Re: Re : Website & bio/turkana shield

[Anthony Stonefield]

Julius,

My only concern is that my experience on the financial side covers the following:

* Operating start-ups in California and now two in South Africa, i.e., no experience with Mauritius or Luxembourg entities.

* M&A in the US on both the start-up and listed company sides

* Investment scouting, DD and negotiating for US and South African start-ups

* Broad capitalization and expenditure oversight as a board member in start-ups

So, I'm clearly not idea for a day-to-day and financial operations. However, I am okay with whatever role structure allows us to get operational after which I could switch to a CTO/CIO type title.

Regarding the CEO role, I think it is important that we have one and, in our case, the best person is probably the one who will spend most of the time in front of investors and conference audiences. The question an outsider might have is which companies has this CEO run before, and what was the outcome.

~Ant

On Sun, Dec 15, 2013 at 10:03 PM, Michel Kayembe <michel...@netscape.net> wrote:

Julius
What's the meaning of the turkana shield used in the presentation?
Rgds
Michel

-----Original Message-----
From: Akinyemi <akin...@media.mit.edu>
To: Michel Kayembe <michel...@netscape.net>
Cc: astonefield <aston...@gmail.com>; omargadsby <omarg...@mac.com>
Sent: 14-Dec-2013 16:36:41 +0000
Subject: Re: Re : Website & bio

Thanks Michel, great update, I like your enhancements, I am ok with this eventually we need to separate the COO from the CIO to avoid conflict of interest and independence of decisions as systemic risk become a key issue with such business as we are getting into. We don't need to worry about that for now but in future as we operationalize activities.

Cheers

Julius

Sent from my iPad please excuse any typos

On Dec 14, 2013, at 16:22, Michel Kayembe <michel...@netscape.net> wrote:

Julius

 

Great thanks for the updated version. I went through the presentation and made some changes. I am not sure on whether we have discuss the CEO role but I think that as your are steering our meetings, it is probably wise to be designated as the CEO of the group.

I thought that we could also integrate the technology role into the COO duties hence falling under Anthony responsibility (if you agree of course Anthony).

 

This is the descriptive role inserted into the revised version:

 

 

Julius Akinyemi is Chief Executive Officer

·  Julius provides leadership and has management responsibility to develop, guide and execute Africa4Ward’s strategy and corporate growth plan.

·  Julius is the founder of the UWIN platform at Massachusetts institute of Technology’s Media Lab in Cambridge (USA)

Anthony Stonefield is Chief Operating Officer

·   Anthony is responsible for Africa4Ward’s technology, operations and finance functions.

·   In his current capacity, Anthony is responsible for overseeing the day-to-day activities of the group, including supporting the investment management process.

Omar Gadsby is Chief Investment Officer

·  In his current capacity, Omar oversees the group’s investment process. He reviews investment opportunities with specific emphasis on analysis, valuation and due diligence for prospective investments.

·  Omar is also engaged in the monitoring of the investment and profit realization.

Michel Kayembe is Chief Marketing & Client Services Officer

·  Michel oversees the client relationships and marketing function. He is responsible for communicating with clients about Africa4Ward investment practices.

·  He also reviews investment opportunities with specific emphasis on due diligence for prospective investments.

 

Let me know your thoughts

 

Best regards

 

Michel

-----E-mail d'origine-----
De : Julius Akinyemi <akin...@media.mit.edu>
A: Michel Kayembe <michel...@netscape.net>; Anthony Stonefield <aston...@gmail.com>; Kwame Omar Gadsby (SELE 3) <omarg...@mac.com>
Envoyé le : Sa, 14 Déc 2013 7:04
Sujet : Re: Re: Website & bio

Hello Colleagues, I am attaching 2 DRAFT copies of the updated deck:

1. the one with Suffix 7A is with all the work in progress question or highlights so we don't loose track of refinements needed
2. The 7B is version that Michel can use as a draft with prospects, I took out all the redlines and pending questions

Do let me know if I missed out anything on them or further refinements, sorry I was out of country and i will be off to Nigeria next week and hope to be back for our meeting on Sunday 22nd. I will advise if anything changes.

We all know this is still work in progress

Cheers

On Wed, Dec 11, 2013 at 3:06 PM, Michel Kayembe <michel...@netscape.net> wrote:

Hi Julius

Do you think I can get a copy of the updated version of the corporate profile by Friday? I have a discussion with a potential business introducer.
Great thanks for your feedback
Regards
Michel

--
With Kind Regards
Julius O. Akinyemi
Entrepreneur-In-Residence
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Media Laboratory
75 Amherst Street
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139
akin...@media.mit.edu
Web Site: http://wealthofnations.media.mit.edu
Cell: +1 (415) 497-9170
Twitter: @Akinyemi_J

 

<Africa4Ward_DEC132013Rev_MK.pptx>

[Julius Akinyemi]

Hello Colleagues I will be in the Air on Sunday when we meet, I am in Nigeria mid- week through Sunday. I am coming back  via Paris unfortunately the call it is about the time I will be boarding in Paris so,  do go ahead without me I will catch up in our next meeting.

This is my brief comments on the title comments:

1. I am ok with the majority decision
2. I think at this stage we are too small to have all this titles in fact I am against the conventional way of corporate titles
3. Our objective is to convince the investment community of our capabilities through the individual and collective us not the titles
4. This said: Our core offering is Investment knowledge and technology - hence my being adamant about the Chief Technology /Information officer as opposed to COO
5. I believe anyone of us can play the role of the CEO anytime but for where we are for now I don't think we need a CEO and COO within the four of us; my unconventional thinking is that our "Operations" is the investment activities
6. Let's keep the focus and energy on moving this forward
7. Our breakthrough will be in the way the clients prospects value us and the competences they see in us not the tiles, once we are where we want to be, we can realign things as we see fit
   

Cheers

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[Anthony Stonefield]

Julius,

All sounds quite right. To be clear, are you preferring my title to be CIO/CTO, or COO?

Would it help if we pulled the call back by 1-2 hours so you can dial in, or would you prefer to focus on traveling on Sunday?

~Ant

[Julius Akinyemi]

I am recommending what we currently have as the CIO/CTO.I believe we need to sell technology as much as we sell Investment strategy. I am a backup on the technology side and you and Michel are backup to Investment side as we all back up each other by function.

All in all I am ok with whatever the agreement is.

My flight leaves CDG(Paris) at 7:10pm on Sunday, I will be at the lounge 3 hours before then so I can join the call up to 6:30pm  before boarding.This may complicate things, all of you have my comments so please don't make the meeting contingent on my participation on Sunday.

I am with you in spirit and in agreement with your decisions.

Cheers and Have a great week everyone

Omar do you have something to share with US?????????

[Michel Kayembe]

I will then suggest keeping our call on Sunday at 7’30PM CET (or 7PM)

As we want to push the technology, how can we package the UWIN platform as an investment vehicle? Any idea?

 

-----E-mail d'origine-----
De : Julius Akinyemi <akin...@media.mit.edu>

A: Anthony Stonefield <aston...@gmail.com>
Cc: africanforward <african...@googlegroups.com>
Envoyé le : Lu, 16 Déc 2013 19:06
Sujet : Re: Re : Website & bio/turkana shield

[Anthony Stonefield]

Let's go for 7PM. I'll noodling on the UWIN tech platform with Julius and revert.

[Akinyemi]

Colleagues, The rest of the week will be quite busy for me between travels and errands and other things.

On UWIN: it can play 2 rolls:

1). It can be the platform behind Afrca4Ward for registry and match up, there is no need to reinvent the wheel

2). It can also be an investment vehicle with its own business case for investors as we would for other opportunities - as a trusted robust platform for land and real asset registry and commodity trading platform among other capabilities.

We can discuss this fully when I get back, no rush on this for now

Cheers

Julius

Sent from my iPad please excuse any typos