Gravette Brown, Investment Officer, International Finance Corporation

Gravette Brown is an Investment Officer in the Global Manufacturing & Services Department of the International Finance Corporation. She focuses on investments in the Tourism, Retail, Property and Building Materials sectors and has led transactions in the Caribbean, Southern and Eastern Europe, and Sub-Saharan Africa. She is currently based in Dakar, Senegal where she concentrates on new business development and investment in Western and Central Africa. Prior to her career at IFC, Ms. Brown worked in portfolio management at JP Morgan Private Bank in Geneva, Switzerland. She holds a BA from the University of Pennsylvania, College of Arts and Sciences and an MBA from the Columbia Business School. Ms. Brown is a native of the Bahamas and is fluent in French.

Ben Bruce, CEO, Founder, SilverBird Group

Ben Murray Bruce is the Chairman of the Silverbird group, a diversified media company with holdings in radio, T.V, Real Estate and Cinemas.

Ben, who is a Business Administration graduate of the University of Southern California, is the founder of the Silverbird Group (Nigeria’s leading Entertainment Company) which turns 30years in 2010 with TV and radio stations that reach millions of Nigerians across the nation. Silverbird stands out as a ground breaking company by building the first and biggest international standard mall and Cineplex in Nigeria and has reinvented the cinema culture with theatres in Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt, Ghana and Kenya.

In 2006, he bagged the “This Day” award of “Top Ten” Significant Nigerian Businessmen among other prestigious Awards. Ben is a motivational speaker and a role model for Nigeria’s youth.

Thomas McCallum, Real Estate Industry Specialist, International Finance Corporation

Thomas McCallum is Principal Industry Specialist – Real Estate with International Finance Corporation based in Washington DC.  Prior to this role, Tom served as the Managing Director of Deloitte’s Canadian Real Estate Advisory operations and was a founding shareholder and Managing Director of Richard Ellis (Canada) Inc / CB Richard Ellis.

His responsibilities are the review and analysis of all property transactions for IFC and the identification of suitable opportunities and structuring transactions.  In Fiscal Year 2008, IFC’s Tourism, Retail and Property sector committed approximately $400MM in loans, equity investments and mezzanine financing to private sector sponsors in transactions throughout the developing world.

He has considerable exposure to African property transactions, including affordable housing developments in North and West Africa, shopping center and property fund investments in Nigeria, office and retail investments in Uganda and East Africa. Tom is a Fellow of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors and an Accredited Appraiser.

Victor Politis, CEO, PRI Develoment LLC

VICTOR POLITIS founded PRI in 1995. PRI Project Development has developed and obtained financing for many complex and prototypical projects in various sectors in twenty countries, both for its own account and for select clients who engage PRI for its Project Development and Financing expertise.

Prior to founding PRI, Victor was primarily a Developer of Housing and Mixed- Use Real Estate Projects in difficult urban areas where financing had not been obtained before. In addition to Real Estate, Victor has invested in Industrial companies and in the fields of Medical Equipment, Agro-Technology and Information Technology. 

Mr. Politis is the recipient of numerous awards, including Entrepreneur of the Year from Inc. Magazine and Award for Teaching Excellence for his Project Development course at New York University. He lectures internationally on Project Development and Financing and has served on the Boards of several organizations. He is fluent in five languages.

Ameachi Ndilli, CEO/Vice Chairman, The Lionstone Company

Amaechi Ndili, is the CEO and Founder of the Lionstone Group. Amaechi Ndili was previously a Managing Director at GE Capital Real Estate Group. Prior to joining GE Capital, Amaechi was a strategy consultant with McKinsey and Company providing strategic advice to companies primarily in the Real Estate, Oil & Gas and Power sectors. Prior to McKinsey, he worked as an Investment Banker with the Leveraged Finance Group at Credit Suisse First Boston (CSFB) in New York.

Amaechi has an MBA from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania as well as an MSc in Land Economics from the University of Bath, UK. He also has a BSc (Hons) and MSc in Architecture from the University of Nigeria.  He also attended Post – Graduate courses in Urban Design and Real Estate at Cambridge University.  Additionally, Amaechi is an Adjunct Professor in Corporate Finance and Real Estate at the Lagos Business School.