2X Forum — 2X Global

Marcia Ashong is the Founder and CEO of The Boardroom Africa, the continent’s leading network of women executives. The network promotes exceptional female talent to boards across the globe and breaks down barriers to help organisations realise the benefits of increased diversity and elevate the perspectives of African women.
Marcia believes that solutions to complex problems will emerge when leaders prioritize the inclusion of women, especially women of colour, and make them key voices in global discourse.
Marcia is an Eisenhower Global Fellow and an Archbishop Desmond Tutu Leadership Fellow. In 2019, she was named among the 100 Most Influential Africans. In 2022, she was listed among the 100 under 40 edition of the Most Influential People of African Descent. She sits on the Ghana Advisory Committee of the Mastercard Foundation and has over a decade’s experience in energy law, consulting, governance, business growth and diversity and inclusion strategies.

Zubaida Bai is president and CEO of Grameen Foundation, a global nonprofit that endeavors to alleviate world poverty by investing in the power of women.
As a social entrepreneur and gender equity advocate for more than 18 years, Bai founded ayzh®, a social enterprise that designs products to improve the health of women and girls. Previously, she was managing director of social ventures at CARE.
Bai has been recognized as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum, a Maternal Health Champion by Ashoka, and a TED Fellow/ Speaker. She was named United Nations SDG 3 Pioneer by the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC).

Hilary Barry is founder and Secretary General of the LadyAgri Impact Investment Hub. She is Irish. Since her first experience in Ghana in 1993, she has dedicated her career to designing and implementing social impact programs across Africa, Caribbean and Pacific states. These programs traverse the areas of public health, agriculture, water, social development, cooperative management, agri-SME support, and women entrepreneurship.
The LadyAgri approach is unique in that it takes a full 360° holistic approach to supporting women in agri-business through mentoring, tailor made technical assistance combined with B2B agri-business partnerships and gender smart investment in the agri-value chain.
Hilary is a convinced venture philanthropist and believes patient investment in women in agri-supply chains, though challenging, will have a ‘rising tide’ effect and sustainable social impact. Hilary leads a motivated team at LadyAgri both in Brussels and across 30 African and Small Island Developing States in the Caribbean and Pacific.

Sagar has nearly a decade of experience as an entrepreneur, operator, venture capitalist, and gender-lens investor. He has launched several impact and gender-lens funds globally.
Currently, he is a Partner at Beyond Impact VC, an alternative protein fund investing globally in the future of food and materials; an Advisor/Partner with Angel Protocol, a blockchain protocol focused on the impact investing ecosystem; Founder at First Followers, a cohort-based educational accelerator for next-gen underrepresented aspiring fund managers; and Managing Partner at IDEX Accelerator, a cohort-based accelerator for next-gen impact & conscious capitalists.
He actively writes on Substack about venture capital, impact investments, venture studios, and how to build a fund.

Jillene Connors Belopolsky is the Chief of Staff and Chief External Affairs Officer at the Clean Cooking Alliance (CCA). Jillene has over a decade of experience in energy sustainability, strategy, and innovation. Prior to joining CCA, Jillene worked at BP, developing group-level strategies focused on the environmental and societal impacts of technology, climate change, and carbon management. She was also involved in BP's early energy access business. Jillene has focused much of her career around inclusive energy sustainability strategies and collaborative partnerships to accelerate the shifts needed in global decision-making, concentrating on energy access and sustainable livelihoods.

Diana Sierra is the co-founder and CEO of Be Girl, a social enterprise focused on bridging the access gap in Menstrual Health and Hygiene (MHH). Her mission is to empower women and girls by providing high-quality products and menstrual education to those in need. With a Master's degree in Sustainability Management from Columbia University and a Bachelor's degree in Industrial Design from Universidad de Los Andes, Diana combines her design expertise with a passion for social impact. Through her work, she strives to break down barriers to gender equality and create a world where every woman and girl can thrive.

Rebecca Calder brings passion and rigor to the challenges of increasing gender equality and advancing social justice. She has a PhD in social anthropology and nearly thirty years of policy and field experience in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Pacific. As a feminist anthropologist, Rebecca applies deep contextual understanding of intersectional identities and power dynamics, social and gender norms, and political economy issues to her work. Her leadership in girls' and women's empowerment has produced cutting-edge research that has informed programming and policy for bilateral and multilateral agencies, country governments, non-profits, and the private sector. Through strategic, evidence-based, and creative counsel, Rebecca has supported nearly 100 social enterprises across Africa and Asia. In 2019, Rebecca and her business partner Emily Boost, founded Kore Global, a feminist women led-consultancy practice. She currently leads a research consortium for the IDRC and SEDF funded Transforming the Care Economy through Impact Investing (TCEII) and an evaluation of women in leadership for BII.

María is founder of Acrux Partners, and Strategic Business Development Advisor for Pro Mujer International. She founded and heads the Impact Investment National Advisory Board for Argentina. Since 2019 she serves as Board Member for the Global Steering Group on Impact Investment. Maria Laura was a Fellow of Practice at the Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford, UK, in 2021 and 2022 for her work on Outcome Payment Contracts. In 2020 /2021 she served as an advisor to the development of the SDG Impact initiative under UNDP, and as Impact Investment advisor for the UNPRI.
She has previously worked for the Principles for Responsible Investment as Head of Global Networks, and in several regional or global level positions at Christian Aid UK and MSF International. She routinely lectures on specialized executive level courses on impact and responsible investment.

Joan Gatuhi is very enthusiastic about the intersection between gender lens investing and the advancement of gender equality. This is in investment decision-making spaces that take into consideration gender-based factors across the entire spectrum of the investment process. She is currently the Director Financial Sustainability & Innovation at Fòs Feminsita and has over a decade of experience working with social enterprise models across different growth stages and sectors in both impact investing and technical accompaniment. Joan is keen to become a global connector and voice in ensuring movement and visibility of catalytic capital with a gender lens.

Therese Turner-Jones is a Bahamian national and resident of Kingston Jamaica. She is the VP Operations (Acting) at the Caribbean Development Bank and the Principal Consultant of MaxGwen Ltd, a consulting firm she founded in 2022.
A trained economist, Mrs. Turner-Jones has over 25 years’ experience in macroeconomics and economic development, with special attention on the Caribbean. She served the International Monetary Fund in senior posts for over 20 years.
She holds a master’s degree in Economics from the University of East Anglia, United Kingdom. Her publications include a book on Caribbean Fiscal Challenges. A member of the International Women’s Forum, Mrs. Turner Jones is passionate about financial inclusion, gender equity, children, vulnerable communities and the environment. She is an ardent champion of development issues facing small island developing states, and considers climate change one of the major existential threats of our lifetime.

Prudence Muchinouta is a strategic c-suite leader in finance, strategy, environmental issues, and corporate governance. She is currently the Chief Financial Officer of Community Markets for Conservation Limited, a social enterprise that enhances systems incentivizing conservation of natural resources. A fellow of the Chartered Association of Certified Accountants, she is the recipient of the ACCA Africa CFO Award in the environment, social, and governance sector category. She is a member of the Rallying Cry Network, supporting climate and gender-responsive agricultural enterprises in Africa as well as an alumni of THNK School Netherlands where she completed the Creative Leadership Program.

For the last 21 years, she has created and executed business projects with a social focus.
Her passion is helping people have a fairer and more equitable world, creating policies within companies that eliminate the wage gap, and designing sustainable supply chains that accommodate everyone.
Over the past 10 years, she has learned to lead leaders in different spaces and has managed to bring together different stakeholders to carry out economic development projects with a gender perspective. She enjoys connecting the needs of society with companies, governments, and international organizations. She has developed as a specialist focusing her efforts on issues such as gender and inclusion and sustainability.

Lelemba Phiri, PhD(c) is a seasoned development finance professional with specialised expertise in gender-lens investing, innovative financing vehicles, and climate instruments and incentives. She is an award-winning educator, writer, and entrepreneur with work experience covering over African markets; spanning over 18 years; and working across the public, private, start-up, and investment sectors. She is passionate about women's leadership and entrepreneurship development in Africa and has committed her life’s work to advancing equity and empowerment of women.

Diana Scalise is the Head of Investment at Plan International Denmark (PlanBørnefonden), an international NGO present in over 75 countries and aimed at advancing women and girl’s rights. As an economist, she is convinced that women’s economic empowerment is key to enabling a just society, so she has spearheaded the Gender Lens Investing approach of Plan International Denmark. With a track record in designing gender-responsive financial products, Diana worked at the Development Bank of Argentina where she led the program, Women Leaders, to provide access to finance to women-owned companies. Before devoting herself to the development space, she worked in the energy sector, which gave her insights on how to tackle the intersection of finance and climate change.

Roseanna is a founder, management consultant, and gender equality advocate with over 15 years experience. Previously a McKinsey consultant, she works with C-suite leaders focussing on strategy, transformation, and system change. Roseanna is the founder of MBB Women, a global member community from top-tier consulting which aims to advance women in leadership, direct capital to women-led businesses, and be a conduit for positive change. Until recently, she worked with the internationally renowned Champions of Change Coalition - a global community of more than 250 predominantly male CEOs who implement innovative strategies on gender equality. Roseanna grew up in New Zealand where she completed her post-graduate studies in Finance & Accounting before working internationally.

Jessica Villanueva is the Senior Director of Technical Areas of Practice at MEDA. She has more than 20 years of management experience with emphasis on inclusive and sustainable agri-food market systems and innovative finance projects in Latin America, Africa and Asia. Her experience includes designing and structuring blended finance transactions that utilize different asset classes and technical assistance approaches to achieve gender equality and environmental sustainability in agri-food systems. Prior to MEDA, Jessica was working for WWF Peru as Conservation Finance Director. In this position, she was supporting green finance in the Amazon region. She also worked in responsAbility, structuring investment opportunities in agribusiness, with positive social and environmental impact and the Inter American Development Bank, leading and supporting project teams in designing loan and technical cooperation projects to finance rural business in Latin America.

Bridget is the Executive Director of WEDO, Women’s Environment and Development Organization. She is a gender equality and climate justice expert. She specializes in policy advocacy, research and movement building at the intersection of gender equality, women’s rights and environment/climate justice. She has been particularly focused on integrating gender equality into the decisions and outcomes of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Bridget serves as the co-focal point of the Women and Gender Constituency, a UNFCCC stakeholder group of civil society organizations which support the political participation of women’s rights advocates in climate convention processes. She was among Apolitical’s list of 100 most influential people in gender policy in 2020.