Angela Wamola

Head of Sub-Saharan Africa

Angela is the Head of Sub-Saharan Africa at GSMA. Her role works collaboratively, internally and externally, within the region, and helps our members to move forward on collaborative industry agendas.

Angela’s keen interest in technology has led her to spend over a decade in the mobile industry, having spent much of that time with Safaricom, where she started as a Network Planning Engineer to having ran departments within the technology division. 

While serving at Safaricom, she was the first and only, senior woman in the technology division’s leadership team, where she served for a period of 6 years. During this time, she led two departments and was instrumental in delivering the two undersea cables linking Kenya to the world, revolutionizing mobile broadband in Kenya, and spearheading Safaricom’s network IP Transformation & Modernization program. 

She is also passionate about redefining business in society for all to benefit. In addressing the challenges faced in growing women talent in the technology domain in Kenya, she founded Safaricom’s Women in Technology in 2011, an unbounded organization that tackles the talent pipeline for women in the industry in Kenya towards ‘advancing women from the classroom to the boardroom’.

Angela also holds a degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Nairobi and holds an EMBA from University of Capetown’s Graduate School of Business.

Kwame has 22 years’ professional experience which covers International Trade Finance, Banking Operations, Micro Finance, Marketing, and Executive Management. He joined Opportunity International Savings and Loans in 2006 from a private International Trade Finance firm.

Kwame was the first Branch Operations Officer recruited by Opportunity International in Ghana.  Between 2009 to 2012 he managed several Management positions until his appointment as acting Chief Executive Officer (CEO) in 2012. He was confirmed by the Board as the first local CEO of Opportunity International Savings and Loans in August 2013. His key strengths are in Strategic Sales Management, Operations Management, Marketing, Communication, and Effective Leadership. He has the skill of building successful teams and energizing them to achieve great results.

I am a technology entrepreneur who loves to develop and invest in businesses that use technology to solve everyday problems in emerging markets and deliver impact at scale. 

With an education in Information Systems Engineering, I have extensive experience in developing and implementing solutions aimed at making technology locally relevant. 

The African start up scene keeps me busy with investments in a number of start-ups across various fields such as fintech, identity, land documentation and internet delivery, light core banking, group savings, record keeping for MSMEs and unsecured lending. 

My current focus is People’s Pension, utilising technology to make pensions and other financial services available to informal workers in order to build resilient livelihoods that will allow people to live in dignity now and in their old age.

People’s Pension was launched in 2016 to provide informal sector workers with the opportunity to save towards old age retirement. 90% of Sub-Saharan Africans work in the informal sector with no access to or provision of pensions and the vast majority of the population has to work until they die or grow old with income insecurity. 

We seek to provide a very flexible voluntary pension scheme for these workers to contribute to on a daily, weekly on monthly basis, utilising technology to service and reach this huge but highly active informal sector. Our product provides pensions, savings, insurance and upskilling.In 2021, we won the Women’s World Banking Global Innovation Award.

Richard Amuzu is a Technical Assistance Advisor with Opportunity EduFinance in Ghana.

Prior to starting this role he worked for GHAMFIN as Sector Co-ordinator, Microfinance Association-UK as Technical Advisor, RIMCS and Opportunity International as a Project Co-ordinator on TVET research. He continues his work as a Project Co-ordinator and Financial Literacy Expert for the World Bank and Ministry of Finance in Ghana.

Nicholas Nikoi is an agribusiness expert with an extensive expertise in agribusiness value chain financing. He has over 20 years’ experience in banking, business consulting and agribusiness project management from both the private and public sectors. He has over eighteen years’ experience in agribusiness value chain financing, agribusiness proposals and product development and agribusiness marketing. He is an Agricultural Economist by profession, a practicing banker by occupation, a practicing commercial farmer by passion and a Pastor by calling. He currently works with the Agribusiness Division at the Agricultural Development Bank Limited as a Unit Head Agromarketing, Sales.

A Marketer by profession and currently the Government Relations/Regulatory manager at AirtelTigo. 

Holds a masters degree in Marketing from KNUST and a BBA in Human Resource Management from Valley View University.

Also runs a male clothing line called annerlice; doubles as an events MC/Moderator and a member of Uncle Ebo Whytes Roverman productions.

A father of one, a lover of dogs 

Sybil Gregorio-De Souza has over 16 years’ experience in the telecommunications industry in Ghana both on the operator and vendor side. She has extensive experience in service delivery, project management and leading cross functional teams for both operations and optimization.

Currently works as Service Delivery Line Manager for Cognitive Network Solutions in Ericsson, in Africa leading a team across several countries in the subregion.

She is an alumnus   of KNUST and the University of Leicester.

Maabena Brobbey is a Project Officer at IT Consortium with experience in project management. 

Maabena is skilled in developing products, services, and solutions that fulfill the needs of stakeholders and bring value. 

Throughout her career, she has demonstrated a strong work ethic and a commitment to achieving high-quality results.

Ms. Catherine Krobo-Edusei is an entrepreneur, founder and Managing Director of Eden Tree Limited.

Eden Tree is   into the distribution of fresh herbs, fruits and vegetables to supermarkets, hotels and catering firms in Ghana. She has been in the agribusiness for the past 24years.

Ms.  Catherine Krobo-Edusei is nationally recognized as a strong promoter of women in business and received the 2012 national award from the Chartered Institute of Marketing in Ghana for “outstanding contribution towards nation-building”, Just to mention a few. In partnership with some stakeholders, she has created jobs for urban farmers and providing them with training and education to enable them earn income to support their families.

She is stands for doing the right thing always and she applies to all aspects of her life. She believes in honesty, hard work and involving prayer in everything.

Deputy Director,(BoG) 

Clarissa is a trained supervisor in banking and payment systems. 

She is a passionate advocate for women empowerment and gender financial inclusion….