Board of Directors
Jean-Louis Sarbib (Board Chair) is currently Chief Executive Officer at Development Gateway, an international nonprofit social enterprise with the mission to reduce poverty in developing nations by improving aid effectiveness, governance, and transparency through information technology. From 1980 to 2006, Mr. Sarbib was at the World Bank where he occupied a number of senior positions. He was a non-resident senior fellow at The Brookings Institution (2006-2011) and taught at Georgetown University (2009-2010). In 2006, Mr. Sarbib was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso, and received a Lifetime Award for Diversity and Inclusion by the World Bank. He received numerous honors from the countries where he worked.
Bonaventure Mbida-Essama (Board Member and CEO) has a long and varied professional experience. From 1972 to 1979, he worked as deputy managing director and managing director of three separate private sector companies in Cameroon. He then joined the World Bank in 1979 as a Financial Analyst and senior officer and subsequently as a Senior Advisor to the World Bank Board of Directors. He left the World Bank in 1988 to start and run his own consulting firm in Douala, Cameroon, along with a fertilizer business that he also started. He returned to the World Bank in 1999 as its country manager in Cambodia. From there, he moved to the World Bank headquarters in 2003 as Manager of Corporate Affairs and Administration before retiring in 2009. He then founded MADIMBA LLC and has done high-level consulting work for the World Bank and the African Development Bank as well as the private sector. Mbida-Essama has an electrical engineering degree from Princeton and an MBA from Harvard.
Mr. Etigwe Uwa SAN (Board Member) was born on September 4, 1967 in Umuahia, Anambra State, Nigeria and graduated from the University of Lagos, Akoka, Lagos, Nigeria (Bachelor of Laws Honours, 1989) Admitted to the bar, 1990. State Counsel, Ogun State Ministry of Justice, 1991-1992. Mr. Etigwe’s litigation and arbitration experience span a wide range of areas including commercial disputes, international trade, oil and gas, telecommunications, company law, maritime and aviation, intellectual property, employment, personal injury, construction, trade disputes, insurance, taxation, banks, and other financial institutions. He was former head at F. O. Akinrele & Company (Lagos) specializing in General Litigation, and also has an established reputation as an authority in Nigerian aviation law and was lead counsel responsible for drafting the Civil Aviation Act and the subsequent declarations made by Nigeria in pursuance of the Cape Town Convention.He is a member of the Body of Senior Advocates of Nigeria, Association of International Petroleum Negotiators (AIPN) and a Fellow Chartered Institute of Arbitrators, UK. Mr. Etigwe is a partner at Streamsowers&Köhn and the board chair at the African University of Science and Technology.