Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, Grand Commander of the Order of the Niger, GCON, and President, Commander-in-Chief of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, was born to a humble Niger Delta family of canoe makers on November 20, 1957. Growing up in the warmth of a close knit family, Dr. Jonathan had humble yet adventurous beginnings. In spite of the enchanting beauty of the Niger Delta and the pristine innocence of those times, the young Jonathan rather than take after the family trade, chose to go to school.

He attended St. Stephens and St. Michaels Primary Schools, Oloibiri, finishing in 1969. He proceeded to Mater Dei High School, Imiringi, where he passed his West African School Certificate with flying colours in 1975.

On completion of his secondary education, he worked as a Preventive Officer with the Nigerian Customs Service for two years before proceeding to the University of Port Harcourt as one of the pioneer students of the new university nestling on the shores of the Choba River. He chose Zoology. As a child he had been fascinated with nature, and growing up by the shores of the intertwining rivers and waterways of the Niger Delta, aquatic life was second nature.

He graduated with Second Class Upper honours in 1981. In 1985 and 1995 he studied for his Master’s and Ph.D degrees in Hydrobiology and Fisheries Biology, and Zoology respectively, from the same University. But this was not until he had completed his mandatory one year of National Youth Service in Iresi, old Oyo State, now Osun State of Nigeria.

Returning to the warm embrace of family and friends in 1982, he was appointed as Science Inspector of Education, Rivers State Ministry of Education, while studying in between for his post-graduate and graduate degrees. Between 1983 and 1993 he took up employment as a lecturer in the Department of Biological Science, Rivers State College of Education.

In 1993, he was appointed Assistant Director (Ecology of the defunct Oil Mineral Producing Areas Development Commission (OMPADEC) in charge of Environmental Protection. Working in a developmental environment, his desire to better of the lot of the people motivated him to answer the call to service. He resigned his job in 1998 and went into politics.

His honesty, simplicity, charisma, quiet strength and determination made him an ideal running mate to Chief D.S.P. Alamieyeseigha on the Bayelsa People’s Democratic Party, PDP, gubernatorial ticket. They won the elections, and he served as a Deputy Governor from 1999 to 11 December 2005. On 12 December that year, he became the substantive Governor of Bayelsa State.

It wasn’t long after that fate once again beckoned. He was busy preparing for re election to his first full term as substantive governor, when the PDP, which is the largest political party in Africa, nominated him as running mate to the Presidential candidate, Alhaji Umaru Musa Yar’adua. After a keenly contested election, the Yar’adua/Jonathan ticket won, and on May 29, 2007, he was inaugurated as Nigeria’s Vice President.

Precisely on February 9, 2010, Dr. Jonathan assumed office as Nigeria’s Acting President by virtue of a National Assembly resolution empowering him as Acting President, following President Yar’Adua’s long absence for medical attention in Saudi Arabia.

Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan was sworn-in on May, 6, 2010 as President, Commander-in-chief of the Federal Republic of Nigeria following the passing away of President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua on May 5, 2010. On May 29, 2011, Dr Goodluck Ebele Jonathan took oath as President and Commander in Chief, after his victory in the 2011 Presidential election.

Dr. Jonathan has received several local and international awards. He was voted the ‘Best performing Deputy Governor’ in 2002 by IPAN, given the ‘Democracy and Good Governance Award’ by Nigeria Union of Journalists in 2004. The Africa International News magazine league conferred on him the ‘Niger Delta Development Award’; the Nigerian Bar Association, the ‘Distinguished Personality’ award in 2006, and the All African Students Union in South Africa, the ‘Africa Leadership Award 2006’.

Additionally, the Nigerian Union of Teachers voted him the ‘Best Performing Governor in Education in the South-South’ in 2006. He was also recognized by the International Federation for World Peace (IIFWP) in 22 July 2006, with ‘Ambassador for Peace Merit Award’ as well as the ‘Leadership and Good Governance Merit Award’.

Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan is married to Dame Patience Goodluck Jonathan, and the union is blessed with children.

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Sir Chike Onyejekwe (FNAPE), Managing Director of Shell Nigerian Exploration and Production Company (SNEPCo), joined Shell Petroleunm Development Compnay of Nigeria (SPDC) at the start of a career that has seen him serve in Exploration and Petroleum Engineering functions within and outside Nigeria .He is a Graduate of Geology from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka.

In 1991, he proceeded on overseas assignment to Petroleum Development Company of Oman in the Middle East as Senior Production Geologist/Seismologist, responsible for development of opportunities related to oil and gas appraisals in Southern Oman. Chike returned to Nigeria in 1996 and was appointed SPDC’s Corporate Chief Production Geologist/Seismologist in 1997. 

In mid 1998, he was broadened to a higher technical role by being appointed one of the three Asset Development Managers in Shell’s Eastern Operations Area, where he was responsible for planning, managing and executing exploration and development activities in the swamp areas  covering the present Rivers, Bayelsa and Delta State

Following a re-organisation in 1999, Chike was appointed SPDC’s country Chief Geologist, a position where he not only managed and developed the company’s team of Geologists but also geological standardsand guidelines required for oil and gas field studies and development in Shell Nigeria

In  2003, Chike was appointed the Business Development and Exploration Manager and also the Geosciences Skills Manager for SPDC. During that assignment he had the technical responsibility for managing and executing SPDC and Joint Venture partners’ exploration and appraisal activities,

Chike attended the Ashtridge Business School London and Wharton School of Business, University of Pennsylvania USA, in 2001 and 2003 respectively. In 2004, he was re-designated Onshore and Shelf Exploration General Manager (broadened to include inland basin opportunities in addition to SPDC’s onshore and shallow offshore acreages); a role he served in before his recent appointment and elevation in 2008 to Managing Director of Shell Nigerian Exploration and Production Company (SNEPCo),

He is an active member of various professional associations, notably the Nigerian Association of Petroleum Explorationists (NAPE) Nigerian Mining and Geosciences Society (NMGS), the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) and a Board Director in both SNEPCo and Shell Nigeria Close Pension Fund  (SNCPFA). He is also a Fellow of Nigerian Association of Petroleum Explorationists (FNAPE)

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Mr. Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede, is an alumnus of Harvard Business School, Executive Management Programme, he holds an LLB and a BL Degree from University of Benin and the Nigerian Law School respectively. He is a fellow of the African Leadership Institute under the auspices of Aspen Institute, Colorado USA. Aigboje is also an Honorary Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Banker of Nigeria (CIBN).

He has a distinguished banking career of over two decades, 10 of which were spent at Guaranty Trust Bank (GTBank) where he resigned in March 2002 to lead a dynamic crop of accomplished bankers as the Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of Access Bank Plc with the mandate to transform the Bank into a world-class financial services provider. Aigboje's visionary leadership has inspired Access Bank's rapid and unprecedented growth over the past 8 years which has seen the Bank rank amongst the top 10 banks in Nigeria. In October 2007, Aigboje was ranked amongst the top 10 Most Respected CEOs in the annual PriceWaterHouseCoopers Most respected Companies and CEO Survey, a documented testament of his leadership acuity.

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Mr. T. C. A. Ranganathan has been the Chairman and Managing Director of Export-Import Bank of India since April 8, 2010. Mr. Ranganathan served as Managing Director of State Bank of Bikaner & Jaipur from February 1, 2010 to April 7, 2010. Mr. Ranganathan served as Chief General Manager of Ahmedabad at State Bank of India. In 2005, he opened the first branch of SBI in China at Shanghai. Mr. Ranganathan serves as President Commissioner of PT Bank SBI Indonesia. He serves as a Non Executive Director of SBI (Mauritius) Ltd. He served as a Director of Sterling Bank plc., until October 22, 2009. He is an alumnus of Delhi School of Economics (DSE).

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Bernard Bos (Drs, RC) is Vice-President Finance, Sub-Sahara Africa for Shell Upstream in Africa, based in Lagos, Nigeria, responsible for Finance, Strategy & Planning, Contract & Procurement and IT for this region. 

Bernard has worked some 20 years for Shell in various countries in Finance and Commercial roles, in the Netherlands (NAM), Congo (Brazzaville) as Finance Director, in Hanoi (Vietnam) as Director of Finance and Business Development, and in the Netherlands as Manager, Mergers and Acquisitions.

In this last role Bernard acted as the upstream project lead for the successful buy-out of the 22% minority stake in Shell Canada, a US$7 bln deal on the Toronto Stock exchange.

Before joining Shell, Bernard worked for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Africa, in Togo and the Comoros Islands, as Economist.

Bernard graduated Cum-Laude as Economist from the University of Groningen, Netherlands, and as Registered Financial Controller at the Free University of Amsterdam.

Bernard is married to Diane (a writer / journalist).  They have two  children.

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Stephen Olabisi Onasanya has over 23 years post qualification experience and until his appointment as GMD/CEO was Executive Director, Banking Operations & Services. Prior to joining the Board of FirstBank he was the Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of First Pension Custodian Nigeria Limited, a wholly-owned subsidiary of First Bank of Nigeria Plc. Bisi started his banking career as Senior Accountant with Wema Bank in 1985.

He joined FirstBank in 1994 as a Senior Manager and held several positions. He was Deputy General Manager and Group Head, Finance and Performance Management Department, as well as Coordinator, Century 2 Enterprise Transformation Project, before his appointment as MD/CEO of First Pension Custodian in 2005. He holds an HND Upper Credit in Accountancy from Lagos State College of Science & Technology and is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria and an Associate Member of the Nigeria Institute of Taxation. He is also a Director of FBN Bank (UK) Limited and FBN Insurance Brokers Limited.

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Alain De Cat is the Sector Cluster Lead, Energy Africa and he is also the MD/CEO of Siemens Limited Nigeria.  He has worked with Siemens since 1999 and has been responsible for various strategic roles within the Siemens organisation.  With over 20 years of working experience, Alain De Cat is a seasoned energy professional who has worked on several landmark projects across Europe and Africa.

Alain studied Mechanical Engineering from the University of Louvain, Belgium and has an MBA from the University of Brussels, Belgium.

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Much like the Lonrho Hotels brand itself, the company’s new Chief Executive Officer, Ewan Cameron, has years of experience which he brings to the table. At just 38, this British born national has an extensive knowledge of European, UK and African hotels; he is the obvious choice to head up this luxury hotel group.

Cameron is well aware of what it takes to run a successful hotel, having worked his way up from assistant manager of Swallow Hotel Glasgow to the position he is in now, all in a relatively short amount of time. Notable achievements on his way to the top − which will no doubt hold him in good stead at Lonrho − included Global Account Director of the Forte Hotels Group,  he was both Director of Franchise Operations in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and Vice President of Development in Africa for the Intercontinental Hotels Group. Most recently, he was Managing Director of Africa Sun Hotels Ltd, before taking the helm at Lonrho Hotels.

“Lonrho Hotels is committed to establishing hotels in Africa’s high growth destinations. Being part of Lonrho plc, one of the best known brands in Africa with enterprises in 18 different counties and as a proven luxury hotel operator, Lonrho Hotels has the potential to once again be the business traveller’s preferred hotel in Africa,” says Cameron

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Until his recent appointment in November 2008, Andrew was the Deputy Chief Executive Officer of Travant Capital, a private equity fund. Prior to that, Andrew was with the International Finance Corporation (“IFC”), the private sector financing arm of the World Bank Group, in Washington as an investment officer working first in the Oil, Gas and Mining Department and then in the Telecommunications Department.

In 2002 he was appointed IFC's Country Manager for Nigeria, responsible for managing IFC's operations in the country. In 2006, he was appointed Country Manager for Southern Africa, where he was responsible for South Africa and seven other countries.
 

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Enrico Lalia Morra is the AgustaWestland Regional Business Manager Responsible for the Central and Western Africa Countries. Enrico holds a Materials Engineering Master Degree and has started his professional career in AgustaWestland as Manufacturing Engineering Manager in the Aerospace Composites Center in Anagni (Italy), the Company Excellence site for blades manufacturing. After five years he moved to commercial as Sales Engineer Manager. In his current position Enrico has allowed AgustaWestland business to expand in several African Countries such as Nigeria, Congo Brazzaville, Rwanda, Burkina Faso both for  commercial and governmental markets.

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Mr. Gilroy has had an extensive career in global capital markets, he has held senior management positions on both the buy side and sell side of the debt and equity markets. He has also been retained as a consultant to many major corporations and in 2004 was retained by IFC (World Bank Group) to advise the Nigerian government on measures to be taken to rejuvenate the Nigerian bond market. Many of the suggestions provided by IFC in this exercise were incorporated into the regulations that guided the establishment of the FGN Primary Dealer Market Maker trading initiative in 2006.

He is currently the Global Head of Sales & Trading for Dunn Loren Merrifield

Prior to this Mr. Gilroy was the Head of Wealth Management for Afrinvest West Africa.

Previous experience in Nigeria includes being Managing Director of FDHL a consulting company in Lagos, (where clients included the Central Bank of Nigeria, the SEC and Debt Management Office); The Head of Global Wealth Management for UBA Capital in Lagos Nigeria. As such the UBA Stockbrokers; UBA Asset Management and UBA Insurance Brokerage subsidiaries reported to him, in addition to the Asset Management and Wealth Management businesses housed in London. Prior to this he was the Global Head of Sales & Trading & DMD for UBA Global Markets.

Before coming to Nigeria Mr. Gilroy was the President and CEO of Cambrian Capital Management Ltd. in Canada.  As an Investment Counsel he has managed global bond; equity; balanced; managed futures and option writing mandates for clients such as Shell Canada Pension; Colleges of Arts and Technology Pension Fund; Atlas Funds (sub of Merrill Lynch, Canada) and Croft Funds, in Toronto.

Malcolm moved to the buy side of the investment business in 1993, after a career of 20 years on the sell side where he served as the Senior Vice President and Treasurer of UBS Canada; Head of Fixed Income for First Boston Canada and Executive Director and Head of Investment Banking for First Chicago, Canada. He was instrumental in the formation of the interest rate and currency swap markets of Canada and has run both fixed income and foreign exchange departments for a number of international bank.

Mr. Gilroy has served on many industry committees including the Canada Foreign Exchange Committee, at the invitation of the Bank of Canada; the Toronto CFA Society - Fixed Income Committee and the Toronto CFA Society - Wealth Management Committee.

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Steven Evans has been the CEO of Etisalat Nigeria, the fastest growing and most innovative GSM operator in Nigeria since its launch in October 2008.

Etisalat Nigeria has now reached a milestone of over 13 million customers and is continuing to extend its network at a rapid rate.

Formerly CEO of BT Mobile and Director of Wireless Broadband at BT, Mr Evans has over twenty year track record in the global mobile telecommunications industry.

Mr Evans spent 10 years with Cable & Wireless holding a number of senior positions in its mobile investments around the world. In 1991, he was appointed General Manager of Optus Mobile and spearheaded its entry into the Australian market. In 1994 he took the role of Deputy Chief Executive Officer of Bouygues Telecom in France, a position he held for the following 4 years, and during which he held responsibility for the launch of the business and the development of its operational capabilities. In 1998 he returned to the UK as Deputy Managing Director of One2One, a position he held until the business was acquired by T Mobile late in 1999.

Following his period at Cable&Wireless Evans went on to take the position of CEO of Dolphin Telecommunications the pan European enterprise mobile operator. Later in 2004 Mr Evans took charge of BT Mobile securing the MVNO agreement with Vodafone and launching a succession of mobile and wireless broadband services into the enterprise and consumer markets.

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Ashish J. Thakkar’s business success is fundamentally the result of his spirit of adventure.

This drove him to start his first business as a teenager, has formed the basis of his passion for developing profitable businesses that operate throughout Africa, and has lead to his signing up with Virgin Galactic to be Africa’s second astronaut. From this youthful start 15 years ago, the parent company Mara Group today has grown to become a highly respected group of companies operating in Africa, the Middle East and Asia and providing employment for more than 4,000 people.

Mara Group was selected by the World Economic Forum's Community of Global Growth Companies (GGC) as a dynamic high-growth company. They believe that Mara Group has the potential to be an industry leader and a driving force of economic and social change.

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Wale is the Managing Director/CEO (Ag.) at UBA Capital. He has over 22 years experience of Infrastructure finance and development spanning Asia, Europe, Middle East and Africa. In the past, he has worked for investment banks in Dubai and London.

Wale has structured financing for projects across various sectors including: upstream, oil and gas, CNG and LNG facilities, fertilizer plants, hydropower power projects, coal mines, toll roads, light and heavy rail, ports, real estate and hospitality and specialized economic zones.

Wale holds an MBA from Imperial College, University of London and a B.Eng (Hons) degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Glasgow. He is also a UK-qualified Chartered Civil Engineer.

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Alistair has been involved in Airport Operations and Projects for many years having started his career with Siemens in the Airports division.  His experience spans from Temporary Airport Terminal Design and Delivery, Project Management, Airport Operations  & Baggage Handling System Facility and is also an Aviation Safety Professional.

Alistair has worked from concept design through to operational handover on some of the worlds’ largest and most complex projects, such as Heathrow Terminal 5.
His unique experience was further recognised and Alistair was invited to form part of BAA’s Technical Leadership Team and also contributed Strategic vision and guidance to the Board.

Using this wealth of experience, in 2007 Alistair identified the potential for fully functional ‘Turn-key’ modular Airport Terminals to be a viable and cost effective alternative to expensive Design and Build projects and therefore founded Airport Capacity Solutions (later to become Losberger Airport capacity Solutions).
Utilising his rare combination of both Operational and Project experience, he is able to design and deliver solutions that can not only be delivered in a fraction of the time and cost of a conventional build, but can be verified as operationally suitable prior to building.  This solution is proving to be invaluable to Airport Operators across the World.

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Susan Mashibe is a FAA certified commercial pilot and an aircraft maintenance engineer, the first female with both qualifications in Tanzania. At present she runs Tanzanite Jet Centre, a very successful Fixed Base Operation company, she founded in 2003. It is unique in Tanzania, specializing in logistical support to business aviation in the region.

Her company has catered to Heads of State, monarchs, Fortune 500 executives, and military flights.

Additionally, Susan is a Director of Universal Africa Logistic Ltd dba Kilimanjaro Aviation Logistic Center, which processes clearances for private jets throughout Africa.

Ms. Mashibe is now a recognized leader in business aviation in Tanzania and East Africa.

Susan is a 2011 WEF Young Global Leader and an Archbishop Tutu Fellow on 2009. Susan is also a 2011 Fortune Most Powerful Woman mentee.

Currently, Susan is establishing aircraft maintenance and repair services at Kilimanjaro which will measure up to international standards for general and corporate aviation.

Susan strives to promote math and science, paying special attention to female pupils in primary and secondary schools in Tanzania.

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