Spotlight on: Building Digital Public Goods

Dr Robert Ochola is an expert in strategy and innovation within the African banking and mobile telecommunications industry. He is responsible for AfricaNenda’s overall strategy execution and leadership. His primary focus at AfricaNenda is on building momentum for an inclusive and interoperable approach to digital payments across Africa. During his career, Robert has pioneered the development of a new Pan-African Payments and Settlement Systems (PAPSS) for driving cross-border trade, led the development of mobile payment solutions and the expansion of its product suite, along with overseeing the successful roll-out of solutions for ultra-low-cost mobile devices across Africa and the Middle East. Prior to joining AfricaNenda, as Chief Executive Officer, Robert served as the Director of Strategy and Innovation at Afreximbank, served as Head of Strategy with Safaricom, and was the Director of Strategy, Research and Innovation at the KCB Bank Group. He is an alumnus of Imperial College London, Warwick Business School and the University of Cape Town.

Aliou Maïga IFC’s Regional Director for the Financial Institutions Group in Africa Aliou Maïga is IFC’s Regional Director for the Financial Institutions Group (FIG) in Africa. In this capacity, he is responsible for the implementation of IFC’s strategy in the region and leads all FIG operations, including the execution of investment transactions and portfolio oversight. He also leads the advisory teams and works with the World Bank on needed sector policy reforms to develop new opportunities and markets. He has been with IFC for more than twenty years and held several positions with increasing responsibilities before his appointment to his current position in September 2022. Prior to his current position, Mr. Maïga was IFC's Regional Director for West and Central Africa. He oversaw IFC's advisory and investment operations in 22 countries. He also maintained the institution's relationships with clients, partners, and governments. Previously, Mr. Maïga was IFC’s Regional Industry Head, FIG, Sub-Saharan Africa, for four years. He oversaw investment and advisory services operations in the financial sector across the region. Earlier in his career, Mr. Maïga served as IFC’s Resident Representative in Ethiopia, before moving to Asia as Regional Manager, Financial Institutions Group for East Asia and Pacific. Mr. Maïga has been instrumental in building IFC’s FIG business in Africa and East Asia over the past decade. Before joining investment operations, Mr. Maïga led a major IT and change management project for IFC for two years. Mr. Maïga started his career at Credit Lyonnais Capital Markets where he spent six years as System Integration and Email Systems Manager, and subsequently as IT Project Manager for the Treasury and Derivatives Groups (France and the US), developing and rolling-out state-of-the-art real-time fixed income, FX, and derivatives trading platforms. This was followed by two and half years in management consulting with Booz Allen & Hamilton (Europe) where he contributed to assignments for European and Middle Eastern blue-chip companies in the financial and telecommunications industries. Mr. Maïga holds an engineering degree (Electrical Engineering, Electronics, Telecoms and IT) from SUPELEC (France), and an MBA in General Management from the International Institute for Management Development (IMD) in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Brooks Entwistle is Senior Vice President and Managing Director at Ripple. Prior to joining Ripple, he served as Chief Business Officer International for Uber, responsible for business development and the firm’s relationships across APAC, EMEA and LatAm. Previously, he was the CEO of Everstone Capital, a premier India and Southeast Asia focused private equity and real estate investment firm. 

Prior to moving into leadership roles in the technology industry, Brooks spent 22 years at Goldman Sachs in various capacities, including 15 years based in Asia. Most recently, he was Chairman of Goldman Sachs Southeast Asia as well as CEO of Goldman Sachs Singapore. Prior to this, he spent 5 years in Mumbai as CEO and Founder of Goldman Sachs India where he was responsible for leading and building the firm across all divisions. He also served as the Founder & Co-Head of Goldman Sachs Asia’s High Technology Group. 

Earlier in his career, Brooks served as a District Electoral Supervisor with the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC). 

Israel Bimpe is the CEO of Irembo and previously served on its Board of Directors. Before Irembo, Israel was Director of Africa Go-To-Market at Zipline. He led the expansion of Zipline across the continent and, prior to joining the Africa team, held various leadership roles across the company, including partnerships, operations, and national implementations.

Joseph Joshy is the Chief Technology Officer at International Financial Services Centres Authority (IFSCA), a unified financial sector regulator for IFSCs established as a statutory authority by the Government of India. He is a Senior Technology Leader driving FinTech, Supervisory Technology (SupTech) and other strategic initiatives including contributing to the FinTech Agenda at India UK Financial Partnership, India US Financial Regulatory Dialogue, India - Japan Macroeconomic Policy Dialogue, Global Financial Innovation Network (GFIN), Inter Regulatory Technical Group (IRTG) on FinTech under the Financial Stability and Development Council - SubCommittee (FSDC - SC), FinTech bridges with Overseas Regulators [like Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS)] among others. He is the architect of the unique FinTech Entity Regulatory Framework which provides regulatory authorization to FinTechs and TechFins at GIFT IFSC.

Prior to this stint, he was part of the Management team (Sr Vice President and Vertical Head) that co-founded Reserve Bank Information Technology (ReBIT), the IT Subsidiary of Reserve Bank of India, India’s Central Bank. Joshy had worked on RBI’s Technology Vision with the Information Technology Sub-Committee of the Central Board of the RBI. He was associated with numerous Technology Projects and Initiatives for the Reserve Bank of India across 25+ Departments spanning across Inspection, Supervision, Enforcement, Risk Monitoring, Currency Management, Foreign Exchange, Consumer Education and Protection among others. He was member of more than 20+ Technical Advisory Groups, Committees and SubCommittees at Reserve Bank of India.

He is an experienced professional with more than 2+ decades in technology, consulting and delivering transformational technology projects for Government/Regulators and Fortune 100 clients with stints in the US, Canada and Mexico. During his tenure with a Tier-1 IT MNC, he had managed a portfolio size of more than 100+ MUSD with 450+ team size across different time zones and geographies spread across US, UK, LATAM (Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua), Philippines, China and India. He was also involved with the Start-up Ecosystem and has experience in setting up a Technology Business Incubator as its CEO.

Mr. Ritesh Shukla is Chief Executive Officer of National Payments Corporation of India, International (NIPL) & is responsible for formulating business strategies and leading business development by deploying NPCI's technology and solutions in International Markets.

His responsibilities include engaging and collaborating with traditional as well non-traditional players in payment eco-system to drive business strategy and achieve growth.

Mr. Shukla holds a Master’s Degree in Business Administration with specialization in International Business. He has over 20 years of work experience with expertise in areas of managing country business, leading business development and relationship management.

Prior to joining NPCI, he was part of MasterCard’s business in Middle East and North Africa. During his 6 years with MasterCard, he has performed a wide array of roles in country management, business development functions, P/L functions to drive profitability and market share, a role in which he provided best-in-class financial services to top-tier multi-national corporations and financial institutions.

His previous stints include working with Visa Inc. and leading financial institutions such as Axis Bank, HDFC Bank and SBI Cards in payments business.

Dr Robert Ochola is an expert in strategy and innovation within the African banking and mobile telecommunications industry. He is responsible for AfricaNenda’s overall strategy execution and leadership. His primary focus at AfricaNenda is on building momentum for an inclusive and interoperable approach to digital payments across Africa. During his career, Robert has pioneered the development of a new Pan-African Payments and Settlement Systems (PAPSS) for driving cross-border trade, led the development of mobile payment solutions and the expansion of its product suite, along with overseeing the successful roll-out of solutions for ultra-low-cost mobile devices across Africa and the Middle East. Prior to joining AfricaNenda, as Chief Executive Officer, Robert served as the Director of Strategy and Innovation at Afreximbank, served as Head of Strategy with Safaricom, and was the Director of Strategy, Research and Innovation at the KCB Bank Group. He is an alumnus of Imperial College London, Warwick Business School and the University of Cape Town.

Steve has led diverse impact-driven teams for 22 years in over 10 countries between work in the government, non-profit and the private sector. He aims to influence a more equitable and fair world, particularly through inclusive financial services. At the Mojaloop Foundation, he is driving interoperable real time payments that reach everyone by helping various stakeholders to understand their role in building locally owned, locally controlled, and locally operated payments infrastructure. He holds degrees in Mathematics from West Point and the University of Padova.

Robert leads Co-Develop’s investments and strategic partnerships in Africa working closely with the global investments team.

Robert is passionate about responsible technology and previously led Omidyar’s portfolio of investments in Digital Identity. At Omidyar his investment strategy included working closely with Governments, Multi-lateral agencies, civil society and research institutions that explored exciting areas of work including encrypted messaging platforms, data privacy, digital rights, digital transformation and E-Government.

Robert also currently serves as an Advisory Council Member for California State University’s Cybersecurity Program. The council works collaboratively to provide constructive feedback and strategic direction to guide quality improvement and assess program efficacy.

He is also serving on various boards including B Lab East Africa and Select Africa Limited where he provides strategic and advisory oversight to both organizations.

Robert holds an MBA in Strategic Management from Moi University and a BCom in Entrepreneurship from the University of Northern British Columbia.