QUINTIN PRIMO III
Founder & CEO, Capri Capital Partners

Mr. Primo serves as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Capri Capital Partners, LLC, a real estate investment management firm headquartered in Chicago that he co-founded in 1992. The firm has approximately $4.2 billion in total real estate assets under management and is an active investor in all major property sectors and markets throughout the United States. Capri is currently expanding overseas, with major real estate development projects in India and the Middle East.

Mr. Primo has 30 years of experience in real estate investment and capital markets. Prior to the formation of Capri Capital Partners, he was Managing Director of Q. Primo & Company, Inc., a real estate investment banking firm established in 1988 specializing in foreign and domestic private placements. Prior to forming Q. Primo & Company, he was employed with Citicorp Real Estate, Inc., where he was Vice President in the commercial lending and real estate investment banking divisions.

Mr. Primo received a Master of Business Administration degree from Harvard University Graduate School of Business Administration and a Bachelor of Science degree in Finance, with honors and high distinction, from Indiana University. Within the real estate industry, he is a member of the Urban Land Institute, a board member of the Pension Real Estate Association and Real Estate Roundtable, Chairman of the Real Estate Executive Council, and a former trustee of AMLI Residential, a NYSE-listed company taken private by Morgan Stanley.

Mr. Primo is active in civic and charitable organizations. He is a member of The Economic Club of Chicago and a former member of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago Seventh District Advisory Council. He serves as a member of the Executive Committee of the Chicago Community Trust, as a trustee of the (Episcopal) Church Pension Group, and is a former trustee of the University of Chicago Hospitals and Ravinia Festival. He is currently Chairman of the Primo Center for Women and Children, a transitional shelter serving the homeless.

Mr. Primo has been featured in national publications, such as The Wall Street Journal, Fortune Magazine, The New York Times and Black Enterprise Magazine, and has made frequent guest appearances on network television and cable news and radio programs, including CNBC, CNN, MSNBC and National Public Radio. He has received numerous awards and has been highly recognized for his professional, civic and philanthropic contributions.

THIERRY TANOH
Vice President, Sub-Saharan Africa, Western Europe
Global Manufacturing Industry Cluster
International Finance Corporation

Mr. Tanoh, an Ivorian national, is a Vice-President and member of IFC’s global management group. His responsibilities include Sub-Saharan Africa, Western Europe, IDA countries and conflict-affected states, and an industry cluster of departments consisting of agribusiness; general manufacturing and services; and health and education. Based in Johannesburg, he is the first IFC VP to be based outside Washington, DC. IFC is a member of the World Bank Group.

Mr. Tanoh is strongly committed to IFC’s vision: that people have the opportunity to escape poverty and improve their lives. “What we are trying to do is create new opportunities through our work and investment,” said Mr. Tanoh. “There is still a huge need for IFC in the world’s poorest countries and conflict affected states and our shareholders and donors can help IFC have a stronger development impact in those countries. What we need to do in the years to come is to best use the resources of this global financial institution for the further benefit of world’s most vulnerable people.”

Mr. Tanoh joined IFC in 1994 through the young professional program. He initially worked in the Asia Department. He then specialized in the chemicals and petrochemicals sector, working on transactions in Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe. He moved to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 2001, focusing on transactions in Latin America. During his career at the IFC, Mr. Tanoh was engaged in business development, deal structuring, and processing of some of IFC’s largest transactions before taking on a broader management role.

Prior to joining the IFC, Mr. Tanoh worked for consulting firm in Paris and with the banking commission of the West African Central Bank in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire. He is a certified public accountant in France and holds a Masters in Business Administration from the Harvard Business School.

MS. JANET NRUBANA
Co-Founder & Chief Operations Officer
Gahaya Links

Ms. Janet Nkubana is a businesswoman, a talented artist and a grass roots organizer with a big heart towards empowering the underprivileged women of Rwanda. Having grown up in a refugee camp, Ms. Nkubana understands the plight of women and children suffering in poverty. While it was difficult for her to imagine a life beyond the refugee camp, Ms. Nkubana managed to beat the odds against her by going to school and later securing a church scholarship that was eventually her ticket out of the refugee camp. These memories of her childhood are what drive Ms. Nkubana today to help the less privileged. She is cognizant of the fact that without the help she received from others, she would have never left the refugee camp. This is why she always refers to her life as one from humble beginnings.

Ms. Nkubana is an hotelier by profession. She completed her education while in exile in Uganda and where she later owned and operated several businesses. After the Rwanda Genocide of 1994 against the Tutsi, the country’s infrastructure was left in ruins. Rwandans had no food and lived in extreme poverty with no source of income. For this reason, Ms. Nkubana opted to return back home and join hands with other Rwandans to rebuild the nation.

Upon her return to Rwanda, life in the country was a stark reminder of her life in the refugee camp. Not only did people have no food to eat or water to drink, but also their hope for the future was devastated. Ms. Nkubana together with her sister Joy operated a hotel in Rwanda that was frequented by displaced women and children suffering from the emotional trauma of losing their loved ones. Initially, these women and children, with a sense lost dignity, begged for food or assistance from hotel residents. However as time passed by, the women began bringing their hand-woven baskets to exchange for food items. As Ms. Nkubana recalls it: “giving them money was a one day solution but buying their baskets was rewarding them for their hard work”.

Ms. Nkubana knew that it was not sustainable for her in the long run to provide these women with food as this was just an act of kindness. She later came up with the solution of opening a gift store to sell the women’s products. The shop became a turning point in the women’s lives as it gave them dignity, hope and brought smiles on their faces, a sight she had not seen in a while. Seeing what the success of the gift shop had brought to these women, Ms. Nkubana knew it was time to think beyond the gift shop. She therefore decided to join hands with her sister Joy to form what is known today as Gahaya Links. Their critical mission: to take the hand woven baskets beyond Rwanda’s borders. To achieve this goal, Ms. Nkubana and her sister Joy began marketing Gahaya Links’ products in yard sales, flea markets and trade shows in the United States. By doing so, they were in a position to secure trade partnerships with reputable U.S. companies such as Macy’s, Fair Winds Trading, Oprah Magazine, amongst many others.

Through her work, Gahaya Links has attained recognition from global icons and high profile personalities. In 2008, Ms. Nkubana was awarded the Hunger Project’s Africa Prize for Leadership for the Sustainable End of Hunger. She is also a recipient of the Pioneers of Prosperity Africa Award. Ms. Nkubana has also been featured in the World Bank Doing Business report as an example of a motivational success story. Ms. Nkubana recently founded a non-profit, the Gifted Hands Innovation Center, an organization which assists women to go beyond training in weaving to interacting and sharing life experiences with each other. Ms. Nkubana is a single mother of five and in her spare time enjoys listening to gospel music, reading and sharing quality time with her extended family and friends.