Chris Locke
Founder
Caribou Digital

Chris Locke is the Founder of Caribou Digital. He is also a Visiting Fellow at the University of California, San Diego's Center on Emerging and Pacific Economies, and Digital Ambassador to the United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF). Caribou Digital works with development organisations to build digital economies in emerging markets, helping to take critical mobile services covering health, agri, money and learning tools to scale at a nationwide level. Mr Locke was previously the Managing Director of GSMA Mobile for Development. He has spent the past 15 years working in the mobile and internet industries for companies including the Virgin Group, Three, AOL and T-Mobile. Previous to his industry career, he was the Xerox Lecturer in Electronic Communication and Publishing at University College London, and has maintained strong links to the research community. He is co-editor of Thumb Culture: The Meaning of Mobile Phones in Society, an anthology of research considering the global social effect of mobile technology.

Darren Welch
Director of Policy
UK Department for International Development (DFID)

Darren Welch joined the UK Department for International Development (DFID) in 2007. He initially worked as Head of Information and Communications in the Communications Division, before becoming Head of DFID’s office in Tanzania from 2008 to 2011. He then spent four years working in Brussels at the UK’s Representation to the EU, in the role of Counsellor for Trade, Development, Africa, Asia & the Americas. In 2015-16, Darren was Head of the International Team at the UK’s Joint Syrian Resettlement Programme and in 2016-17, Head of DFID’s Migration and Modern Slavery Department. Since Spring 2017, Darren has been DFID’s Director of Policy, based in London. Prior to joining DFID, he worked in development consultancy, for the Government of Bermuda, and in a range of roles at the UK’s Cabinet Office.

Helen Clarkson
CEO
The Climate Group

Helen Clarkson joined The Climate Group in March 2017 as Chief Executive Officer. Prior to joining The Climate Group, she worked at Forum for the Future where she founded the organisation’s US office. At Forum, Ms Clarkson led work with large US corporations such as Target, Walmart, Nike, Gap and Levi Strauss & Co to solve complex sustainability challenges at both the organisational and broader systemic level. She also served as Interim Chief Operating Officer for several months. Ms Clarkson joined Forum from Médecins Sans Frontières where she worked on humanitarian missions in countries including Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan, Burundi, Pakistan and Nigeria. She has an undergraduate degree in Philosophy from Cambridge University, and a Master’s degree in Business Strategy, Politics & the Environment from Birkbeck College, University of London. She is also a Chartered Accountant.

Henrik Skovby
Chairman
Dalberg Group

Henrik Skovby is the former Global Managing Partner and founder of Dalberg. In his current capacity as Chairman of Dalberg Group, most of his time is dedicated to industry innovation and establishing new business lines under the Dalberg brand. As a strategy consultant, Mr Skovby's main focus has been corporate strategy and organisational reforms. He has led a series of institutional reviews in the development sector and has been involved in launching several global commissions and thought leadership initiatives. Prior to Dalberg, Mr Skovby worked at McKinsey & Company, where his focus was financial and public institutions. He began his professional career with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), where he worked on project management, budget matters, and strategic positioning of the organisation. Mr Skovby holds a Master's of Public Administration degree from Harvard University, a degree in Business Economics from Copenhagen Business School, and an undergraduate degree in Political Science from University of Aarhus.

Kalipso Chalkidou
Director of Global Health Policy and Senior Fellow, Centre for Global Development
Professor of Practice in Global Health, Imperial College London

Kalipso Chalkidou is the Director of Global Health Policy and a Senior Fellow at the Center for Global Development, based in London, and a Professor of Practice in Global Health at Imperial College London. Her work concentrates on helping governments build technical and institutional capacity for using evidence to inform health policy as they move towards Universal Healthcare Coverage. She is interested in how local information, local expertise and local institutions can drive scientific and legitimate healthcare resource allocation decisions. She has been involved in the Chinese rural health reforms and health reform projects in Colombia, Turkey and the Middle East, working with the World Bank, PAHO, the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) and the Inter-American Development Bank as well as national governments. In 2007-2008, she spent a year at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, as a Harkness fellow in Health Policy and Practice, studying how comparative effectiveness research can inform government drug pricing policies.

Kalipso led the establishment of NICE International, which she headed for eight years, and, more recently, of the international Decision Support Initiative (iDSI), a multi-country network working towards better health around the world through evidence-informed spending in healthcare in low to middle income countries. IDSI is funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, DFID and the Rockefeller Foundation and is currently involved in national reform projects in China, India, Vietnam, Ghana, Indonesia and South Africa.

Kalipso holds a doctorate on the molecular biology of prostate cancer from the University of Newcastle (UK), an MD (Hons) from the University of Athens and is a visiting Professor at King’s College London and an adjunct professor at Griffith University in Australia. She sits on several journal editorial boards and has published over 100 peer-reviewed papers and book chapters.

Kanini Mutooni
Managing Director, TONIIC
Board Chair, Global Innovation Fund

Kanini Mutooni is a UK Chartered accountant and Harvard Kennedy School alumnus with experience at Director and board level at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, KPMG, EY and Kleinwort Benson Private Bank. She is currently the Managing Director of TONIIC, an impact investing network based in London and San Francisco. She is also Board Chair of the Global Innovation Fund (GIF), a $225m fund focused on impact investment in emerging market commercial innovations that help solve social constraints.

Kanini is also an investment committee member of the African Agricultural SME fund II, a $120m fund focused on investing in small cap Pan-African early-to-growth stage agribusiness firms. The fund closed in June 2018 and has already committed over 30 per cent of its capital. Kanini was previously founding Investment Committee member of the Africa Enterprise Challenge Fund (AECF), a $227m continent-wide impact fund focused on agriculture and clean energy sub-sectors. AECF was one of the early patient capital investors in M-KOPA and Mobisol, two clean energy companies that have made a significant impact in the provision of solar power to communities in the region. She was also Vice Board Chair of Shelter Afrique’s Finance and Risk Committee. Shelter Afrique is a Development Finance Institution with membership from 43 African countries that provides debt and equity finance for affordable housing projects.

Kanini has an MBA from Cass Business School, City University London and was recognised by the World Economic Forum as a Young Global Leader in 2014 for her contribution to business and entrepreneurship. She is also a visiting lecturer at the University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business.

Pilita Clark
Associate Editor and Business Columnist
Financial Times

Pilita Clark is an Associate Editor and Business Columnist at the Financial Times. She writes a weekly column on modern corporate life, as well as features and other articles. Pilita has worked for the FT since 2003, covering aviation and the environment. She was the FT's Environment Correspondent from 2011 to 2017.

Pilita was previously a Washington correspondent for Australian newspapers and a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University.

Samir Abhyankar
Partner
TPG Growth

Samir Abhyankar is a Partner at TPG Growth based in London, working across sectors covering the group's investment activities in Africa. Prior to joining TPG Growth in 2015, Mr Abhyankar was a Partner with Satya Capital, where he focused on IT, consumer, financial services and retail investments. Previously he spent six years at Citi Venture Capital International, where he was responsible for its African investment activities, and CDC Group, where he was the Director of Strategy. He was also formerly a management consultant with Marakon Associates. Mr Abhyankar started his career with the World Bank as a banking sector analyst. He graduated with an MBA from INSEAD and holds an MA from Johns Hopkins' School of Advanced International Studies.