Convergence is excited to welcome Micheline Ntiru, Senior Advisor, Africa, who heads up our Africa team based in Nairobi. She is taking over this position from Lade Araba who was instrumental in establishing Convergence’s operations in the Africa region.
Micheline plays a critical role in building and maintaining a robust network of public, private, and philanthropic Convergence members in Africa and caters to region-specific needs for blended finance data, deals, intelligence, capacity building, and networking. The Africa region is critical to the blended finance market, almost two-thirds of blended finance transactions in 2020 targeted Sub-Saharan Africa. As blended finance funds economic activities that help grow domestic economies, Micheline also works to boost domestic investor participation in blended finance.
“There is room to blend diverse types and sources of financing instruments for investment across the continent. I am excited about the opportunities for institutional investors, funds, banks, philanthropists, governments, donors and NGOs among others, to scale their investments in Africa for socio-economic benefit, " says Micheline Ntiru, Senior Advisor, Africa, at Convergence.
Micheline is uniquely suited to the role as she brings with her over 20 years of professional experience in development finance, impact and venture capital investment, business advisory and private sector development in Africa, Asia, Asia Pacific, the Caribbean, Europe, Latin America and the United States. Prior to joining Convergence Micheline served as a Business Advisor for Stanford Seed, a Stanford University accelerator active in Africa and India, advising over 50 CEOs and growth- stage businesses in 7 countries in east, central and southern Africa. Micheline has also served as a Manager with International Finance Corporation (IFC) with operations in agribusiness, financial services, and mining across 12 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. Finally, Micheline serves on several investment committees including venture capital fund Kenya Climate Ventures (focusing on agribusiness and energy sectors primarily) as well as gender- lens funds Samata Capital and Atika Ventures, where she co-leads deal sourcing, execution and portfolio support across sub-Saharan Africa. Finally, Micheline speaks 9 languages including Swahili, French, Spanish and Portuguese.
