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Nneka Eze is Managing Partner at VestedWorld, an early-stage investment firm backing entrepreneurs building essential goods and services across Africa.

After studying economics at Harvard and beginning her career at McKinsey, Nneka moved to Kenya in 2009 and spent nearly 12 years at Dalberg working across Africa. Today, she invests in businesses across agribusiness, healthcare, consumer sectors, and enabling technologies, with a belief that private capital and entrepreneurship can help Africa follow a development trajectory similar to East Asia.

In this episode we cover:

• 01:09 Why Nneka left the US to build her career in Africa, and what she discovered after moving to Kenya

• 08:38 Lessons from nearly 12 years at Dalberg, including building its Nigeria office and realizing the limitations of advisory work without capital

• 10:58 How personal angel investments, serendipity, faith, and a written life plan eventually led her into venture capital

• 18:05 VestedWorld's investment strategy, why African and female founders remain underfunded, and why applying the Silicon Valley VC model to Africa can be a mistake

• 24:21 Why agribusiness may be one of Africa's biggest investment opportunities, and how Victory Farms built one of the world's fastest-growing aquaculture businesses

• 33:29 Nneka's experience surviving breast cancer, her encounter with faith during that period, and how it changed the way she thought about purpose, healthcare, and how she wanted to spend her life

• 41:12 What Nneka hopes VestedWorld can accomplish over the next decade through job creation, overlooked founders, and building a lasting African investment institution

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In 2009, in the middle of the financial crisis, Victor Barrero took a summer internship at an airline in Riyadh over a consulting offer in Dubai. Everyone at INSEAD asked him why. Seventeen years later, he has built and scaled businesses across Saudi Arabia, the US, Canada, Mexico and Singapore, returned to launch one of the largest residential platforms for international professionals in the Kingdom, and now runs his own company in Riyadh helping executives and businesses relocate to Saudi Arabia. Learn more at https://manara.sa

In this conversation, Victor explains what he saw in Saudi Arabia before Vision 2030 existed, what has actually changed since, and why most foreigners misread the market. He covers what it's really like moving to Riyadh, the mistake he made on his own return in 2024, why you should multiply your timelines by three, and the trap that catches almost every newcomer: confusing Saudi hospitality with commercial traction.

Whether you're an expat considering relocating to Riyadh, an executive weighing a move to the Gulf, or a company entering the Saudi market, this is a conversation about emerging markets, relationships, patience and building a life in a place most people never considered.

Connect with Victor Barrero:
Website: https://victorbarrero.com
Manara: https://manara.sa
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/victorbarrero
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/victorinriyadh
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@victorinriyadh

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Ope Sonusi is the founder of Bluum Finance, a platform building the infrastructure layer that allows fintechs to offer investing and wealth management products across Africa and its global diaspora.

In this conversation, Ope shares how his own experience as an immigrant led him to a missing piece in fintech: the ability to build wealth across borders. We also explore why investing infrastructure in emerging markets is so complex, and what it will take to unlock capital flows at scale.

In this episode we cover:

• (00:01:02) Ope’s background in fintech infrastructure and how his experience as an immigrant led him to build Bluum
• (00:04:22) Why investing infrastructure in emerging markets is far more complex than payments or lending
• (00:11:37) What Bluum actually does and how it enables fintechs to launch investing products through a single API
• (00:15:36) Why access to African markets is still limited today and how Bluum changes that for the diaspora
• (00:20:27) The scale of remittance flows and the opportunity to redirect capital into local markets
• (00:29:56) The long-term impact of unlocking retail liquidity for African capital markets and enabling local IPOs
• (00:36:21) Why now is the right time, driven by stablecoins, AI, and regulatory shifts

Find us on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, and Youtube.