Meet the people behind SEO Africa

Edgar attended Carnegie Mellon University and obtained a Bachelors degree in Business and Economics. In the summer of 2001, he obtained his internship at Merrill Lynch in New York through SEO. Edgar worked full-time at Merrill Lynch for 7 years, his last role prior to building SEO Africa was as the Head of Mortgage Trading and Co-Head of Mortgage Origination for Bank of America-Merrill Lynch Asia. Edgar is currently the Head of the Asia Pacific region at Hedera Hashgraph, a distributed ledger technology company.

(SEO New York 2001)

Devesh Shah serves as a Board Liaison for the International SEO Organizations. He is a renowned investment expert in equity derivatives, risk management, and personal finance. Devesh began his career as a fixed-income trader at Merrill Lynch in 1997. Devesh joined Goldman Sachs in 2000, where he ran Equity Derivatives Trading and started the first VIX Trading Business on Wall Street. He retired as a Partner of the firm in 2010. He is the co-inventor and patent applicant for the CBOE VIX Volatility Index. Devesh holds a Bachelor of Arts, Applied Mathematics in Finance, from Indiana University.

(SEO New York 1998)

Chukuka is Co-founder and Partner at Racecourse Capital, an advisory and principal investment firm. Previously, he was Head of Investment Banking Coverage for West Africa at Stanbic IBTC, and earlier Head of Debt Solutions, where he built the Property, Structured Trade, Acquisition & Leverage, and Project Finance businesses. He also worked with Afrinvest, Citibank, Salomon Smith Barney, J.P. Morgan, and Goldman Sachs. Chukuka holds a B.B.A. in Finance from Baruch College, New York.

(SEO New York 1996)

Randolph attended Cornell University, and in 2002, obtained his internship at Credit Suisse in New York through SEO. He worked at Credit Suisse for 2 years in the Mergers & Acquisitions Group followed by 2.5 years at Microsoft in the Corporate Development Group. He then went to Harvard University for his MBA after which he returned to Investment Banking in the Chicago Office of Morgan Stanley. Randolph returned to Ghana in 2011 as the Head of the Investment Banking Division at Stanbic Bank and is currently a Senior Director, M&A at The Hershey Company.

(SEO New York 2002)

John attended the University of Maryland, and following his SEO summer internship in 1999, he began his career as an Investment Banking Analyst at Salomon Smith Barney. John served as a Manager at Lucent Technologies, Inc., focusing on corporate strategy and mergers & acquisitions, prior to obtaining his MBA from Wharton Business School. John subsequently joined Goldman Sachs in New York where he focused on Industrial clients. John moved back to Ghana in 2012 and joined IC Securities as Head of Financial Advisory. John is currently Managing Director at Sentinel Global, a provider of bespoke advisory services, wealth management and small- to mid-cap private equity/fund management.

(SEO New York 1999)

Sidumiso attended the University of Sheffield in the UK where she earned a dual Master of Engineering in Chemical Engineering and Chemistry. In the summer of 2006, Sidumiso obtained her internship at Deutsche Bank in London through SEO. Upon graduation, she chose to work for HSBC within their FX and Money Markets team, before moving into M&A and Debt Advisory at the Rothschild Group and subsequently McQueen, a Consumer, Leisure and Retail specialist in London. Sidumiso has worked closely with SEO London over the last few years, and moved to Ghana in January 2014 to lead SEO Africa as Chief Executive Offiicer until 2020.

(SEO London 2006)

Funke attended University College London, and in 2002 she obtained her internship at Goldman Sachs in London through SEO. She began her career in Mergers and Acquisitions at Goldman Sachs in London, prior to moving to Stanbic IBTC in Nigeria. In a 12 year career, Funke has completed over 25 transactions in the UK, Nigeria and South Africa including equity capital raising, advising domestic and international companies on local and cross-border mergers & acquisitions, corporate restructurings and divestments. Funke holds an M.Sc degree in Project & Enterprise Management from University College London, and she earned the right to use the CFA designation in 2015.

(SEO London 2005)

Labi studied at Carnegie Mellon University and began his career in 1998 as an SEO intern at Salomon Smith Barney (Citigroup) in New York. He later worked in J.P. Morgan’s Structured Finance team before earning his MBA from Harvard Business School. His experience spans Leveraged, Corporate, and Structured Finance roles at Wells Fargo and Credit Suisse. Returning to Nigeria, he joined Actis as a Principal, serving directly under the CIO, and later became Head of Client Coverage & Origination for West Africa at Rand Merchant Bank. Labi is now a Partner at Kuramo Capital Management, where he sits on the Investment Committee.

(SEO New York 2002)

An SEO London alumna who began her career in Markets & Investment Services at J.P. Morgan. She later served as Head of Business Development for SEO Africa, leading new initiatives in Nigeria before becoming CEO in 2020. She is also a member of the Global Shapers community for the World Economic Forum.