Experienced practitioners, grounded in institutional experience

Aishah N. Ahmad, CFA, OFR is a financial systems leader, former Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, and Founder of Bridgforte. She brings more than two decades of experience across both the private and public sectors of financial services.

As former Deputy Governor for Financial System Stability at the Central Bank of Nigeria, Ahmad served during a period of significant transformation in Africa’s largest financial system. She chaired NIBSS, Nigeria’s central payments infrastructure, overseeing substantial growth in electronic payments and digital adoption, led the launch of AfriGo, Africa’s first domestic sovereign card scheme, and played a leading role in the passage of BOFIA 2020, which modernised Nigeria’s banking law.

A leading institutional champion of financial inclusion in Nigeria, she chaired the Financial Inclusion Technical Committee, conceived the International Financial Inclusion Conference, and sponsored the development of the Women’s Financial Inclusion Dashboard - Nigeria’s first policy-led framework for tracking women’s access to finance.

Before entering public service, Ahmad spent nearly two decades in senior leadership roles across Stanbic IBTC, Diamond Bank, and Zenith Bank. Her broader leadership includes board and trustee roles with the Financial Alliance for Women, SOS Children’s Villages International, and WIMBIZ.

She was awarded Nigeria’s national honour of Officer of the Order of the Federal Republic (OFR) for her contributions to financial sector reform, and holds the traditional title of Soniya Asusu Nupe - Treasurer of the Nupe People.

Modupe Ladipo is a strategic and visionary leader with 35 years of experience across financial inclusion, digital finance, capital markets, development finance, investment banking, strategy consulting, and policy reform. She has led the design of national financial inclusion strategies and managed complex, multi-donor programmes across diverse jurisdictions. An entrepreneur at heart, she has successfully established and managed businesses.

As Founder and Managing Director of Prosperar Consulting, she champions financial inclusion and gender equity, working extensively with underserved groups, particularly women and youth-led businesses, by connecting them to finance, mentorship, and capacity-building resources. As a member of the Presidential Committee on Economic and Financial Inclusion (PreCEFI), she contributes to shaping reforms that promote inclusive growth and support Nigeria’s ambition to become a trillion-dollar economy by 2030.

A pioneer in Nigeria’s financial inclusion journey, she was the founding Executive Director of Enhancing Financial Innovation & Access (EFInA), where she led the development of Nigeria’s first National Financial Inclusion Strategy, established the Financial Inclusion Secretariat, and introduced the Access to Financial Services in Nigeria (A2F) survey as the national benchmark for tracking inclusion. She partnered with leading financial regulators to advance inclusive policy frameworks spanning agent banking, tiered KYC, non-interest banking, mobile money and the cashless policy, while championing nationwide financial literacy programmes.

Through her initiatives, 26 million Nigerian adults gained access to the formal financial sector between 2008 and 2016. Her transformative impact earned her the Central Bank of Nigeria’s Leadership Award in Financial Inclusion (2022) and a place among the Guardian Newspaper’s ‘Top 10 Women in Finance’ (2018).

Before EFInA, Modupe built a solid career in the UK’s financial services sector, holding senior roles at Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Merrill Lynch, ABN AMRO, London Stock Exchange, and Credit Suisse Financial Products (CSFP), with expertise in M&A, brokerage, capital markets, corporate strategy, and product development.

She holds an MBA from Manchester Business School, a B.Eng. in Chemical Engineering from University College London, and is an alumna of the Strategic Leadership in Microfinance Executive Programme at Harvard Business School.

Modupe’s Path to Impact →

Dr Hassan Mahmud has over three decades of experience spanning economic policy formulation, financial sector regulation, and central banking. During his long career at the CBN, he held several senior roles, including Director of the Trade and Exchange Department and Director of the Monetary Policy Department. He also served as Secretary to the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) and as Special Assistant on Economic Policy and Research to the CBN Governor.

Beyond Nigeria, Dr Hassan has played a prominent role in advancing regional economic integration. He worked as a lead consultant to the African Union Commission on trade integration initiatives and contributed to efforts toward the establishment of the African Monetary Fund.

Academically, Dr Hassan holds a PhD in Economics and an MSc in Energy Economics and Policy from the University of Surrey, United Kingdom, as well as a BSc in Economics from Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria.

He is an alumnus of the Harvard Kennedy School and holds professional certifications as a bank examiner and an anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing (AML/CFT) analyst.

He is a fellow of several professional bodies, including the Nigerian Statistical Association, the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria, and the Compliance Institute of Nigeria. A prolific researcher, Hassan has published extensively in macroeconomics, monetary policy, energy economics, and financial engineering.

Anna Gincherman is a strategy expert and partner at ConsumerCentrix, specializing in designing innovative and scalable digital solutions aimed at reaching new and underserved customer segments. With over 20 years of experience in program management and advisory, Anna has collaborated with governments and major financial institutions across more than 35 countries to develop effective policies, financial product offerings, and operating models that support user adoption and ensure long-term sustainability.

Prior to her role at ConsumerCentrix, Anna served as an executive at Women’s World Banking, a global nonprofit focused on expanding financial access for low-income women. As VP of Strategic Partnerships and Chief Product Development Officer, she led the creation and rollout of innovative financial products, including savings, health insurance, digital services, and credit tailored to low-income women.

Anna’s professional career also includes roles at the Council on Economic Priorities and the United Nations. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in International Politics and Economics from Middlebury College, USA and a Master’s degree in Public Affairs from the University of Pennsylvania, USA.

Yakama Manty Jones is an Economist and prolific researcher with over fourteen years of progressing professional experience driving evidence-based policy-making in both public and private sectors. She is currently a Project Leader at Delivery Associates Ltd, a global management consulting firm, serving as a key advisor to the leadership of selected countries and related ministries, departments and agencies across Africa. She provides advisory services on systems approaches to public service delivery and associated economic, financial, capacity building and technology requirements.

She is on secondment from her role as the Director of Research and Delivery at the Ministry of Finance in Sierra Leone, where she leads collaborative efforts to generate the evidence needed to support informed policy formulation and decision-making in the economic management space in the country.

As a Senior consultant, Dr Jones lends her expertise to a variety of agencies focused on Development, Finance, International Business, Economic Policy, and Project Management. She also shares this knowledge through her faculty position in the Department of Economics and Commerce, Fourah Bay College where she earned her Bachelors degree with Honours in Economics, aged nineteen.

With post-graduate qualifications from the University of Manchester and the University of London (Queen Mary & Westfield College, Birkbeck College), Yakama’s research interests lie in Development Economics, International Business, Human Capital Development, Macro and micro-level data analysis for growth dynamics, and using innovation and systems approaches to improve public service delivery.

As an entrepreneur, Dr Jones co-founded the Peninsular Innovative Group with her husband Herbert Durosimi Jones. PI Group is an indigenous company operating in the shipping, manufacturing and agri-business industries in Sierra Leone. PI Group works mainly with youths and female owned businesses.

Her work continues in the realm of philanthropy. Combining her love for learning and education, Dr Jones founded the Yak Jones Foundation, which promotes literacy by bringing the culture of reading among children in Sierra Leone. The foundation organises reading, comprehension and quiz competitions for school-going children, forms book clubs across the country, and donates mobile libraries and book chests to schools in remote areas of Sierra Leone. Thousands of children have directly benefited from these books and libraries. The foundation has thus far been sustainable through fundraising activities and support from friends, family and corporate sponsors.

Dr Jones is also the founder of Data Mansah, through which she is working to create a critical mass of youths empowered to collect, analyse and share data for social and economic good using hybrid technologies. Data Mansah is on a mission to collect, analyse, and share data on topical issues that will complement official statistics for civic education, advocacy and decision-making by multiple stakeholders.

Yakama, a TEDx speaker, is one of the 50 Most Influential Young Sierra Leoneans, has been featured on the 100 Women West Africa list, and has won many other awards. She has been invited to give talks locally and internationally by organisations such as the UNFPA, the Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford, the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change and the World Bank on topics related to education, entrepreneurship, human capital development, service delivery and more.

With her strong commitment to lifelong learning and experience sharing, Dr Jones has pursued executive education programmes at Harvard Kennedy School and MIT’s Sloan School of Management. She also mentors other young professionals.

Yakama is a mother of three lovely daughters, Hedya-Gold, Hedsania-Silver and Hedkama-Bronze Jones.

Kudakwashe Joshua Chipunza is an early-career researcher who holds a doctorate in development finance from the University of Stellenbosch and a Master of Finance (cum laude) from the University of KwaZulu Natal. His research interests span financial inclusion, fintech, household welfare, and climate finance.

Dr Chipunza previously served as a research fellow at the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa and postdoctoral fellow at the University of Fort Hare. His published scholarly work has been presented at several international academic conferences including the World Finance Conference and Africa Economics Conference.

He is passionate about interventions that enhance household welfare of vulnerable groups through increasing access to financial markets.