The Founding Team

Valerie is managing Digital Equity at large and supporting it through general advice and guidance. Valerie works across all capacities required for a digital transformation. Her expertise is in digital identity and the handling of personal data, risk management, and data management and governance in line with ethical principles.  

Valerie spent over two years at the UN World Food Programme, responsible for the design and implementation of digital identity as part of the digital agenda and capacity development. During this time, Valerie initiated partnerships with the World Bank and UN agencies, and worked in close exchange with academia, accelerator programs and start-ups. 

Consequently, she advised and collaborated with the World Bank, UNHCR, the UK Department for International Development (DFID), and the German cooperation for international collaboration (GIZ). 

Previously, Valerie had a career in the private sector for over ten years where she was responsible for teams and programmes across Europe and Russia. Prior to that, she completed a European management programme for high-potential leaders at General Electric Money Bank. 

With 30+ years’ experience in the aid and development industry, Karl has a very practical approach to digital identity: what is in it and for whom? He has managed $multi-million budgets in Africa and the Middle East through the entire programme cycle, in hands-on as well as in supervisory functions. He was acting co-chair of the global cluster on Camp Coordination and Camp Management. He built refugee camps, closed them, and looked for alternatives. He lead UNHCR's statistics, information, and registration activities for several years, and introduced biometrics to refugee operations. Karl’s hands-on experience of the complexities on the ground provides essential practical insights as to system implementation and use in real conditions. 

Karl has since maintained a special interest in the digital transition of the aid industry, in particular digital identity management and the establishment of trust frameworks. He studied Political Sciences and International Relations at Freie Universität, Berlin, and International Law at the University of Cambridge, UK.

Find out more about Karl on this website:

Richard is Senior Advisor for Cyberconflict Diplomacy at the Center for Humanitarian Dialogue in Geneva. 

Richard previously served as founding Director General of the African Union’s sovereign risk management agency, the African Risk Capacity (ARC) where he managed the development of the ARC’s proprietary weather risk software platform and designed a climate adaptation finance mechanism. He also managed the creation of ARC Ltd, a Bermuda-regulated US$300m sovereign insurance company serving African states. 

Richard has been advocating for fairer social sharing of the value of data in the digital economy including through a 2016 Oxford Internet Institute study on data extraction taxation. In 2016 he also advised Microsoft Co-Founder Paul Allen’s Vulcan on its philanthropic engagements in Seattle. 

As a negotiator, Richard led the United Nations engagement as Representative of the UN Secretary General with the government of Serbia during Kosovo’s independence declaration in 2008 and with Iraqi factions as UN Political Director.

An Adjunct Professor at the John Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in Bologna, Italy, he has taught graduate seminars on Humanitarian Politics, Political Conflict Analysis and now Cyberconflict Risk. 

He holds a PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Find out more about Richard on Wikipedia:

Mr. Erastus Mwencha served twice as Deputy Chairperson of the African Union Commission (AUC). Mr. Mwencha currently holds a number of chairman positions, including Board Chairman of Equity Bank, the second largest bank in Kenya, and Chairman of TradeMark East Africa. He successfully navigated the signing of an East Africa partnership with the African Union, boosting intra-African trade and fast-tracking the realisation of the Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).

He is a Pan-Africanist with progressive experience in institutional transformation at national, regional and continental levels in Africa. Throughout his career, he has been an ardent advocate and zealous engineer of regional integration as a leading principle for Africa’s development. 

As Chair of the Executive Board of the African Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF) he supports the vision that Africa’s growth and prosperity should empower others by cultivating the required capacities. 

In January 2008, Mr. Mwencha was elected Deputy Chairperson of the African Union Commission (AUC) by the Heads of State and Government of the 54 Member States of the African Union and re-elected to the same position in July 2012. During these two tenures, Mr. Mwencha focused on programs supporting the continental development agenda as well as strengthening internal institutional systems. Under the theme: “It’s Africa’s time.”, Mr. Mwencha designed and implemented programs like the Comprehensive Africa Agricultural Development Program (CAADP) or continental flagship projects such as the Campaign for Accelerated Action for Reduction of Maternal Mortality in Africa (CAARMA) and the control and eradication of HIV/AIDS and Malaria, with a view to raising the living standards of people in Africa.

Prior to his election at the AUC, Mr. Mwencha worked at Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) for over 25 years and served as Secretary General for ten years. Mr. Mwencha contributed to the transformation of the regional body into a viable economic integration entity, with the largest free trade area (FTA) in Africa. He represented the region in negotiating the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPAs) with the European Union (EU), the Doha Round of the World Trade Organization, as well as in promoting the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA). He was particularly instrumental in contributing to the expansion of intra-COMESA trade, developing programs for private sector cooperation and trade with the rest of the world, spearheading regional hard and soft infrastructure programs in transport, communication and energy. 

Mr. Mwencha is Kenyan and married with three children. 

Find out more on Wikipedia

Since June 2017 Amadou Diallo is CEO of DHL Global Forwarding Middle East & Africa. He is the founder of Saloodo! GmbH. He was previously CEO DHL Freight, CEO Africa and South Asia Pacific DHL Global Forwarding and prior to this Chief Financial Officer of Deutsche Post DHL Logistics Divisions and Managing Director for the integration of Exel and DHL. Mr. Diallo has more than 25 years of experience in the tourism, banking, express and logistics industries. He is Senegalese and is fluent in several languages including English, German, French, Fulani, Wolof and Spanish. Mr. Diallo is Chairman of Amref in Germany and in the boards of Welthungerhilfe, Africa 2.0, and Schiller International University 

Indur is head of Trellis Computing LLC, a consulting company focused on Secure, Scalable and Fault-Tolerant systems deployed in hybrid (public/private) clouds. 

Indur has deep and broad expertise and experience in the design, implementation, testing, deployment and support of policy based secure distributed (and decentralized) systems from the Edge to the Cloud.

Trellis Computing is an active contributing partner in the design, development, configuration and deployment of a policy based secure, stable, fault-tolerant & scalable global IoT platform that involves establishing the device-to-cloud network, big data and security infrastructure for the IoT platform.

Prior to this, Indur worked at Microsoft as a (partner) Identity Architect where he focused on the vision, strategy and architecture for Governance and Identity & Access Management to secure, enhance and develop the Microsoft Azure Cloud. His purview encompassed B2B, B2C/B2E & the Identity Experience Framework, Decentralized Identities, Internet of Things (IoT) and Notification services.

Indur spent 12 years in the financial industry designing and developing software and security infrastructure. He was Managing Director and Chief Security at Bank of New York Mellon where he was responsible for mission-critical enterprise security services encompassing security architecture, platform security, data security and authentication & authorization infrastructure. Prior to Bank of New York Mellon, Indur was Vice President at Morgan Stanley responsible for designing and developing mission-critical security software and infrastructure for deployment across the firm technology and data stack.

David Harland is Executive Director of the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue (HD), a Geneva-based foundation that specializes in the mediation of armed conflict. 

David currently also sits on the United Nations Secretary-General's High-level Advisory Board on Mediation. Prior to that, Harland was Adjunct Professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), and Chair of the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council on Conflict Prevention. 

Before joining HD as Executive Director, Harland served as Director of the Europe and Latin America Division of the United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations (2006–2011). He served in United Nations peacekeeping missions in Haiti (2010), Kosovo (2008),Timor Leste (1999-2000) and Bosnia and Herzegovina (1993–1998). During 1999, he was released from his regular duties to research and draft the United Nations report on the Srebrenica massacre, "The Fall of Srebrenica". He served as a Teaching Fellow at Harvard University from 1989-1991.

Harland served as a witness for the prosecution at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in the cases of "The Prosecutor versus Ratko Mladic" (2012), "The Prosecutor versus Radovan Karadžic" (2010), "The Prosecutor versus Dragomir Miloševic" (2007), and the Prosecutor versus "Slobodan Miloševic" (2004). 

Harland holds a PhD from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy (1994); a master's degree from Harvard University (East Asian studies, 1991); Jin Xiu Zheng from Beijing University (1988); and a Bachelor of Arts from Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand (1983).

Find out more about David Harland on Wikipedia:

Paul has been working on digital finance and digital banking services in both industrialised and emerging markets for 30+ years, and he was the co-creator of the M-PESA mobile money service in Kenya. Much of his background has been with the international payment schemes, in the specification and development of new payments services, and working with banks to develop an overall strategy for their customer-focused product offerings. Recently he has also been extensively involved in the development of strategies for customer onboarding in the light of developments in digital identity, KYC, the emerging KYC utilities, the growing emphasis on customer privacy and data protection, biometrics, and the lack of conventional digital footprints amongst the so-called ‘digital natives’.

Outside mainstream payments, he has worked with a range of cryptocurrencies. He has also worked with banks and financial regulators across Europe, Africa and South Asia in the development and regulation of new financial services. He offers significant experience of deploying innovative digital financial services and solutions as well as an in-depth understanding of considered operational and information security best practice within the global retail payments industry. 

Paul holds a BSc (Hons) degree in Computer Science and Pure Mathematics.

Jane is the Founder-Director of The Toolkit iSkills (TTI) Limited, a leading social enterprise that transforms Africa’s vulnerable youth through skilling with technology and linkage to jobs. TTI’s sectors of interest include: digital jobs, organic farming, construction sector and renewable energy. Mrs. Muigai-Kamphuis founded The Toolkit iSkills (TTI) in 2014 to address the crisis of youth unemployment in Africa, having noted there existed a profound shortage of skill sets necessary for Africa’s growth. Since then, Toolkit has grown to become a leading transformer of youth through its innovative skilling approach that brings together public regulators, private sector, NGOs/Foundations to create a reliable workforce for current and future jobs. Toolkit uses a unique approach that starts with self-esteem through life and employability skills training, then technical skills that are certified by Government regulators, and thirdly offering linkage with industries for work experience and employment. 

In 2018, TTI won Innovation Award from Habitat for Humanity in recognition of skills transformation for construction sector and affordable housing. 

Jane holds a Masters in Law (LL.M) from Harvard Law School and a Bachelor of Laws Degree (LL.B) from the University of Nairobi. She has over 15 years of global experience in the practice and application of international human rights, humanitarian and refugee law with United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in various countries - Kosovo, Sudan, Ghana, Kenya and Switzerland. While in UNHCR, she designed and implemented multiple empowerment projects for youth, women, and refugee communities in various areas including security, basic education and gender mainstreaming. She designed and implemented training programmes, including Training of Trainers (TOT. An accomplished researcher, Ms Muigai Kamphuis has conducted studies on various legal, policy, regulatory and skills training topics. In 2020 and in 2019, she authored Gaps in Kenya’s Regulatory Framework on Workplace Based Training and A Synthesis of Inter-Agency Knowledge on Workplace Based Training Applicable to Skills Training for Vulnerable Youth in Kenya, respectively, for United Nations International Labour Organization (ILO). In 2017 she authored Standards and Instruments for Pedagogical Upskilling of Master Craftsmen in Kenya for World Bank and Government of Kenya Youth Employment Opportunities Project (KYEOP). Previously, she authored and co-authored various publications, including Camp Management Toolkit, a global tool for NGO, UN and Government officials running refugee and displaced persons camps. 

In 2020, Jane won Women in Africa (WIA54) Education Award, a unique recognition given the competition was 3800 women enterprises in Africa. 

Find out more about Jane and Toolkit iSkills on their website: