Rich Tanksley is the Senior Vice President of Special Projects at the Nigerian-American consultancy, NeuBridges.
Formerly the CEO of Pulse.ng, Rich continues to be the Ringier-owned online media platform's brand ambassador. Prior to that, he spent three years working at the Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology (MEST) in Ghana as a senior faculty member and headed up Africa operations for Seedstars.
In this conversation with Andile Masuku - taped at Afrobytes Tech Conference 2017 - Rich speaks on some of the gaps he perceives within Africa's innovation culture and factors in on issues that he reckons make doing business in Africa a tricky proposition for naive outsiders. He also comments on the massive growth potential of Nigeria's commercial digital media scene.
French-born Cameroonian Alec Fokapu is the founder and CEO of FiftyFor, a B2B rating platform for African companies.
FiftyFor uses an algorithm to compute ratings on governance structure, financial strength, operational capability, and the social and environmental impact of African companies.
Alec has 10 years of experience working as a financial analyst in international infrastructure projects at Total and Crédit Agricole CIB. Prior to launching FiftyFor in 2014, he founded an investment firm dedicated to financing promising African SMEs and entrepreneurs.
In this conversation with Andile Masuku - taped at Afrobytes Tech Conference 2017 - Alec explains why business rating not only helps big business interests vet prospective African investees and suppliers but can also assist local SME’s in improving their investibility and bridge the entrepreneurial culture gap between them and the developed world.
