DIGAME INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT - Key Persons
Ms. Dyson has been a leading figure in the technology industry globally for over three decades.
Her entrepreneurial insights, developed over the course of a career supporting start‑up and expansion‑stage companies in information technology, provide an invaluable source of guidance in the management of portfolio companies. Her business network is also a consistent supplier of connections and introductions, investing opportunities and market intelligence.
Ms. Dyson is an active investor in start‑ups around the world, and sits on the boards of 23andMe, Luxoft, Meetup, and Yandex among others. Her portfolio includes such winners as Evernote, Facebook, Square; she has sold startups to Google, Microsoft, Yahoo!, Apple and Uber, among others. She is the author of Release 2.0: A Design for Living in the Digital Age (1997 bestseller).
From 1998 to 2000, she was the founding chairman of ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Number, the organization responsible for overseeing the Domain Name System) and as such, provided advice to a number of government officials worldwide on Internet policy issues. From October 2008 - March 2009, she lived in Star City outside Moscow, training as a backup cosmonaut.
Job Titles:
- Chartered Accountant at Deloitte
- Finance Manager / Finance and Operations
Gerhard has been working in investment management in London over the past 13 years and is the finance manager and compliance officer of Zouk Capital and of its subsidiary DiGAME.
Gerhard has assisted in the finance, banking and operations at Zouk since 2013. Prior to that, he worked as the Financial Controller and Compliance Officer at a London-based Hedge Fund.
Gerhard trained as a Chartered Accountant at Deloitte in South Africa before moving with Deloitte to London in 2015 where he worked in their technical accounting group.
Gerhard graduated within the top 10 of his class studying accounting and finance, receiving his B.Com from the University of Pretoria.
Job Titles:
- Fellow of the Aspen Institute
Job Titles:
- Investment / IR Analyst / Investor Relations
Madeleine joined Zouk 2018 and is the Investment/IR analyst for the Zouk Growth team and the Investor relations team. Prior to joining the firm, Madeline completed her postgraduate studies in Corporate Finance in Montreal Canada. Prior to she worked as a Podiatric doctor at a private clinic in Perth, Western Australia.
Madeleine is passionate about the great outdoors and enjoys adventure travel. She holds a BSc degree in Podiatric Medicine from the University of Western Australia and a Graduate Diploma in Corporate Finance from Deakin University Australia.
Nnena is a principal in the Investment Adviser's team and is responsible for sourcing and executing investments in Africa. Ms. Nkongho has 16 years of experience in identifying, building and capturing value for (and on behalf of) corporates and funds.
Immediately prior to DiGAME, Nnena was an early employee and Global Head of Business Development at SOLO Phone Nigeria, a venture-funded, Nigerian mobile device and content ecosystem. Prior to that, she was a consultant, working with African enterprises on mandates that included: corporate strategy, new market entry and funding growth investments-including serving as the Interim Head of Strategy & Business Development for Etisalat Nigeria (now 9mobile).
Nnena has extensive experience with public and private market investment opportunities and has focused on the Sub-Saharan African region for almost 10 years. She was an Analyst and member of the founding team at Nubuke Investments and was responsible for sourcing, structuring and executing investments in the telecom, media and technology sectors.
Before joining the Nubuke team, Nnena spent four years at Merrill Lynch on the equity arbitrage desk. She began her career at Morgan Stanley, where she worked in the Mergers & Acquisitions Department in Hong Kong and the Financial Institutions Group (Insurance) in New York.
Nnena has an MBA from Columbia Business School and a BA from Princeton University.
Omar is an Associate in the Investment Adviser's team and is responsible for sourcing and analysing investment opportunities in Africa. Prior to joining the firm, Omar worked in alternative finance at Wafra Inc. in NY and in M&A investment banking at deNovo Coporate Advisors - a leading GCC boutique investment advisory firm out of Dubai. Prior to that, Omar launched his career in financial services as an intern supporting Temasek's EMEA team's investments in London.
Omar holds a B.S degree in Business and Enterprise Management from Wake Forest University, in Winston Salem, NC. He's passionate about philanthropy, travelling, outdoor sports and entrepreneurship.
Job Titles:
- Chief Financial Officer / Finance and Operations
Richard has been working in private equity and accountancy in London over the past 18 years and is the CFO/COO of Zouk and of its subsidiary DiGAME.
Richard has been running the finance, banking and operations at Zouk since 2007, managing five of Zouk's funds, having dealt with over 40 investee companies and their subsidiaries from across Asia, Middle East, Africa, America and Europe.
Richard joined Zouk from Ernst & Young, where he was a Director in the investment management division and was responsible for the Zouk account. Prior to Ernst and Young, Richard gained most of his deal experience at an Anglo-German private equity house, where he was responsible for deal sourcing, evaluation and execution and at KPMG Financial Services Advisory, where he focused on pricing and valuation. Richard is a KPMG London-trained, qualified ACA (ICAEW) and is also a qualified treasurer (ACT).
Richard served with distinction in the Republic of Singapore's Air Force where he was a top Airman.
Job Titles:
- CIO
- CIO of Its Subsidiary
Founder and CEO of Zouk, Samer is the CIO of its subsidiary DiGAME and has 27 years of professional experience across growth equity investment, investment banking and technology and has built a substantive professional network throughout Africa and Middle East.
Throughout his career, he has successfully invested in multiple growth technology businesses and has played a key role as steward of value creation within the investment lifecycle. At Zouk, Samer has successfully invested in multiple growth and online businesses in the Middle East & Africa, including a leading developer of solar PV power plants based in Abu Dhabi, a Tanzanian company which sells distributed solar generation for homes leveraging mobile payments and Europe's leading online supplier of pet food.
Prior to Zouk, Samer was at JP Morgan where he led a number of private equity and M&A transactions as part of the Telecom, Media and Technology (TMT) practice; including the launch of an emerging market mobile fund and managing several wireless deals including a consortium for 3G licenses in South Africa. At JP Morgan, he also led the Middle East Global Markets business, managing several multi-billion dollar financing deals for governments and corporates -- building strong institutional investor relations at the most senior levels in the region.
Early in his career, Samer spent seven years designing and managing the development of air traffic control computer and telecom systems both directly, and as a consultant, at Martin Lockheed, AT&T, Hughes Aircraft and the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
He is an active in civic and community affairs and sits on the Advisory Board of the MIT Sloan School of Management, International Council of the Harvard Kennedy School, Belfer Centre and is a Middle Eastern fellowship of the Aspen Institute.
Samer holds a B.S. in Electronic Engineering from California Polytechnic and a M.S. in Management and Finance from MIT.
Job Titles:
- Board
- Principal in the Global Special Situations at ADIC
Samir Hammami is a Principal in the Global Special Situations at ADIC. He joined ADIC in 2008, and has invested across several sectors (including energy, financial services, power, infrastructure, food & agriculture and real estate) and across different geographies (with particular emphasis on emerging markets). Transactions included a variety of instruments and structures, investing in credit, growth equity, but also in special situations/distressed, as well as Greenfield developments.
In Sub-Saharan Africa, Mr. Hammami has developed expertise investing in sectors including retail and office property development, as well as upstream and downstream energy. Mr. Hammami has served and continues to serve on the Board of several companies across emerging markets (Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and the Middle East).
Previously, Mr. Hammami was a Post-Doctoral fellow and Lecturer at the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago. While at the University of Chicago, he conducted research on the levels of stock-market integration in the MENA region.
Mr. Hammami holds Masters and PhD degrees in Economics from Brown University (Financial Economics, Behavioral Finance). His research focused on providing explanations to the Equity Premium witnessed historically in stock markets. He holds a BA in Economics from the American University of Beirut and is a member of a number of Financial trade associations.
Job Titles:
- Associate Principal in the Global Special Situations Team at ADIC
Samir Mikati has been an Associate Principal in the Global Special Situations team at ADIC since 2013. He has experience investing in several sectors, including traditional and alternative energy, real estate, insurance, and technology and has served as a Board member of several portfolio companies. Previously, Mr. Mikati worked at Core Capital, London-based, mid-market private equity firm, and at Bain & Co., where he was a top ranked management consultant on projects for large regional corporates and government-affiliated entities in the energy, finance, and technology spaces across the Middle East and North Africa.
Mr. Mikati has a particular interest and expertise around issues related to energy, the environment and finance: while a student at business school, he co-authored a case, "Qatar: Energy for Development" that was published in the Harvard Business Review and was used as part of the curriculum for the Globalization and Emerging Markets course. At MIT, under the auspices of an Eni (Italian energy firm) scholarship program, he co-authored published research that applied financial option theory to engineered systems to create "Real Options".
Mr. Mikati has an MBA from Harvard University, engineering degrees from MIT (M.S., Engineering Systems Division) and Stanford (M.S., Civil and Environmental Engineering) and a B.S. (Civil and Environmental Engineering) from the University of California, Berkeley.
Job Titles:
- Board
- President of Global Growth Regions for Honeywell
Shane Tedjarati is the President of Global Growth Regions for Honeywell, a Fortune 100 company.
In that role, he is responsible for driving Honeywell's business expansion in High Growth Regions of the world that include: Asia, Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe.
Mr. Tedjarati has accumulated more than 20 years of consulting experience in various industries and, before going to Honeywell, he was the regional managing director for Deloitte Consulting (Greater China), where he worked with Chinese stated-owned enterprises and multi-national corporations to help them formulate and execute strategies for sustainable growth in China and abroad.
Mr. Tedjarati is a Henry Crown Fellow of The Aspen Institute and also the co-founder of its Middle East Leadership Initiative and China Fellowship Program; Special Advisor to Chongqing and Wuhan Mayors; and the Industry Co-chair of the dual master's degree program by MIT and Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Mr. Tedjarati is member of the Advisory Board of Zouk. He is a frequent guest lecturer on a broad range of topics related to globalization.