Mohamed Amersi is an English businessman and philanthropist. He is the Founder and Chairman of the Inclusive Ventures Group and the Founder and Chairman of the Amersi Foundation. His writing has appeared in the Financial Times.
Early life and education
Amersi spent his childhood in Kenya. In 1976 he came to the UK, and studied at Merchant Taylors School. Amersi studied law at Sheffield and Cambridge, and went on to do an Executive MBA at the Saïd Business School, Oxford where he was cited on the Dean's List and awarded a distinction. Amersi is an honorary Fellow of Brasenose College, Oxford and an Independent Governor of the Royal Agricultural University, Cirencester. Amersi since then has financed one of the most significant expansions at Brasenose, with the creation of the Amersi Foundation lecture theatre.
Career
Legal
Amersi initially practised law as a barrister at 1 Brick Court. He was then a solicitor with Clifford Chance and Jones, Day Reavis & Pogue. Throughout his legal career Amersi developed a specialisation in equity related deals, and represented issuers and financial institutions in over 100 transactions.
Telecoms
From 1997 to 2002, Amersi was a senior advisor at Telefónica with whom he co-founded Gramercy Communications Partners in New York, and was its Managing Director. From 2008 to 2013 he was also a senior advisor to the TeliaSonera Group, leading their M&A work including the IPO of Kcell and MegaFon. He was also the board member of various Rothschild Banking Group entities, Motorola, MegaFon and Mi-Fone. Amersi co-founded and is the CEO of Emergent Telecom Ventures in 2002, an Emerging Markets advisory and investment firm, specialising in Telecoms, Media and Technology.
Impact Investments
While at Saïd Business School, Amersi founded Inclusive Ventures, a fund that focuses on making investments that have a positive social impact. Through the fund, Amersi has supported RuralShores, a business that oversees outsourcing centres in rural areas of India. Additionally, Inclusive Ventures has worked to improve access and the quality of education in Kenya through United We Reach and Bridge, an education and technology initiative.
The Amersi Foundation was founded in 2012 and is one of several philanthropic initiatives Amersi is involved with. The Foundation has worked on issues such as modern-day slavery. A key project that the Amersi Foundation is involved with is the ‘Extremely Together’ project, coordinated by the Kofi Annan Foundation. The project brought together 10 of the world's leading young counter-extremism experts to provide guidance on how to prevent and counter youth radicalisation. When asked about the work both foundations were conducting, Amersi said that ‘it is more important than ever that young people feel engaged and energised’. In 2017, the Amersi Foundation contributed to the funding of The Foundry at Oxford University, a centre for entrepreneurs opened by Tim Cook, CEO of Apple. Amersi is listed as being a member of its advisory board.
Other Projects
Amersi is also involved in several projects that were launched under the Prince of Wales, including the Prince's Trust International, the Prince's Trust Mosaic network and Dumfries House. He is a Trustee and a member of the Global Advisory Board of Prince's Trust International. He is also the chair of the International Advisory Council for the British Asian Trust, another of the Prince of Wales’ charitable initiatives. Additionally, he chairs the Board of Trustees for the Islamic Reporting Initiative, is a trustee of the Kailash Satyarthi Children's Foundation, the Rose Castle Foundation, which works with faith leaders to improve inter-faith communications and United We Reach. He is a Counsellor for One Young World, joining Kofi Annan, Meghan Markle and Bill Clinton as current or former Counsellors.
