Management Team - Sproxil, Inc. (USA) »
Ashifi Gogo, PhD
Ashifi serves as CEO of Sproxil. Ashifi is an expert in end-consumer authentication technologies. He is Six Sigma Black Belt certified in Good Manufacturing Practice and Continuous Process Improvement. Ashifi previously co-founded VSOL, a VoIP company that provides telephone services to the administration of a 24,000-student university in Ghana. The Clinton Foundation, USAID, GSVC Berkeley, Princeton Entrepreneurs' Network, NCIIA Venture Well and Nokia have all acknowledged his work through a variety of prizes and fellowships. Ashifi frequently presents at conferences including those organized by the U.S. Department of Commerce, the Global Health Council and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Ashifi holds a PhD in Electrical Engineering from the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth College and a BA in Mathematics and Physics from Whitman College. He is Dartmouth's first-ever PhD Innovation Fellow.
Alden Zecha
Alden serves as CFO and Strategist of Sproxil. Responsible for the overall strategy, finance and administration of the company, Alden brings to the role more than 20 years of broad-range executive expertise in operations, strategy and finance, and vast experience from work in more than 20 countries.
Prior to joining Sproxil, Alden co-founded and served as CFO of ultra-luxury travel company PrivatSea and as CFO of Rethos, a sustainability and corporate social responsibility social media website. He also co-founded an OTC drug distribution company and worked with the Japanese MHW (FDA equivalent) on regulatory compliance issues for Procter & Gamble. Alden previously worked with consulting firms, Monitor Group and BearingPoint, and served as international economic development specialist for the State of Hawaii.
Alden received his MSE and BSE with honors in Chemical Engineering from Princeton University where he was a United Technologies Scholar and has a certificate in finance from the University of Virginia's Darden Graduate School of Business.
Directors - Sproxil, Inc (USA) »
Nicolas Donofrio
Nicholas M. Donofrio, a senior fellow at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, is also a 44-year IBM veteran and serves as an IBM Fellow Emeritus, the company's highest technical honor. From 1997 until his retirement in October 2008, he served as executive vice president of Innovation and Technology. In addition to his most recent role, he served in a variety of capacities, including vice chairman of the IBM International Foundation and chairman of the Board of Governors for the IBM Academy of Technology.
Donofrio holds seven technology patents, is a member of numerous technical and science honor societies, and holds several board positions. Donofrio currently is co-chair of the New York Hall of Science and serves on the Secretary of Energy's Advisory Board (SEAB). Donofrio earned a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1967 and a Master of Science in the same discipline from Syracuse University in 1971. He holds numerous honorary doctorate degrees from universities in the United States, England, and Scotland.
Dr. Gunther L. Faber
Dr. Gunther L. Faber, former Vice President, Sub-Saharan Africa, for GlaxoSmithKline, has more than 30 years of experience working within the pharmaceutical industry. Beginning in 1979 for the then Beecham Group plc, he was appointed a Director of the International Division in 1980. During successive mergers, his area of responsibility increased, with him being accountable for pharmaceuticals, consumer health and manufacturing in SmithKline Beecham Southern Africa. Following the merger between Glaxo Wellcome and SmithKline Beecham he was appointed as Vice President, Sub Saharan Africa. Dr. Faber was also a member of the company's Policy Team on Access to Medicine and a director of the International Division which covers all countries with the exception of the USA, Europe and Japan.
Dr. Faber is currently the Chairman and CEO of One Family Health®, the franchisor of the CFW franchise (Child and Family Wellness) brand in Sub-Saharan Africa. Dr. Faber interacts at senior political and bureaucratic level with African governments, as well as those of the OECD countries.
C. Hunter Boll
C. Hunter Boll is a former managing director of Thomas H. Lee Partners, one of the largest private equity firms in the world. He joined the firm in 1986. In 2005, he co-founded Source Audio LLC, a start-up venture focused on providing consumers with next generation accessories for the musical instrument market. Mr. Boll is Chief Operating Officer for Source Audio LLC. From 1984 to 1986, Mr. Boll was with the Boston Consulting Group, a corporate strategy consulting firm. He previously served as an Assistant Vice President, Energy and Mineral Division of Chemical Bank. Mr. Boll is a director of The Acumen Fund and Source Audio LLC. Mr. Boll received a BA in Economics from Middlebury College and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Directors - Sproxil Nigeria Limited »
Sammy Olagbaju
Sammy is a retired senior executive with four decades of experience in opening up West African finance and services markets to Western companies. Over his career, he has repeatedly helped companies expand successfully into West Africa amidst some of the most challenging economic and business environments. As the chairman of Marius Ltd, a Nigerian trading and investment company specializing in the energy and communications sectors, he represented a number of European security printing and anti-counterfeiting companies, many with over 50 years track record and several million dollars in sales today. He has served as the chairman and director of fifteen companies in Nigeria and the United Kingdom.
In the past, Sammy was the CEO of Nigerian Stockbrokers Ltd and the Head of Corporate Finance, Nal Bank in Nigeria. He is currently a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Stockbrokers Nigeria and an Honorary Senior Member at the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria.
Sammy holds Masters degrees in Economics and Political Science from the University of Dublin. He is a business mentor to many West African entrepreneurs and an avid fine art connoisseur.
Chike Asiodu
Chike manages one of the leading SMS companies in the Nigerian market, having provided solutions for numerous multinationals including Pfizer, Nokia, Coca Cola, Guinness, Virgin Atlantic and UNICEF. His efforts have lead to some of Nigeria's most successful mobile interactive reality TV shows, attracting well-known international brands like, Big Brother Nigeria, Pop Idols Nigeria, Play TV (Nigeria's first SMS Interactive TV game show), and The Apprentice Africa.
He also serves on the boards of Ecobank Gambia, Icon Stockbrokers, Sterling Beverages and Lube Oils. Chike earned a BA in Modern History from the University of Buckingham in England. He is also a member of the Lagos Business School Alumni.
Tomi Davies
Tomi is a veteran executive in operations with extensive experience in FTSE 100 companies in the UK, US and Africa. He has served as the Chief Executive at One Laptop Per Child, Nigeria, and as the Chief Operating Officer at Alteq.ict, a public sector IT consultancy, which has over $500M of projects under management. Prior to that, he was the Director of Business Strategy at Sapient where he designed, developed and managed IT systems for clients such as the UK Government, Vodafone, BT, Hutchison3G and Siemens in Munich Germany.
Tomi has a BSc in Systems Analysis and an MSc in Operations Research both from the University of Miami.
Dr. Gogo also serves on the Sproxil Nigeria Limited Board of Directors.
Advisors »
Chris Israel
Chris is a partner at American Continental Group where he focuses on developing public policy approaches that support innovation and protection of intellectual property. He has been at the forefront of policy debates in these areas for several years having served as Deputy Chief of Staff to the U.S. Secretary of Commerce and as the first Presidentially-appointed U.S. Coordinator for International Intellectual Property Enforcement from 2005-2008. In this role, he was responsible for coordinating and leveraging the resources of the U.S. government to protect American intellectual property at home and abroad. He was frequently called upon to testify before Congress and represent the United States internationally on a range of issues that impacted American intellectual property rights holders. He was named one of the 50 "Most Influential People on IP" by Managing Intellectual Property magazine in 2006.
Earlier in his career, Chris worked as a public policy executive for Time Warner and as a staffer on Capitol Hill. He received a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Kansas and an M.B.A. from The George Washington University.
Egbe Osifo-Dawodu, MD
Egbe is a partner at Anadach Group which focuses on bringing innovative solutions to health care dilemmas in emerging markets. She recently joined Anadach from the new innovation practice at the World Bank Institute where she led the pilot innovation fair on fragility and conflict in South Africa. Egbe won one of the first innovation awards in the World Bank Group (the precursor to the development marketplace).
Prior to joining the innovation practice, she helped start the African University of Science and Technology in Abuja, Nigeria, managed the Human Development Group at the World Bank Institute, and worked on health policy at the World Bank and on private health sector projects at the International Finance Corporation. She has over 20 years experience in health care, covering policy, provision and health care financing in Africa, Asia, Middle East and Latin America. She has also taught at universities in the Washington DC area. Egbe is a medical doctor with a degree from the University of Ibadan and a member of the UK Royal College of Physicians. She holds an MBA from Cranfield School of Management and an MSc from Oxford University. She has also attended courses on the business of entertainment at the University of Southern California and University of California Los Angeles and co-founded the Nollywood Foundation based in California.
Ethan Zuckerman
Ethan is a senior researcher at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University. His research focuses on the distribution of attention in mainstream and new media, the use of technology for international development, and the use of new media technologies by activists. With Rebecca MacKinnon, Ethan co-founded international blogging community Global Voices. Global Voices showcases news and opinions from citizen media in over 150 nations and thirty languages, publishing editions in twenty languages. In 2000, Ethan founded Geekcorps, a technology volunteer corps that sends IT specialists to work on projects in developing nations, with a focus on West Africa.
Previously Ethan helped found Tripod.com, one of the web's first "personal publishing" sites. Tripod, a venture-backed startup, was sold in 1998 to Lycos for $58 million. He blogs at ethanzuckerman.com/blog and lives in the Berkshire Mountains of western Massachusetts, USA.
Mitul Shah
Mitul is the Director of Engineering at the West Wireless Institute, and was recently the Senior Director of Technology Partnerships at the United Nations Foundation, where he was directing a partnership between the Vodafone Group Foundation and the UN Foundation. The partnership leverages Vodafone's core strengths - its mobile technology, global infrastructure, and capacity for mass consumer outreach - with the UN's scale, mission, and human capital. Its goal is to support activities and manage initiatives that use technology tools to help the UN address the world's toughest challenges more effectively and efficiently. He was also directing the United Nations Foundation's efforts on program evaluation and performance measurement.
Prior to joining UNF, Mitul was the Director of Programs at the International Youth Foundation (IYF) in Baltimore, MD. At IYF, Mitul created and directed the Bridgeit program, a distance education program using mobile technology to empower teachers in the classroom. The program consisted of a multi-sector partnership consisting of UNDP, Nokia and Pearson. Along with Bridgeit, Mitul directed a USAID funded program in the Philippines called the Education and Livelihood Skills Alliance. Prior to working at IYF, Mitul was a senior consultant at Inforte Corporation, an information technology and strategy consulting company. Mitul holds a Masters in Business Administration degree at the University of Maryland at College Park and a Bachelor of Science Degree in Business Administration from the University of California at Riverside.
Paul Chang
Paul leads business strategy and market development for the Industry Solutions in the IBM Software Group. In this role, he is responsible for the development and execution of IBM's "Supply Chain Framework" solutions across multiple industries including pharmaceutical, consumer products, automotive, retail, and industrial.
Paul has more than 20 years of experience in technology and market development in RFID, biotech, and optical network technologies. Most recently, Paul led the global initiative at IBM in the pharmaceutical and distribution industries, working with many global pharmaceutical manufacturers and large wholesalers to implement a serialization/RFID strategy to drive business value and comply with regulatory mandates. He also has been actively involved with the U.S. FDA's anti-counterfeiting initiative since 2003, and has recently engaged the FDA to educate it on the state-of-the-art food traceability technologies.
Paul earned a Bachelor of Science degree from Carnegie Mellon in Mechanical Engineering.
