Rwanda’s sovereign wealth fund, Agaciro Development Fund, has new faces, following changes made by a cabinet meeting last week. A total of seven members, were appointed to the portfolio investment which continues to play a key role in fast-tracking Rwanda’s development as well as boosting the growth of the private sector while saving for the future generations. It was introduced during the 2011 National Dialogue and later launched in August 2012 in a bid to build up public savings and achieve self-reliance to, among others, accelerate socio-economic development. In the new changes, former Alltel CEO Scott T Ford, will chair the board, and will be deputized by Dr. Thierry Kalisa Mihigo. A look at the new members Scott T Ford Ford is co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Westrock Group, LLC, a private investment firm he founded with his father in 2013. The group operates Westrock Asset Management, LLC, an alternative asset management firm, and Westrock Coffee Company, LLC, a vertically- integrated coffee company. Ford is the current boss of both companies. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration in Finance from the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, Arkansas. Thierry Kalisa Mihigo Mihigo who will serve as the boards vice chairman is currently Senior Economist, Head of Macroeconomic Policy Directorate General in the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning. His work covers the areas of economic research, macroeconomic analysis and modeling. The senior economist holds a PhD in Economics from Université Lumière (Lyon 2), France. Aime Ngarukiyintwali Ngarukiyintwali boasts of over 20 years of experience in investment banking, financial advisory and portfolio management, which he gained at Dresdner Bank, Deutsche Bank and Westdeutsche Landesbank (WestLB). Currently, he is the head of Residential Mortgage Backed Securities (RMBS) at Mount Street Portfolio Advisers, an independent financial advisory and portfolio management firm with offices in London, Düsseldorf, New York, Atlanta, Madrid and Athens. Ngarukiyintwali is an expert in securitization, a technique that consists in bundling various types of illiquid assets (e.g. residential mortgages, auto loans, credit cards, commercial real estate loans, leveraged loans, trade receivables, etc.) in order to originate marketable asset backed securities (ABS) for funding or regulatory capital optimization purposes. He has previously structured various types of ABS products and also managed large portfolios of ABS. Ngarukiyintwali holds a Master of Science in Mathematical Trading and Finance from the CASS Business School of the City University London, a Master Degree in Business (Diplom-Kaufmann) from the University of Mannheim, Germany, and a “Diplôme International de Management” from the Institut Commercial de Nancy, France. Andrew Rozanov Rozanov is an Independent expert in institutional fund management, with 25 years of practical experience in global financial markets. He is also the originator of the term “sovereign wealth funds”, author of various SWF-related papers, and editor of two acclaimed books. The books are Global Macro and Tail Risk Hedging. During 2016-19, he served as an Independent Non-Executive Director and Chairman of the Board of the National Investment Corporation of the National Bank of Kazakhstan, one of the country’s sovereign wealth funds. Rozanov has previously served as Associate Fellow in the International Economics Program at Chatham House, where he researched Abenomics. Prior to that, he worked at Permal Group, where he was responsible for advising institutional investors on asset allocation, portfolio construction, risk management and alternative investments, focusing on global macro and tail risk strategies. Rozanov has also worked at State Street Corporation and UBS Investment Bank, in Tokyo and in London. He is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA), a Financial Risk Manager (FRM), and a Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA), and he holds a Master’s equivalent degree in Asian and African Studies, with a concentration in Japan, from Moscow State University. Doreen Karake Karake, also a newly appointed member of the board, is an experienced Investment Negotiator and Transactions Advisory Expert. She is currently working with the Transactions Structuring and Support (TSS) Division at the Rwanda Development Board, and leads the team. The TSS is the government’s de facto investment negotiations team. Prior to that, she was the Company Secretary and Director of Legal affairs at Ngali Holdings. She has also previously served as a Board Member of the Rwanda Social Security Board and is currently serving on the Board of Directors of the Special Guarantee Fund. Karake holds an MBA with the Heriot-Watt University (Edinburgh business school), an LLM and LLB from the University of Witwatersrand, and a B-juris from the University of Namibia. Jeanne Françoise Mubiligi Mubiligi, Chairperson of the Rwanda Chamber of Women Entrepreneurs, has over eight years of managerial experience of working for major companies, with proven results of developing maximum sales and profitability. She holds a Masters in international business and development from Université de Neuchatel and a Bachelor’s degree in management; option in informative system management from the same university. Alysia Silberg Silberg, an internationally claimed speaker, is a General Partner at Street Global Venture Capital and a seed-stage technology investor. She works with startups to address global challenges through beneficial AI, analytics, business automation and financial technology. Other areas of interest include health technology, infrastructure, life sciences, robotics and security technologies. Silberg is a fellow of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures & Commerce. She is also one of the fellows of the Institute of Enterprise and Entrepreneurs. She boasts of different awards in technology including, Inspiring Women in Tech Winner, SA-UK Chamber of Commerce Business Woman of the Year 2018, among others. Through her academic journey, she has gone to world class universities, namely Harvard University (USA), University of California, Berkeley (USA). Others are Dalhousie University (Canada), University of Toronto (Canada), INSEAD (France), and Cambridge University (UK).
