Draft:Wale Adeosun

Wale Adeosun, CFA, (born December 3, 1962) is a Nigerian investor and private equity multi-millionaire businessman. He is the Founder, CEO and Chief Investment Officer of Kuramo Capital Management, a leading multi-asset class investor in sub-Saharan Africa and the general partner of the $500 million Kuramo Africa Opportunity Funds (KAOF). Kuramo Capital is an independent investment management firm championing private commercial capital into Africa.

To date, Kuramo Capital has direct and indirect investments in over 150 small and medium-sized companies in 30 sub-Saharan Africa countries in sectors such as power, telecoms, financial services, agribusiness, technology and consumer sectors. Walé Adeosun has over 30 years of global investment management experience garnered from leadership positions at some of the leading large pools of capital in the US such as pension funds, foundations and endowments. He has been a pioneer utilizing the combination of his global investment experience and networks coupled with knowledge of the local terrain to champion global capital toward Africa.

Investment Career

Prior to founding Kuramo Capital, Walé Adeosun joined Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in 2004 as Treasurer and Chief Investment Officer where he managed $1 billion in endowment and pension assets. He led the diversification of RPI’s investments into alternative assets such as private equity, venture capital, and real estate in fast growing regions of the world including China,Latin America and Africa.

Prior to RPI, Walé Adeosun was a Managing Director in the Investments Group of the MacArthur Foundation in Chicago with oversight of $2 billion in US equities and hedge fund investments. At MacArthur, President Jonathan Fanton invited Walé Adeosun to join the Africa Task Force Program. Prior to MacArthur, Walé Adeosun was a member of the Pension Investments group at Inland Steel Industries (now, ArcelorMittal USA) with oversight of $2 billion in assets.

Walé Adeosun currently serves as the Chairman of the Nigeria Higher Education Foundation (NHEF), a foundation based in New York and created by The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation in 2004 to assist Nigerian Universities in preparing the next generation of Nigerian and global leaders. He served as one of fifteen business leaders and the only member of African origin on President Obama’s Advisory Council on Doing Business in Africa (PAC-DBIA).

This role involved leveraging his extensive global and African investment knowledge as well as network toward deepening commercial activities between the United States and Africa. He also served as the first Chairman of the Investment Advisory Committee of the $200 billion New York State Common Retirement Fund.

He received his BA in Economics and Business Administration from Coe College, Cedar Rapids, Iowa in 1984 where he serves as a Trustee of the Board and received his MBA from John M. Olin School of Business at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri in 1988 with a concentration in Finance. He was awarded the Chartered Financial Analyst designation in 1995 and he is a member of the CFA Institute and CFA Societies of Lagos and New York. Walé Adeosun was also inducted into the New York Chapter of the National Association of Security Professionals Wall Street Hall of Fame in 2008.