RENEW Welcomes Additions to the Management Team

 

 

Denver, CO and Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, February 2, 2021

-- RENEW is pleased to announce the following additions and advancements to the team at RENEW:

RENEW, an impact investment and management consulting firm based in East Africa since 2012, announces further expansion with new executive team members and an internal promotion. This includes additions to RENEW’s Shared Growth Services team including JC Oelofse as Group COO, Pranay Shrivastava as Group CFO and Christophe Humbert as Group Chief SMO. RENEW has also promoted Emily Ziethen to the role of COO at RENEW.

Emily Ziethen, who has been with RENEW since September 2014, has been promoted to RENEW COO. Emily directs internal operational management, monitoring and evaluation, external reporting and development project management. Prior to joining RENEW, Emily worked as a fund accountant for Greenspring Associates, a growth-stage venture capital firm, where she was responsible for the financial reporting, communications and management of multiple funds. In 2020, Emily received her MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business with Honors and was the recipient of The Rustandy Center on Social Sector Innovation’s 2020 Social Impact Leader award.

Christophe Humbert joins RENEW as Chief Marketing & Sales Officer for the Shared Growth Services team after working for one of RENEW’s portfolio companies, ET Fresh. Christophe brings 20 years’ experience specializing in negotiations, forecasting, procurement, import-export, business planning, sales and sequencing. With a strong passion for strategically leading results-driven teams, gained from his experience in the retail and meat industry supply chains, Christophe’s pragmatic attitude and attention to detail helps optimize the projects he’s leading. Christophe is joining RENEW from Majid Al Futtaim, based in the United Arab Emirates, where he led strategy, sourcing and contract negotiations for the company’s import division.

 

JC Oelofse joins RENEW’s Shared Growth Services team as Group COO, bringing 30 years’ experience in designing strategies, products, services, experiences and ecosystems. JC has a profound interest in uncovering latent, unmet user needs and has the ability to transform research into simple, actionable solutions. This curiosity is matched with sensitivity to new trends and cultural changes in society, resilience and adaptability to new contexts, environments, projects and countries. JC is joining RENEW from AEO (PTY) LTD, where he served as the Managing Director overseeing the strategic integration of two companies.

Pranay Shrivastava joins RENEW’s Shared Growth Services team as Group CFO. Pranay is a dynamic professional with more than 6 years of experience in private equity, investment banking, equity research, financial analysis, corporate strategies and investor relationship management. Over the course of his career, he has held various roles in the financial and investment industry and brings a wealth of knowledge to this new role. Pranay joins the RENEW team from Kenafric Industries in Nairobi, Kenya where he served as a business and financial analyst to the company.

“We are implementing an enhanced investment strategy at RENEW and also expanding into more countries in East Africa. We are lucky to have such a great group of professionals join the firm to help us execute on our new strategy. Each one brings an impressive amount of skill and passion for the work,” Matthew Davis, CEO of RENEW, recently said. “We are also excited to have Emily step into the role of RENEW COO. Her commitment to our vision and her impressive management skills made her an obvious match for the role. With this team, and with the rest of the RENEW group, I am confident we will continue to build a world-class investment firm and help investors see Africa as the next great investment market.”

RENEW’s Impact Angel Network (IAN) is one of the most active private equity investors in Ethiopia. Its members seek to achieve both significant positive social impact and financial returns through investments in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Africa, a proven engine of economic growth and job creation which often lack capital and management capacity due to their size. RENEW and IAN members believe that targeting employment through SMEs is, dollar-for-dollar, the most effective and sustainable way to reduce poverty.

RENEW, with its largest office in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, manages the IAN’s investment operations and provides investment advisory and consulting services in support of its investments. RENEW’s work in Ethiopia was piloted with USAID and is currently undertaken with financial support from the Government of Canada provided through Global Affairs Canada. The project, Accelerating Business Growth, aims to promote sustainable job creation for low-skilled workers, including women and young adults, through a dynamic and growing small and medium business sector in Ethiopia.

 

 

To find out more, please visit www.renewcapital.com.