Our Team

Jonathan has built successful start-ups and large corporate operations across emerging Asia and Africa. He has a worldwide reputation among leaders in profitable, sustainable growth.

Jonathan is Managing Partner of AIP. He serves on the board of directors of Asoko Insight, an information services company delivering superior data and analysis on emerging market corporations to customers worldwide; and on the board of Invest Africa, the membership organization for investors in Africa.

Jonathan previously served as a senior partner at Dalberg, a mission-driven strategy firm with twenty-one offices worldwide. At Dalberg, he was the first chair of the strategy committee and founded the global corporate practice. He advised numerous global Fortune 500 companies on sustainable entry and operations in Asia and Africa. His clients included global leaders in natural resources and renewables, agribusiness, education, healthcare, IT and consumer goods, as well as governments and investors active in these sectors.

Jonathan is author of the book Success in Africa, which President Bill Clinton calls "timely and important," Coke CEO Neville Isdell describes as "a great book" and Mark Mobius describes as "dynamite." His views appear in The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Bloomberg and Harvard Business Review (HBR). His collaborators include Gen David Petraeus, IBM CEO Ginni Rometty, US Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin and African Development Bank President Akin Adesina among others.

Jonathan holds a BA in East Asian Studies from Yale and an MA in Political Economy from UC Berkeley. He is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Tom is a proven investor in emerging markets. He led operations in Asia and Africa for top global financial institutions and founded one of the leading private equity firms focused on emerging markets.

Tom Gibian is a financial executive with over 30 years’ experience investing in successful companies in emerging markets.  He was the founding managing partner of Emerging Capital Partners (ECP) Private Equity, the leading private equity manager focused on Africa. Headquartered in Washington DC, ECP has seven offices across Africa and fifteen years of successful investing experience in companies operating in over 40 countries on the continent. As CEO, Tom assisted in the formation and implementation of ECP's investment strategy and managed key relationships with shareholders and portfolio companies

Prior to founding ECP, Tom served as Chief Operating Officer for the AIG African Infrastructure Fund, managing the daily operations of the fund and overseeing the structuring and valuation of investments. From 1995 to 2000, Tom served as a Managing Director in EMP Global's Asia Funds, which managed more than $2.8 billion in capital for investments. Prior to his work with EMP Global's Asia Funds, Mr. Gibian spent three years as Executive Director and Co-Head of the Structured and Project Finance Group at Goldman Sachs Asia, where he was the firm's senior representative on several groundbreaking transactions in China and Southeast Asia.

Tom has served on the boards of NYSE, NASDAQ and London listed companies as well as private companies in Europe, Africa and Asia. He is also on the board of Partners for Democratic Change, Kendal Corporation, Friends Council on Education and serves as a Trustee for the College of Wooster in Ohio. Mr. Gibian received a bachelor's degree with honors from the College of Wooster and received an MBA in Finance from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business.

Mitchell is a pioneer in emerging market financial technology. He founded and leads Africa's largest payments provider and has been recognized as the EY Global Entrepreneur of the Year.

Mitchell Elegbe founded Interswitch in 2002 and is currently its Group Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer. Under his leadership, the company has diversified its business, broadened its distribution channels, expanded into new markets and delivered strong growth in revenue and profits. 

Mitchell is an Electrical/Electronic Engineer from the University of Benin, Nigeria. He is also an alumnus of the IESE/Wharton/CEIBS Global CEO Program. He is a consummate, people-centric leader who believes in motivating his colleagues at Interswitch to have confidence in their value as individuals; in the value of the work they do; and in their value as team members. He is relentless in his pursuit of sustainable value for stakeholders.

Apart from leading Interswitch to win numerous coveted industry awards, Mitchell’s leadership abilities have earned him several awards, including the CNBC/Forbes All African Business Leader (AABLA) for West Africa, Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award and the Harvard Business School Association (Nigeria) Leadership Award in the General Management Category.

Mitchell enjoys mentoring young entrepreneurs. He is a Bishop Desmond Tutu fellow of the African Leadership Institute.

Neal is a successful venture capitalist with deep roots in Silicon Valley tempered with experience in emerging markets.

Neal is the CEO and Managing Partner of Silicon Foundry (SiF). He has over twenty years of venture capital, product management, technology operations, corporate development and advisory experience in Silicon Valley and beyond.

Prior to joining SiF, Neal was Managing Director of the technology training, investment and incubation program at the Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology (MEST), where he managed a global team of +150 professionals, over twenty startup investments and partnerships with Google, Samsung and Vodafone.

Previously, Neal was a General Partner at Rustic Canyon Partners (RCP), an early-stage focused VC fund with $500MM under management. Before joining RCP, Neal was in the Corporate Development group at Macromedia (Nasdaq: MACR, acq. by ADBE), where he was responsible for global M&A transactions and strategic equity investments. Neal was also an Associate at Technology Crossover Ventures (TCV) and a product marketing director at webMethods (Nasdaq: WEBM, acq. by Software AG). Neal co-founded WebAssist.com, which provides popular application extensions and hosted eCommerce solutions for SMBs.

Neal began his career as an investment banking analyst at Robertson Stephens & Co. He earned his BA from Duke University, studied at University College London and received an MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of Management.