Our Board
George Gachara
Board Chair and Founding Partner
George has played a crucial founding role in HEVA in defining strategy, identifying investors and funding partners, and assisting in creative and cultural sector ventures to achieve their growth plans. George is a creative industry strategist, a fund advisor, and an investor in creative industries in Africa. He is also a senior entrepreneurship fellow at Goldsmiths University and a founder.
George leads strategic initiatives seeking to accelerate the growth of creative Industries in Africa, these initiatives range from public sector advisory and partnership, fund establishment and management, and firm-level business support to research and knowledge management.
Over the last decade, he’s had the unique experience of initiating, helping establish, and managing catalytic funds and financial facilities such as the pioneer creative industries fund, HEVA Fund LLP, regional grants facility Ignite Fund, the Netflix Creative Equity Scholarship Program (East Africa), and the film development facility DOCA Film Africa Fund, among others.
Sunny Dolat
Board Member
Sunny Dolat is a fashion curator, cultural producer and creative director who has worked extensively in the East Africa region . He is the creative strategy manager at HEVA and has led HEVA’s scoping studies in the Textile and Apparel value chains in Kenya, Ethiopia and Rwanda. Sunny is also the Kenya head of Textile & Apparel of the SheTrades in the Commonwealth program under the International Trade Centre.
Sunny also co-founded The Nest Collective in 2012, a platform to showcase film, fashion, the visual arts and music, it became a gathering place for young and emerging creators in Nairobi. Sunny;s projects provoke dialogue, on everything from infrastructure of the regional fashion industry, to his most recent book Not African Enough which interrogates what exactly qualifies as ‘authentically African’, featuring emerging Kenyan designers contributing to the shifting aesthetic of Kenya.
Esther Ndeti
Advisory Board Member
Esther has earned years of experience in the venture funding space. Her keen eye for investment strategy and tactical expertise in early-stage financing has allowed her to excel in strategic analysis, due diligence assessment, capital-raising advisory and portfolio management.
Esther previously served as Executive Director at the East Africa Private Equity and Venture Capital Association (EAVCA), where she worked at the intersection of the private sector finance and development. In this role, she supported institutional investors and regulators with strategy design, policy formulation, market insights and fundraising. As a passionate advocate for women in business, she also recently founded ‘Preneur Today', an initiative that highlights the work of female entrepreneurs in Africa.
Esther's experience extends to roles on the boards of World Bicycle Relief, Viktoria Business Angels (VBAN), GrowthAfrica, and ASSEK; demonstrating her expertise in global strategy & finance, as well as her commitment to building strong networks within the business community. She brings a unique blend of technical knowledge and business acumen to her leadership roles.
Lonwabo Mavuso
Advisory Board Member
Lonwabo is passionate about the role of arts as a progressive enabler for social and economic development.
In over 10 years he has had considerable experience working in non-profit organisations, government and the private sector within cultural and creative industries. He has played many roles in the creative industries including being the co-founder of Bafundi Film and TV Festival in partnership with the SABC, GFC and NFVF. The many research projects that he has led includes Creative Markets Research for British Council, Private sector investment in creative industries in Ethiopia, and Arterial Network/BritishCouncil Southern African radio and young creatives research in six Southern African counties. Lonwabo is currently a Director at Andani.Africa, a South Africa-based research, insights, and strategic advisory company that specialises in the creative and cultural industries.
Emanuela Gregorio
Advisory Board Member
Emanuela has notched her Economist expertise in SME finance.
In over 15 years of working in international development with a focus on Africa, she has been responsible for identifying, appraising, implementing and supervising projects in different sectors. She has consistently integrated a digital economy perspective and promoted platform technologies to increase financial inclusion and promote trade through e-commerce.
Ms. Gregorio led the African Development Bank’s engagement targeting the creative industries through the flagship initiative named ‘Fashionomics Africa’. She conceptualized the initiative and mobilized public and private resources to scale activities. Fashionomics Africa’s main objective is to support the growth of women and youth owned/led SMEs in the African fashion industry and build a “Made in Africa”-brand. Emanuela has developed a unique multi-stakeholder partnership for this initiative that ranges from Google Africa to DHL, Facebook, Afreximbank, Trade and Development Bank to Parson School of Fashion.
Dr. Jenny Mbaye
Advisory Board Member
Jenny is knowledgeable in creative labour, cultural work, entrepreneurship and management as well as in cultural policy, governance and education in African contexts.
She is a Reader (Associate Professor) in Culture and Creative Industries, and the Associate Dean, Employability, Engagement and Enterprise, for the School of Communication & Creativity at City, University of London. Her work focuses on urban creativities and cultural economies in Sub-Saharan Africa, with a specific interest in arts communities and organisations, capacity-building and transformation. She worked in cultural and media organisations in Senegal and Burkina Faso, as an academic researcher in Canada, Ghana, the U.K., and South Africa, and as policy adviser (Rwanda, Mali, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Republic of Congo, Seychelles, Mauritania, Eritrea). As research and policy consultant (UNESCO, OSIWA, British Council; Goethe Institute), she has been an independent auditor for UNESCO Creative Cities Network, and part of its UNESCO 2005 Convention bank of experts since 2012. She is a member of the Kôrè Institute’s (IKAM) educational committee (Mali); a jury member of African Art Lines artistic mobility fund (Morocco); and was a member of Pan-African Arterial cultural policy task group. Jenny currently sits on the advisory boards of HEVA Fund (Kenya) and NOrient (Switzerland).
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