Ayisi Makatiani


Ayisi N. Makatiani is the Managing Partner and CEO of Fanisi Capital Ltd, which manages the Fanisi Venture Capital Fund for investing in East Africa. Makatiani has been featured in The Economist, Fortune, CNN, NHK, BBC, Financial Times and has been voted several times by his peers as the most respected CEO in East Africa. He was named a Young Global Leader at the World Economic Forum.

Early life

Makatiani was educated at Alliance High School and thereafter Maseno School. He received a bachelor's degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a Minor in Economics with a thesis done at the MIT Sloan School of Management..

Career

Since 2005, Makatiani has been an adviser to the President of the Republic of Kenya, as a member of the National Economic and Social Council. He currently sits on the boards of Kenya Airways and Ogilvy & Mather. Makatiani has in the past been adviser to the UN Secretary General and been on the board of Barclays Bank, Kenya, and on the advisory board of International Chamber of Commerce E-Magazine, Paris, France; as well as being a former executive director of African Lakes Corporation PLC – London Stock Exchange listed.
Before Fanisi, Makatiani was the CEO of a product of International Finance Corporation — the World Bank's private-sector arm—the UN Development Programme, and the African Development Bank. Before AMSCO he co-founded of Africa Online, the largest Internet Service Provider across Africa with operations in 10 countries spanning the whole continent. He is also the chairman of the board of directors for Jambojet, a low-cost carrier fully owned by Kenya Airways as well as Chairman of Cayman Engineering Group, a family petroleum exploration and engineering firm in Africa, co-managed by his son Israel Brandons Nitendo