Our Advisers

Alan Furness CMG is a retired British diplomat with considerable experience in West Africa, serving first at the British Embassy in Dakar, Senegal, from 1972 to 1975. He was British Ambassador in Dakar from 1993 to 1997, assigned to Cape Verde, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau and Mali, as well as Senegal. He also served in British diplomatic missions in India, Indonesia, Poland and Brussels. 

From 1998 to 2008, he was Resident Representative in Dakar of the West Africa Business Association, and from 2000 to 2011 he was also Ambassador to Senegal of the Sovereign Order of Malta. Alan now lives in London.

David Hampshire started his career in the Scottish knitwear industry. Moving to Zambia, he worked for the government in the National Import and Export Corporation. He then moved to the Copperbelt to become Managing Director of Speciality Foods, part of JL Morison Son and Jones which was acquired by Guinness.

In 1981, David became Managing Director of Guinness Cameroon, moving back to London to become Managing Director of Guinness Africa in 1988 and then Diageo Africa in 2000. He retired from Diageo in 2005 but has continued his involvement with Africa in various non-executive roles, acting as an adviser to the Business Council Advisor and, most recently, as chairman of Dashen Brewery in Ethiopia.

Jonathan’s career has been dominated by Africa, including Zambia (administration), DRC (mining training), Mauritius (training and consultancy), and Zimbabwe (British Election Supervisor). 

For 13 years, Jonathan ran a pioneering Rio Tinto funded programme to develop local African technical managers for the mining industry as a whole in southern Africa. This led to his PhD ‘Transcending Culture: Developing Africa’s Technical Managers’. 

After retirement, he was appointed Africa Director of BESO and later the first Director of the Royal African Society. He is currently Business Council for Africa Southern Africa consultant.

John Brown studied Economics at Edinburgh University and began his career at the United Africa Company Limited in Sierra Leone. He has been Managing Director of Guinness Sierra Leone, Guinness Nigeria, Whitbread Nigeria and Group MD of Jos International Breweries, Nigeria.

John was chairman of the West Africa Business Association until 2007. During this time, he was a member of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Nigeria and participated in Prime Minister Blair’s Commission for Africa (2005) contributing to Capacity Building. In 2003, John was bestowed the rank of Officer of the Order of the Federal Republic, the highest award given to foreign nationals, by the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Kamal is the head of Stephenson Harwood's Africa and India Groups. He specialises in international arbitration, litigation and fraud and asset tracing. He acts for a wide spread of clients from Governments, Banks, National Oil Companies, listed and private corporations to high net worth individuals. He has been included twice in the Lawyer's Hot 100 list of leading lawyers in England, in 2009 and 2014, and is highly regarded by the legal directories Legal 500, Chambers & Partners, IFLR.

Mark Steeves has a wide range of contacts in several industries, notably financial services, the O&G industry, and, latterly, in agriculture.  He has worked in many African countries across the whole continent.  His business career started in the private sector and included a period when he owned, then successfully sold his own business.  Head of Africa at HSBC Insurance Brokers Ltd until 2010, he has since then offered advisory services based on his experience of multinational management, SMEs and company start-ups.  He is personally an investor in two African businesses ( one with an operation in Sierra Leone and one in Zimbabwe). He was a main board independent non-excutive director of Business Council for Africa from 2009 until 2015 when he stepped down voluntarily and before that of the Britain Nigeria Business Council from 2007.

Nick Holme ran a commercial farming operation in Zimbabwe, chaired the local Farmers’ Association and was the first chairman of the farming community’s National Environment Committee. The first Regional Executive for the Commercial Farmers’ Union of Zimbabwe, he also edited The Farmer magazine. Now UK based, Nick has a network of contacts in the agricultural, business and political sectors in sub-Saharan Africa and other parts of the world. He has worked alongside corporates, NGOs, government departments, diplomats, financial institutions, SMEs, private equity firms and high net worth individuals. As well as being an adviser to the Business Council for Africa, Nick is an adviser to Ashberg Ltd (a multi-family office) and is a Trustee of the Commonwealth Youth Orchestra and Choir.

Mr. Richard Herb served as Managing Director of International Ore and Fertilisers, a division of Occidental Petroleum. He handled the sale of all NAFCON's products to international markets for a period of about 10 years. Herb is an entrepreneur with 35 years experience in the fertiliser industry, and currently serves as a Director of Notore Chemical Industries Limited. He is a director of the Nigerian Business Council, a position he has held since 2002 and is presently the Chairman of Eko Hotel and Suites in Lagos. Herb graduated from the University of London with a degree in Chemistry.

Terhas Berhe is the Managing Director of Brand Communications. Terhas has over 15 years’ experience in brand development and management, working across Africa and in Canada and the UK. She takes a pragmatic approach to creating and managing brands. Her hands-on management style ensures that Brand Communications’ diverse and collective thinking leads to a distinct customer experience for every client.

Terhas spearheaded the African Investment and Finance Conference in 2008 at the London Stock Exchange and has amassed an impressive portfolio of high-level contacts with the African media. She also maintains constant contact with leading figures in private and public organisations and has a strong track record in advising major corporations on engagement with diverse stakeholders.