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Hussein Sefian
MANAGING PARTNER
Hussein is the Founding Partner of Acre Impact Capital, responsible for strategy, business development, growth and partnerships.
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Prior to founding Acre, Hussein was the Global Head of Strategy at BNP Paribas CIB, where he defined the organisation’s sustainable finance strategy. By the time he left BNP Paribas in 2018, the bank was the largest green bond runner globally and was recognised by Euromoney as the World’s Best Bank for Sustainable Finance. As part of his role at BNP Paribas, Hussein was responsible for managing strategic partnerships and a portfolio of Strategic Investments worth $350mn, with assets which included market infrastructure companies, minority stakes in other financial institutions, funds and FinTech companies.
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Prior to his career in investment banking, Hussein worked for more than 10 years in management consulting with Booz Allen, advising clients in financial services, public sector and telecommunications on their most complex strategic issues. Hussein lived in Paris, London and Johannesburg and advised clients across the African continent and the Middle East. Hussein is passionate about the promise of finance in addressing the world’s most pressing social and environmental problems.
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A thoughtful strategic thinker, Hussein is skilled at bringing multi-disciplinary teams together to create innovative solutions to complex problems. Hussein holds a Master’s in Business Administration from New York University's Stern School of Business and a Bachelor of Commerce from McGill University. Hussein completed the Prince of Wales’s Business and Sustainability Programme at the University of Cambridge.
Chris Mitman
MANAGING PARTNER
Chris is has more than 30 years' experience in project and export finance across emerging markets and currently serves as Managing Partner and Head of Origination at Acre Impact Capital.
Prior to joining Acre, Chris was Head of Export Finance at Investec Bank based in London where he founded the business in 2010, advising and arranging export & agency finance for project and sovereign infrastructure projects in Africa, growing the business to be a leading arranger on the continent.
Before Investec, Chris was Global Head of Export Finance at ANZ Bank based Singapore. He joined ANZ in London in 1988 before moving to Melbourne, Sydney and finally Singapore in a variety of roles including risk, project finance and structure trade and export finance.
Since 2019 Chris is Co-Chair of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) Export Finance Sustainability Working Group and serves on the Loan Markets Association Executive Committee for the ECA Working Party.
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Chris is a regular contributor to and presenter at the export finance industry forums including the Berne Union and OECD as well as at industry events including TXF and Global Trade Review.
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Faisal Khan
MANAGING PARTNER
Faisal has over a decade of financing experience in Emerging Markets, with a particular focus on sovereign and corporate entities across Central Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa. Faisal has helped clients raise a cumulative $200bn worth of capital while at Deutsche Bank, Investec Bank and BNP Paribas.​
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Faisal has advised several Emerging / Frontier Markets governments on raising international debt capital including Angola, Ethiopia, Gabon, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Zambia and South Africa. Through his extensive network of contacts, Faisal has developed a deep understanding of regional investment and fundraising challenges. He has accumulated significant experience in structuring and pricing deals in the region, while managing risks through detailed sovereign due diligence.
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Most recently Faisal has developed deep expertise in Sustainable Debt Capital Markets at BNP Paribas, where he supported both sovereign and corporate clients structure and execute sustainable bonds and loans. Faisal is an expert at the development of sustainability frameworks in line with the Green / Social / Sustainable Bonds/Loans principles.
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Faisal holds a Masters in Business Administration from New York University’s Stern School of Business and a Bachelor in Mechanical Engineering from McGill University.
Gwendolyn Zorn
HEAD OF IMPACT
Gwendolyn is the Head of Impact at Acre Impact Capital, responsible for environmental and social risk management and realising the Firm’s sustainable development impact agenda. She is a member of the Export Finance Fund I Investment Committee and represents Acre Impact Capital on the International Chamber of Commerce Export Finance Sustainability Working Group.
Prior to joining Acre, Gwendolyn was the Head of Sustainability at Phatisa, an African private equity fund manager, investing primarily in the food value chain. Gwendolyn was instrumental in the positioning of Phatisa as an impact investor and developed the Firm’s impact strategy, including an impact measurement and management system and targets. She successfully raised a $1 million technical assistance facility to catalyse impact at scale and unlock new high-impact, commercial business opportunities at the portfolio company level.
Gwendolyn was previously a Senior Socio-Economist for a leading African ESG advisory firm, where she developed the company’s development impact service offerings, including providing strategic sustainability advice to clients in the microfinance and fintech space. She started her career at KPMG South Africa (Advisory), where she led a workstream for the authorship of a climate finance and green economy advisory report produced for the South African National Treasury.
Gwendolyn is a proven thought leader in the development impact field and was recently recognised in Krutham’s Africa Impact Investment Awards for her contributions to sustainable finance. She has contributed to numerous articles, podcasts and webinars on impact investing and served on the Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN) Gender Lens Investing Advisory Committee, as well as being an Implementation Working Group member for the UNDP’s SDG Impact Standards for Private Equity and a member of the High Ambition Group of UNEP’s Good Food Finance Network. Gwendolyn holds an MA (Distinction) in the Philosophy of Economics and is currently pursuing an MCom in Development Finance through the University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business.
Francisco "Kito" Mojica
INVESTMENT DIRECTOR
Kito joined Acre Impact Capital in 2024 as an Investment Director, based in London. He is responsible for the origination, structuring, execution, and on-going portfolio management of Acre Impact Capital’s Export Finance Fund investments.
Kito is a credit specialist with over 15 years of international structured financing experience having worked at Deutsche Bank in a variety of Emerging Market roles. He is a seasoned export finance professional with a proven track-record of structuring, executing, and syndicating complex cross-border transactions.
Kito brings a strong network of ECA market participants as well as a detailed understanding of pricing dynamics and market liquidity for ECA supported transactions, having previously led the underwriting, primary syndication, as well as the secondary market distribution efforts for several of Deutsche Bank’s structured lending businesses. Prior to that, Kito was based on Dubai where he led deals teams which arranged and closed Export Credit Agency supported loans for sovereign and corporate borrowers across the Middle East and Africa. Kito started his career as a credit risk analyst in London, managing a large portfolio of loans, derivatives and trade assets extended to sovereign, financial institution, and corporate clients across EEMEA.
Kito graduated with a BA (Honours) in Economics and Development from the University of Manchester and has been awarded the CFA Institute Certificate in ESG Investing.
Mercy Ramateke
FINANCE & OPERATIONS MANAGER
Mercy is Acre's Finance and Operations Manager, based in Mauritius. Mercy has more than 13 years’ experience in finance and accounting. Mercy started her career as an Auditor for PriceWaterhouseCoopers.
Mercy then joined Norsad Capital, a collaboration between the Nordic and Southern African Development Community (SADC) governments operating as a multilateral development agency. In her latest role at Norsad, Mercy acted as Finance Manager, responsible for the management of the finance function. Mercy was responsible for stakeholder and industry engagement (Regulators, Banks, Insurers, Board etc) as well as maintenance of relationships with clients across the Southern African region.
Mercy then joined Metropolitan Life Botswana as Finance Manager, where she was responsible for the management of the finance function to ensure processing and provision of quality financial information and financial reports to support business processes and decision making.
Mercy holds an MBA from the University of Derby, attended the University of Stellenbosch Management Development Programme and the Executive Leadership Programme at the University of Oxford Said Business School.
ADVISORY BOARD
Diana Smallridge
ADVISOR
Diana Smallridge is the President & CEO of Momentus Global, a global development finance consulting firm she founded in 2000. Diana is a leading development finance expert with over 30 years' experience in this field, having worked with major multilateral, bilateral and national development banks, agencies, institutions and governments and led project around the world in 70+ countries. This includes extensive work across Africa. Diana specialises in institutional development strategy, risk management, performance evaluation, and governance.
Diana has also won recognition as a pioneering thinker and advisor on economic development and development finance issues and is a sought-after guest speaker, facilitator and chair in workshops and conferences around the world. She is also a hands-on senior consultant and seasoned project leader and is widely recognized as one of the foremost advisors in the field. Diana developed the Full Potential© strategic planning methodology, which is applied in projects worldwide, as well as the Health Diagnostic Tool© to measure the overall performance of financial institutions with a development mandate. She graduated from Queens University, in Kingston, Ontario with a Master of Arts in Economics.
Christina Westholm-Schroder
ADVISOR
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Christina has 30+ years’ experience in the political risk insurance industry. She is the Chief Underwriter and SVP of Sovereign Risk Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of Chubb Bermuda, where she leads Sovereign’s cooperation with multilaterals and ECAs.
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Prior to joining Sovereign, she worked at the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) of the World Bank. At MIGA she worked in several managerial capacities before assuming the role as Head of Reinsurance. In her earlier career, she worked at Bank of America in New York and in her home country, Sweden.
Christina is a Director on the Board of the African Trade Insurance Agency (ATI), a multilateral organization based in Nairobi, Kenya. She is also a trustee of a Swedish foundation, set up to foster development through educational grants and support to vulnerable populations. Christina is the past VP of the Berne Union (the BU) and served eight years on BU’s board/Management Committee. She previously held positions as BU’s Chair of the Investment Committee and Chair of the Technical Panel.
Christina has a degree in international business from Stockholm School of Economics and an MBA in finance from Stern School of Business of New York University
Alice Chapple
ADVISOR
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Alice Chapple has worked on sustainable finance and impact for more than 30 years. Through her company, Impact Value, she currently works with several funds, financial institutions and companies to help them create strategies to drive social and environmental impact alongside financial return. She also works with NGOs to support changes required in the wider system. She is the Development Impact Advisor for Gridworks, a company developing and investing in energy transmission and distribution in Africa; and for FSD Africa, an organisation designed to shift capital flows in Africa.
Alice designed the Sustainable Finance course run by Cambridge University Institute for Sustainability Leadership and has been the Head Tutor on that course. Her other roles include Director of Schroders BSC Social Impact Trust plc; Non-Executive Director of I(X) Net Zero; Chair of the Tracker Group (Carbon Tracker and Planet Tracker); member of the Advisory Committee for WHEB Asset Management; member of the Technical Assistance Committee for the Private Sector Development Group; and member of the Impact Committee for the Development Guarantee Group.
In her earlier career, Alice was Director of Sustainable Financial Markets at Forum for the Future, a sustainable development charity, and an investment analyst and portfolio manager working in the UK’s development finance institution, BII, where she developed both a toolkit for identifying and managing environment, social and governance (ESG) issues and an impact reporting framework.
Alice has an MA in Economics from Cambridge University and is a chartered accountant.
Topi Vesteri
ADVISOR
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Topi was in charge of running Finland's officially supported export credit and guarantee schemes for almost 17 years since 1999. Under Topi's leadership Finnvera has become known as one of the most innovative and service oriented ECAs enjoying very high customer satisfaction. Finnvera was constantly developing its products and services and working in close co-operation with its clients, international banks, private political and credit risk insurers as well as other ECAs.
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Topi served as Berne Union's (Int'l Union of Credit and Political Risk Insurers) President in 2015-2018 and Vice President in 2002-2003 as well as Chairman of the Union's Medium and Long Term Committee in 2009-2011. He was a member of the Union's Management Committee during these years. Topi has excellent expertise in all technical aspects of ECA business. During Topi’s Presidency several changes and improvements were made in the Union. Prague Club and Berne Union were merged.
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Topi also served as board member of Finnfund (Finnish Fund for Industrial Co-operation), Finnish Credit Insurance Ltd, Fide Ltd and was chairman of the Board of Finnish Export Credit Ltd.
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Since October 2015 until retiring in September, 2019 Topi was Deputy CEO and Group Chief Credit Officer of Finnvera. In 2015-2019 Topi chaired the boards of Veraventure and EAKR Aloitusrahasto, Finnvera's Venture Capital and Seeed Financing subsidiaries.
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Prior to his 20 years of ECA and Promotional Bank career Topi had a 17 year commercial banking career in Helsinki, Tokio and London in various demanding managerial positions covering capital markets, leasing, corporate banking, international banking and general management.
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Topi is known as an active consensus-builder with strong people and leadership skills and multicultural experiences and sensitivities.
Robert Besseling
ADVISOR
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Robert Besseling founded specialist intelligence company EXX Africa in 2015, after pursuing a decade-long career in political risk forecasting at industry-leading firms in the UK and US. In late 2020, in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, EXX Africa was rebranded as Pangea-Risk to cover 68 African and Middle East countries.
At Pangea-Risk, Robert leads a team of partners, researchers, and contributing analysts to produce commercially relevant and actionable analysis on political, security, and economic risk in Africa and the Middle East. Robert also retains the lead on many consulting projects for blue chip corporations in a wide variety of sectors.
Robert is regularly invited to speak at major international conferences on topics such as metals and mining, trade and export finance, and global security matters. He frequently moderates ministerial panels and has interviewed multiple African heads of state and government during his career. Robert makes frequent appearances on televised media, as well as contributions to international print media. He has travelled extensively on the continent and calls Africa his ‘home’.