Upcoming Events

IA-BCA are delighted to welcome the UK Ambassador to Zimbabwe, Catriona Laing, to our exclusive roundtable event on the 26th of February. The roundtable will be an interactive session, the Ambassador providing an update on the political and economic developments occuring in Zimbabwe, with an outlook to the coming year. The event is kindly hosted by Baker McKenzie. 

Meet the Speaker:

HMA Catriona Laing CB, British Ambassador to Zimbabwe

In September 2014 Ms Laing was appointed Her Majesty’s Ambassador to the Republic of Zimbabwe. Ms Laing joined the FCO in January 2012 when she was posted to Afghanistan. She is an economist by background and has spent much of her career in Africa serving in Botswana, Kenya, Sudan and Somalia.

For more information or to register, please contact .

Invest Africa-Business Council for Africa will be hosting the Prime Minister’s Trade Envoys to Ethiopia (Jeremey LeFroy MP), Angola (Baroness Northover) and Ghana (Adam Afriyie).

This meeting will be an opportunity to hear from the Prime Minister’s official representatives to key African markets. Each Trade Envoy will discuss their priorities and the economic developments in their markets, before taking part in an interactive Q&A discussion.

Meet the Speakers

Baroness Northover

Rt Hon Baroness (Lindsay) Northover is a member of the House of Lords and former junior government minister. She is an Honorary Associate Professor at the Institute of Global Health Innovation at Imperial College London, and is a former Member of Council of the Overseas Development Institute, Trustee of the Tropical Health and Education Trust, and Trustee of UNICEF UK. She is a Liberal Democrat member of the House of Lords, serving as Spokesperson for her Party first on Health and then on International Development. She has served on a number of House of Lords Select Committees.

Lindsay was Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department of International Development (DFID), and Minister for Africa, 2014-15, in the Coalition Government. Prior to that she served in a number of other Government departments, including the Ministry of Justice, the Department of Health, the Department for Education, the Department for Energy and Climate Change, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and the Government Equalities Office, as well as serving as Lead Government Spokesperson for DFID from 2010-14.

Baroness Northover was appointed by the Prime Minister to be the UK Trade Envoy to Angola in January 2016.

Adam Afriyie MP

Elected MP for Windsor in 2005, Adam has a depth and breadth of parliamentary experience having served on Select Committees and Standing Committees, led policy development and served as Shadow Minister for Science and Innovation from 2007 to 2010. In 2010, Adam was appointed Chairman of the independent Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology, responsible for providing parliamentarians with impartial advice on technical topics.

Passionate about social mobility, young people in business and is a serial entrepreneur and investor. While still in his twenties he built a number of high-tech businesses from scratch. He maintains an active interest in business as Non-Executive Chairman of UK and international companies. Adam is proud to be the Patron of Young Enterprise Berkshire.

Jeremy Lefroy MP

Jeremy is the Member of Parliament for Stafford. Jeremy’s political interests include sustainable development and enterprise, urban regeneration, environment, small business, health. Jeremy is self-employed, working with smallholder farmers in East Africa to produce organic coffee and cocoa for the world market. His charity interests include "Equity for Africa" helping small businesses in Africa to obtain the capital they need to grow. In recent years, he has served on the Conservative Party's Globalisation and Global Poverty policy group.

IA-BCA Members: Please register for this event by clicking on ‘Get Tickets’ and then ‘Enter Promotional Code’ to register for your place without charge. Please contact to receive your code.

Africa’s infrastructure deficit is a constraint on its growth, which can be viewed as an opportunity to leapfrog to new, more efficient technologies. Closing the infrastructure quantity and quality gap relative to the best performers in the world could increase growth of GDP per capita by 2.6% per year, reported by the World Bank.

Geoffrey White, CEO of Agility Africa, is an expert on infrastructure development, retail supply chains, agri-business, and investment for African markets. Geoffrey will discuss the future prospects of the infrastructure development industry in Africa, spotlighting; energy, retail, technology and consumer goods sectors.

Meet our Speaker:

Geoffrey White, CEO of Agility Africa

Geoffrey White, CEO of Agility Africa, is an expert on infrastructure development, retail supply chains, agri-business, and investment for African markets. Agility, a leading global provider of logistics and related infrastructure solutions for the oil and gas and FMCG markets, has over $5 billion in revenue, 24,000 employees, and offices in more than 100 countries. Mr White is a member of the Agility Strategic Advisory Board.

Agility is funding and developing an extensive network of warehouse distribution parks across Africa to provide international standard infrastructure to support both multinational corporations and the growth of SME’s in Africa and the development of African trade regionally and globally.

Mr. White joined Agility in 2014 after serving as CEO of Lonrho Plc for 8 years, where he developed product supply chains for some of the world’s largest retailers and developed essential infrastructure and logistics facilities for Africa’s burgeoning oil and gas industry. Mr. White’s career path has included working with Thomas Tilling Plc, BTR Plc, Asda Plc, Hilton, Ford PAG, and a leading Middle Eastern private investment office.

Mr. White frequently comments on Africa for the BBC, CNN, CNBC, Forbes, and at the World Economic Forum, AU, NEPAD, Royal Africa Society, Chatham House, The Economist and other important African forum.

IA-BCA Members: Please register for this event by clicking on ‘Get Tickets’ and then ‘Enter Promotional Code’ to register for your place without charge. Please contact to receive your code.

South Africa is renowned as Africa’s economic powerhouse, providing a gateway to the continent’s vast existing and potential opportunities. Despite recent political uncertainty, South Africa remains the continent’s top destination for FDI.

The UK Department for International Trade and Invest Africa-Business Council for Africa are delighted to offer this exclusive event at the House of Commons, which will focus on the continued strong and productive UK-South Africa relationship, the role of UK investment in South Africa, and the country’s recent political changes.

The event will provide critical assessment of South Africa’s market environment, incentives to invest, and case studies of investor experiences in the country. We will be joined by Graham Stuart MP, Minister for Investment at the Department for International Trade, Barnaby Fletcher, Senior Analyst, Southern Africa, Control Risks and Charles Barlow, Director, Investec for an informal, interactive and engaging discussion.

Speakers

Graham Stuart, Minister for Investment at the Department for International Trade

Graham Stuart was elected Conservative MP for Beverley and Holderness in 2005 and more recently, appointed Minister for Investment at the Department for International Trade.

Whilst reading Philosophy and Law at Cambridge University, Graham founded ‘What’s On in Cambridge’ and soon developed a successful career in publishing. Following his time as Chair of the Cambridge University Conservative Association, he was elected as a member of the Cambridge City Council in 1998, where he served until 2004.

Graham’s Parliamentary career has seen him serve as Chair of the Education Select Committee (2010-15) and as Assistant Government Whip with responsibility for the Department of Health, and later for HM Treasury and the Ministry of Defence.

In his role as Minister for Investment at the Department for International Trade, Graham focuses on encouraging foreign investment into the UK economy and promoting overseas investment opportunities to British companies.

Barnaby Fletcher, Senior Analyst, Southern Africa, Control Risks

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Barnaby Fletcher provides political, operational and security risk analysis on southern Africa. He is a regular contributor to Control Risks’ subscription service CORE, and also works on bespoke consulting projects for clients. Prior to joining Control Risks, Barnaby has worked for the Economist Intelligence Unit, AKE Group, Africa Confidential and Global Business Reports, and has contributed articles to publications including Engineering & Mining Journal, Hart’s E&P, and Oil & Gas Investor.

Nic Smalle, Director, Apis Partners

Nic is currently at Apis Partners, a private equity firm focused on investments in the Financial Services (FS) sector across Africa, South Asia and South East Asia. Apis invest growth equity (i.e. minority investments) in FS companies looking to expand into new geographies, complementary product verticals or across their value chain. 

Prior to joining Apis, Nic was at Old Mutual (LON:OML) were he was responsible for OM's Strategic Investment Fund, an on-balance sheet investment mandate that focused on the expansion of Old Mutual's operations into key African markets via controlling and minority investments in the Financial Services sector. Preceding OML I was an Associate Director at Standard Chartered and part of the Wholesale Banking Strategy team based in Singapore. 

Please note: Attendees should  please contact Susan Jones on for the code to register. Thanks to the support of the Department for Internation Trade (DIT), this event is free to attend for both members and non-members. 

IA-BCA are delighted to be hosting a Lusophone African Outlook 2018, which will focus on the political, economic and commercial prospects for Portuguese speaking countries spread across the African continent.

Guest speakers will discuss the current macro economic overview of Angola and Mozambique. This includes past & upcoming Eurobond issues, 2017's Angolan presidential election and next year's Mozambican elections. The opportunities in agriculture, infrastructure, energy and TMT will be addressed by the panel who will draw upon their experiences.

Invited Guest Speakers

• António Vicente Marques, Founder, AVM
• Gonçalo Neves Correia, ThirdWay Africa 
• Pedro Guterres, CFO Mota Engil Africa
• Martin Weber, MD DCM, Goldman Sachs
• Roland Janssens, Investec Asset Management

All IA-BCA members please contact  for code to register. 
Non-members seats available for £200+VAT.