Growth from a C-suite background in technology, marketing, and customer acquisition. With Wise, he has built one of the strongest product organisations in Europe. The company has become a global leader in cross-border multi-currency payments, serving over 12m people and businesses in the last financial year alone. Prior to joining the company, Nilan acted as advisor to Wise from 2012, and also served as VP Growth at HouseTrip. Outside of Wise, Nilan advises social impact startups on their growth and product development through Daring Capital, he also sits on the board of OakNorth, a digital bank and SME lender. He has a BSc Hons in Mathematics from the University of Bristol, and lectures at different institutions and industry events on marketing, product management and development, and strategy.

Shefali is the Founding Partner of SDR.Capital, a London-based family office investing globally in early stage companies and funds started by women and diverse entrepreneurs building technology in finance and AI. Previously she was the chief operating officer and chief compliance officer of TrueLayer, an early employee at Stripe where she was chief compliance officer and money laundering reporting officer for Europe, led ethics, compliance, business conduct and risk across EMEIA for Apple, was the global chief compliance and ethics officer for Christie’s, and was in private wealth compliance for Goldman Sachs across Europe and the Middle East. She is an Associate Fellow at Oxford Saïd, where she teaches on startups, organisation behaviour and ethics, leadership and decentralised finance cryptocurrencies. She sits on the Board of Tyro (AUS; ASX: TYR) and until 2021, sat on the board of the Maker Foundation, the protocol behind the DAI stablecoin. Shefali is a graduate of RMIT, the London School of Economics and Oxford University, where she gained undergraduate and postgraduate qualifications in law, economics and finance, and management.