Past Events

2019 & 2020 ICES featured CEOs, Investors and Heads of Government businesses from Over 30 countries across the globe.

Discussions and partnerships on the Agric Business, FinTech, Renewables & Energy, EDTech, and Industry 4.0 sectors were considered.

The 2019/2020 ICES & Partnering Events In Figures

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Participants (Incl. 500 CEOs), Up 20% Since 2015

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Of The Participants Identified Or Clinched Business Opportunities

Countries Represented, Including 25 African Countries

Panels And More Than 100+ Top-Level Speakers & Moderators

Quick Review of #ICES2019 In Brussels By: Parminder Vir OBE, Past CEO, Tony Elumelu Foundation

The International CEO’s Economic Summit (ICES) held on the 10th and 11th of July 2019 brought together thought leaders and executives to reflect on the opportunities, challenges, and solutions for the economic development of Africa through international collaborations and partnerships.

It was a privilege to be among so many inspiring international speakers, sharing solutions to business challenges, learning from the specialist sector experts, and building networks gathered for the ICES in Brussels.

Some of the Highlights From The Two-Day ICES Brussels:

Ken Poonoosamy

Deputy CEO, Economic Development Board, Mauritius (EDB Mauritius)

The Economic Development Board (EDB) in Mauritius is at the forefront of promoting Mauritius as a reputable and effective trade and investment platform for the African continent, leveraging on the geostrategic position of Mauritius to drive investment into the continent.

He said, given the promise of Africa—it has approximately 30% of the earth’s remaining mineral resources, nearly 60% (over 200 million hectares) of the world available arable land and 13% of the world population—the Government is implementing pro-African policies to improve the investment climate and market access conditions to make Mauritius a relevant platform for Africa.

In his capacity as Deputy CEO of EDB, he shared a paper showing the ways Mauritius is positioning itself as a regional hub for professional services: financial services, arbitration, education, creative industries, healthcare, ICT, and business services. Read EDB’s Africa Strategy here.

“Mauritius has approximately 30% of the earth’s remaining mineral resources, nearly 60% (over 200 million hectares) of the world available arable land and 13% of the world population”

Jean Jacques Ngono

Managing Partner, Finergreen Africa

I especially enjoyed Jean Jacques Ngono’s presentation about Finergreen and on raising and investing funds in the renewables sector. While they do not invest directly, as a consulting firm with global reach, they are able to support companies to get investor ready for international expansion and market penetration.

Jean Jacques Ngono leads their Africa practice from Abidjan, Cote D’Ivoire and possesses a deep knowledge of the African renewables sector. To African emerging and growth entrepreneurs in the renewable energy sectors, I advise you to track Finergreen to understand their products and services because they are in the forefront of fostering the energy transition and promoting green investments. With offices in Paris, France and Abidjan, Cote D’Ivoire, they have financed over 362 projects and closed transactions valued at 179 million Euros in renewable energy.

“Financed Over 362 projects
Closed transactions valued at 179 million Euros”

Temidayo Adebayo

Managing Partner, BAYI Capital

Temidayo Adebayo’s passion and entrepreneurial drive for SME growth in Africa. BAYI Capital’s mission is to bring structured and guided investments into what they call ‘informal entrepreneurs’ and to aid them in becoming ‘high growth entrepreneurs’. BAYI Capital is a Pan-African growth equity firm targeting impact-oriented SMEs linked to the informal market.

Temidayo is on the path to selling BAYI Capital to potential investors in Europe looking to make returns and an impact on the continent. His team shared their frustrations of getting the DFIs to see the opportunities.

The above mentioned point was echoed by Gavin Maxwell of Coolfin Partnerships, another summit participant when he responded to a LinkedIn article by Victoria Madedor, also speaker at ICES: “Victoria has demonstrated yet again the consequences of DFI funds frustrating motivated young professionals in Africa, I believe we can transcend these collateral bottlenecks with innovative regulated digital funds that bypass the slow high cost funds and deliver enterprise capital to Victoria’s projects. The food and fuel trade channels in Africa alongside a post Brexit Europe will revalue both supply chains and assets in Africa…well done Victoria, keep up the great work and support the new age of digital credit for SME industry.”

“The food and fuel trade channels in Africa alongside a post Brexit Europe will revalue both supply chains and assets in Africa”

Danish Faruqui

Partner, Global Education Practice At L.E.K Consulting

Danish presented a TED talk on the trends and opportunities in the African private education sector for investors based on the Africa Ascendant: Mega Trends and Themes in Private Education Investment report produced by L.E.K Consulting. Throughout the month of August, we will be examining a three-part series on their findings.

Veronique Boudaud

CEO, Digitize2Grow

How digital ecosystems are changing how we work and the value we bring. AgTech, FinTech, DeepTech, EduTech, HealthTech, RetailTech, HRTech are all vital to the digital economy and African entrepreneurs must innovate and develop patents across these sectors.

Citing CINOME Report, an index on digital ecosystems, she ventured that countries should be ranked by digital ecosystems as part of the doing business indexes

ICES Reviews

Videos

PRESS MENTIONS

2020 Business Lunch (BL) Dubai, UAE & Nigeria

The designed Business Lunch (BL) networking strategy for ICES events is also where we bring together CEOs and high net-worth individuals to share the ICES agenda and to understand the value propositions for each attendee for the ICES Events.

This also allows us to engage a minimum of 50-100 Chief Executives from each country discussing local business opportunities and observe expectations for companies/participating individuals for each ICES event while leveraging on the network built from the meet-up to confirm signups and corporate partnerships for the summit.

We have so far hosted two Business Lunch in Dubai – UAE and Abuja – Nigeria. We will be hosting more BLs in more cities before each ICES annual summit as we look to the next event.

Mail us at partner@icesummit.org

if you are interested in the BL partnership/sponsorship to host these strategic networking meetings in your city.

The ICES BL is strategic as we are inviting all the key stakeholders in the listed industries and heads of government-related businesses to lunch that will confirm the participation of our host cities and its neighboring countries at each Annual summit for us to share ideas and build a strategic partnership from that region for the business benefit of every participant at the next ICES.