Featured by Enterprising Oxford, University of Oxford as part of their Wonder Women Series

Meet our Founder

Adjoa Adjei-Twum

Founder & CEO

Adjoa Adjei-Twum is Founder & CEO of Emerging Business Intelligence and Innovation (EBII) Group and an astute intellect in African Economic Development. She is a Financial Crime Compliance Expert with over a decade of international experience helping organisations meet their compliance requirements in the financial sector, With cross-cutting knowledge in both emerging and developed markets, especially in Anti-money laundering(AML) and Economic Sanctions.

Adjoa has worked in the AML, Sanctions and departments for a range of banks from Barclays and HSBC to UBS and Citi. Throughout her career, she has held various senior positions including Associate Director in Financial Crime Compliance at Exiger Ltd, Compliance Manager at HSBC Bank and as Head of Global Training and Communications for Chief Controls Office (CCO) at Barclays Bank Plc, to name a few. She has been promoted and re-hired by several banks due to her outstanding knowledge and expertise in AML, counter-terrorist financing, financial crime, sanctions and anti-bribery and corruption and has won awards for her valuable contribution.

Some of her work included conducting investigations into sanction breaches and circumventions, using her thorough knowledge of internal policy and regulations to make risk-based decisions on whether a sanction has been breached or not. In terms of AML, Adjoa has investigated suspicious activities for intermediary banks, liaising with both remitting banks and beneficiary banks to understand the nature of the transactions being made. Adjoa has also conducted in-depth due diligence with discreet and confidential inquiries and has led reviews projects on high-risk clients, including some high profile cases. Most notably, Adjoa was part of the Global Investigations Team where she headed the Panama Papers Project – a high profile and intricate investigation linked to investigating the exposure of the offshore finance industry across various lines of business at Barclays and provided solutions to ensure the bank had sufficient controls in place to mitigate any such risk in the future. She subsequently reviewed the AML and KYC controls within Barclays and provided solutions in order to mitigate the risks of tax evasion, money laundering and sanction breaches, which were implemented via policy changes.

In 2011 as Assistant Manager at KPMG UK, she instituted and led an innovative project that tracked current financial crime regulations, shared the knowledge and escalated the changes and its impact to the wider firm and clients. Her leadership grew the Forensic Team and she went on to lead the Forensic Team within the UK and India on the initiative. In that same year, on her secondment to Barclays, Adjoa fostered a deeper client relationship between KPMG and Barclays through weekly regulatory updates and implications for the sanctions department. This resulted in higher work output for KPMG from Barclays.

In addition, Adjoa has developed and delivered training courses in financial crime compliance, GDPR and regulatory compliance to external parties. Adjoa has actively engaged with businesses, globally upskilling them with a range of compliance training courses to enable them to engage more effectively with financial institutions. One of her areas of expertise is the Sub-Saharan-African and MENA region where Adjoa provides advice and training on best practices for engaging with Western institutions. Indeed, she partnered with Oxford University Innovation in 2019 to deliver a Due Diligence Masterclass at the 2019 Oxford Africa Conference targeted at businesses in Sub Saharan Africa.
Adjoa studied her Postgraduate in Financial Strategy at the Saïd Business School, University of Oxford where she researched and wrote her dissertation on the HSBC scandal in 2012, noting the bank’s shortcomings in their sanctions and AML compliance departments and advising how they could improve their compliance in the future.
Adjoa has since launched the EBII Group which is supported by Oxford University Innovation. She was inspired to found EBII Group by her passion about helping the investing community navigate their due diligence process when investing in emerging markets like Africa. Her aim in creating this specialist compliance advisory firm is to educate investors so they are equipped with the knowledge they need to be successful in Africa.

Board Members

Leanne Sorby

Company Secretary
Chartered Certified Accountant (FCCA) and Chartered tax advisor (CTA , PGDIP in financial strategy from Oxford University)

Jeremy Tabiri

Non Executive Director, Strategy and Business Development

Decades of experience in the African Financial Markets spanning over a decade. Currently holding the position of Director, Africa Trading in Societe Generale CIB based in London. He joined Societe Generale from Standard Chartered Bank, where he grew the West Africa Trading franchise by developing the Ghana, as well as the WAEMU (XOF) and CEMAC (XAF) fixed income trading desks, as a Director for FX, Rates and Credit Trading. His current role covers Foreign Exchange, Bonds and Interest Rate Derivatives across various Countries within the Continent. Jeremy holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Ghana as well as a certificate from the ACI Financial Market Association.   

Emilie Syed

Board Observer. Investment Associate at Oxford University Innovation

Engaged in the creation as well as the development of many early stage companies, evaluating businesses for growth and potential investment at Oxford University Innovation. Directly manages a portfolio of 18 companies, sitting on 5 boards, and build relationships within the surrounding venture capital eco-system, providing deal flow on one hand and investment on the other.

Specialists

wahida

Wahida Khan

Director, Financial Crime Compliance

Wahida is a qualified chartered accountant who specialises in financial crime compliance  with over 13 years expereince working at KPMG forensic London and Dubai. During her time at KPMG she conducted fraud and anti-bribery & corruption investigations and compliance reviews across a range of sectors including energy, consumer markets and financial services. During her time in the Middle East, Wahida worked as a consultant advising on fraud and bribery and corruption risk. Her most recent role was working with the UK ’s Financial Conduct Authority in their investigations team.

David Ocansey

Director, Business Ethics

David Ocansey is leadership expert with over 25 years experience equipping large organisations across Africa and in the USA in the area of Business Ethics, Strategy, Management, Leadership etc. David is also a mentor to the John Maxwell leadership team. He is a teaching pastor at Believers Temple of Praise New Jersey.

Nwamaka Ogbonna

African Development and Policy
Nwamaka Chidera Ogbonna is a Dphil candidate in International Development at Lady Margaret Hall, University of Oxford. Her research focuses on understanding the nature of learning, innovation and technological capability development within technology clusters and Special Economic Zones (SEZs) in Nigeria. She holds an Mphil in Development Studies from the University of Oxford; a Master’s in Development Management from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and a Bachelor’s degree in Economics (First class honours) from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Ghana. She has also completed an executive programme on Public Policy, Design Thinking and Leadership at the University of Cambridge.

Catherine Spence

Innovation Support, Oxford University

Cath studied Physics at Durham University before taking a graduate role at STC, a large telecoms business, working on the design and development of early commercial fibre optic based telecoms systems. She returned to Durham to complete an MSc in Microelectronics before heading back south to work for Analog Devices in Newbury working on custom ASIC design.

In 1991 she joined Cadence Design Systems first as an application engineer, progressing to the business consulting group, working with an international portfolio of clients in the use of complex modelling in the design of electronic circuits.

Cath joined Oxford University Innovation in January 2017 as a Senior Technology Transfer Manager.

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