Anta Mbodj Sarr joined Speak Up Africa in June 2014 as an Administrative and Logistics Officer for the Football Combating Malaria (FCM) program. Since January 2017, Anta is in charge of all Speak Up Africa’s administrative and financial programs coordination.
Prior to Speak Up Africa, Anta has worked in various private sector companies in Senegal (SGBS – BCEAO – Elton), then joined « Vision 21 Sport Consulting » specialized in the fields of marketing, sponsorship and events where she acquired 10 years of experience as an Operations Manager.
Anta is passionate about basketball and a former basketball player herself at the Dakar University Club. During her basketball years, Anta was a FSBB marketing agent, she organized basketball tournaments & All Star Games, she also facilitated a basketball TV show broadcasted on a national TV channel (RTS), she filed reports of Senegalese basketball players living abroad and organized inclusive sports events for children.
Elisabeth Dia joined the team in March 2022.
She acts as a liaison between Speak Up Africa and the Ouagadougou Partnership Coordination Unit. She supports the programs in supply planning, manages and coordinates administrative tasks and make payments.
Elisabeth spent most of her career with Oxfam Great Britain. She has more than 14 years of experience in Supply chain and logistics in the development and humanitarian sectors in West and Central Africa. She has a strong record of good quality field support which increased organizational effectiveness ; by recruiting and retaining logistics teams and building capacities of staff and partners. She played an active role in implementing Oxfam GB’s supply chain and logistics strategy in 9 countries. She has provided technical support to country teams to improve the quality and timeliness of the projects.
She is very sensitive to the conditions of women and children and was the Gender Focal Point at Oxfam GB.
She has done several training courses including Humanitarian Logistics at Fritz Institute UK and Executive MBA at ISM.
After ten years of experience in customer relationship management (for call processing and quality monitoring for the improvement of partner customer services) and with two years in Human Resources management, Marième joined Speak Up Africa team in November 2017 as assistant to further support the Administration and Logistics Department.
Previously, he was an assistant accountant in a public accountancy and tax firm of the place where he was in charge of the accounting of a dozen companies working in various fields of activity (commercial companies, service companies, industries and liberal professions).
He holds a master’s degree 2 in audit and management control at the UCAD. He also obtained a Bachelor’s degree in management sciences from the integrated university after obtaining the Bachelor’s degree in quantitative management techniques from the Lycée Maurice DELAFOSSE in Dakar.
He has also successfully completed training in the Participatory Research Accelerated Method (M.A.R.P) of the African Institute of Local Development (I.A.D.L).
Edgard KOUASSI joined Speak Up Africa in July 2022 as an accounting and administrative assistant. Passionate about management sciences and sustainable development.
These years of experience take place in two stages. A first extra-professional in which he puts these two years of volunteering in several NGOs.
As for the purely professional aspect. He has to his credit five years as an accountant, inventory manager and auditor of Ivorian and Senegalese companies in the sectors of industry, microfinance, environment, e-commerce, purchasing centers and accounting firms.
He is a graduate of the African Center higher Management Studies (CESAG) in Dakar and contributed to an article on currency hedging.
Yacine grew up and followed her primary and secondary studies in Senegal. She graduated from INSEEC Paris (a French Business school), and began her career as Sales Manager at CISCO SYSTEMS in Paris.
She then returned to Senegal in 2004 to open the first representation of MICROSOFT as Business Development Manager for West and Central Africa. In 2008, Yacine joined the headquarters of the Celtel Group (now Bharti) in Amsterdam to launch the corporate segment of the mobile phone operator in 21 African countries.
With her experience, which enabled her to acquire a proven versatility in strategy, project management and business development, Yacine embarked on the Africa24 adventure and launched the first international news channel in Africa. She held the position of CEO and led the daily deployment of Africa24 in the global media landscape.
In July 2017, Yacine returned to Microsoft as General Manager of the West and Central Africa Region, based in Dakar. A year later, she was very quickly promoted to the position of Director of the Small and Medium Business Segment for Emerging Markets in the Africa and Middle East region. And since January 2022, she leads the Skilling and Infrastructure strategy at the Microsoft newly-formed department called the Africa Transformation Office.
Meg has spent her career focused on building the necessary consensus, resources and political will to bring health solutions to those who need them most. Meg is currently Senior Program Officer for Family Planning & Women’s Health Financing Advocacy at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), where she started her tenure driving efforts to move the global agenda on malaria and neglected tropical diseases (NTDs).
Between those roles at BMGF, Meg was the Global Engagement Director for WomenLift Health leading strategic communications and building partnerships to accelerate the advancement of talented women into senior leadership by investing in mid-career women and influencing the environments in which they live and work. Prior to BMGF, Meg was the first-hired Director of Advocacy and Communications for PATH’s malaria program and drove the now-accepted best practice of integrating advocacy strategy into disease-specific global health programming. She has 25 years of experience in advocacy, public policy and resource mobilization for a range of global health issues from sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) to malaria.
A lawyer by training, Meg has taught courses on gender equality in law at Georgetown University, brought gender-based asylum claims pro bono and worked to influence policy from a village council in Botswana to the US Congress to the World Health Organization to improve the lives of women and girls.
Meg earned her undergraduate degree at Kenyon College in anthropology and international studies and her law degree from the University of Michigan Law School.
Adrien Diouf is the Managing Director of Agence UMOA-Titres since September 2013. He is responsible for setting up and developing this institution whose mandate is to assist the eight (8) WAMU member countries in raising financial resources on the capital markets. Agence UMOA- Titres is also in charge of the development of the Union’s public securities markets which constitute the local sovereign debt stock.
He has significant experience in finance both in Senegal and abroad. He spent more than 10 years in France and Canada, where he held various positions in the banking sector and in pension funds industry. He joined APIX in Senegal in 2006 and participated in the financial structuring of several public projects pertaining to the State of Senegal.
In 2008, he was appointed Head of the Investment Banking and Public Sector Department of the Senegalese subsidiary of Ecobank Group. He was then recruited by Diamond Bank to take up the position of Manager of the Treasury for the WAEMU region until 2012, when he moved to Egypt as Head of the Treasury Department of Afreximbank, where he stayed before joining Agence UMOA- Titres.
Adrien DIOUF holds an MBA from McGill University in Montreal, Canada. He also has Master degrees from Université Paris I in Mathematics and Financial Modeling.
Magatte Diop, Founder and President of Peacock Investments, is an accomplished banker and a confirmed entrepreneur with more than 25 years of experience in international finance and management. Mr. Diop has a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from Stern Business School at New-York University. He is the founder of ILICO-SAGEF Group, composed of a Life Insurance Company and a Real Estate Development Company. He has served as Chairman of the Group since 2003 after holding the position of CEO from 1997 to 2003. Between 1993 and 1997, Mr. Magatte Diop was the Managing Director of M.R.Beal International which he founded after he had left CitiCorp and managed it with success.
Prior to this, between 1990 and 1993, Mr. Magatte Diop was the Vice President and Regional Director of Citibank/CitiCorp for West and Central Africa. Mr. Magatte Diop supervised the bank’s relationships with more than 200 financial institutions including Central Banks, Development Banks, Commercial Banks, and Government agencies in the African region.
He is decorated with the medal of merit by the Republic of Senegal. Mr. Magatte Diop is the President of the African Chamber of Commerce in New York and is very active in a number of initiatives aimed at promoting commerce and investments between the United States and Africa. He is a board member of IntraHealth North Carolina, an $800 million NGO with presence in 24 countries and serves as President of the audit and finance committee board member of Dalberg Development Advisors. He recently founded a think tank called CERSSEM (Center for Strategic Studies for the Emergence of Senegal) to participate in the formulation of new economic policies for the development of Senegal.
Cecile Niang is a Lead Economist in the Finance Competitiveness and Innovation Global Practice of the World Bank. Prior to this, Cecile was a Program Leader in the World Bank Caribbean Management Unit over 2014-2018, leading the World Bank’s work on supporting growth in the region. She was also the coordinator of the Caribbean Growth Forum, a policy platform that accelerates the implementation of inclusive private-sector led growth reforms, while at the same time fostering greater focus on results, transparency and accountability. Prior to her appointment in the Caribbean, Cecile was a Country Sector Coordinator and Senior Economist in the World Bank’s Finance and Private Sector Development department, in South Asia and Africa. She has 20 years of experience in international private sector development, project management, strategy and policy.
Over the past fifteen years at the World Bank, Cecile has specialized on telecom, ICT and energy market and infrastructure development, investment climate reforms, financial inclusion, financial resilience, competitive industries and innovation. Her work has spanned across South Asia, Africa, the Caribbean and Eastern Europe. She has wide ranging operational experience in policy and regulatory reforms and financing of public private partnerships. She has also written extensively on access to finance and productivity and inclusion.
Prior to joining the World Bank, Cecile was an Associate Manager, Business Development at France Telecom North America and a Director, Corporate Development at Juno Online, a US Internet Service Provider. Cecile holds graduate degrees in economics, business administration and information Systems from Columbia University, Paris Dauphine and Telecom Ecole de Management.