ALL - Key Persons

Melissa Cook has over 30 years of global research and business experience. She had a front-row seat watching the emergence of new economies in Eastern Europe and China. In addition, she spent ten years conducting research in Africa. Melissa T Cook covered several sectors as an equity analyst at Wall Street firms. These included Drexel Burnham Lambert, Prudential Securities, and CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets. She was Head of Global Research at Lazard Asset Management. Melissa Cook has an A.B. degree in History from Dartmouth College. In addition, she has an M.B.A. in Finance from the Stern School of Business at New York University. She is a CFA charterholder. She holds FINRA Series 7, 16, 24, 63, 86, and 87 licenses. In November 2014, Melissa Cook was appointed to President Obama's Advisory Council on Doing Business in Africa. She is a member of The Bretton Woods Committee. Melissa Cook has built her career around jobs that require travel to new and different parts of the world. She started in Scandinavia and other parts of Western Europe. Then she traveled to Central and Eastern Europe after the fall of the Berlin Wall. After that, she conducted research in Argentina, Brazil, India, and Turkey. Ms. Cook began traveling to Asia in 2005. She made over a dozen trips to major cities across China, and to South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, and Singapore. During that time she analyzed the impact of China's rise on the world economy and on corporate profits. Melissa Cook and her husband fell in love with East Africa after a safari trip in 2007. They decided to return to the continent as often as possible. As an analyst through and through, Melissa couldn't help but notice major changes from year to year. New shopping malls, flashy billboards, more city traffic, modern high-rise apartments. In addition, office towers and bigger bank all pointed toward a compelling story that she wanted to pursue. Melissa Cook pursued philanthropy in Africa through Women for Women International,. This group provides job and other skills training for women in post-conflict countries. The entrepreneurial women in WfWI's Rwanda program showed that when people have jobs, they can solve their own problems. For-profit private-sector investment is critical to this process. In 2010, Ms. Cook founded African Sunrise Partners LLC. The business uses Melissa Cook's professional experience and deep knowledge of Africa to help clients invest in the continent's growth. Melissa Cook has now traveled to 16 African countries* during over 50 research trips to the continent. She has developed relationships and contacts among business leaders, government officials, and investors. African Sunrise Partners has produced over 50 detailed research reports. Furthermore, she has advised African and American companies, and offered insights to government leaders on an informal basis. Ms. Cook is a regular speaker at Africa-related conferences. While on the President's Advisory Council on Doing Business in Africa, she helped shape U.S. government policies. In addition, she developed resources to support U.S. business in Africa.