MANAGEMENT TEAM

MANAGEMENT TEAM

Sebastian Spio-Garbrah

Global Managing Director & Chief Analyst

Sebastian Spio-Garbrah has been adjudged one of the world’s leading frontier markets analysts, and was voted among the ‘Top 30 under 30 Analysts’ by New York’s Institutional Investor Magazine in 2006. Sebastian helped establish the Africa risk research practice at leading global political risk consultancy firm, Eurasia Group LLC in New York, London (UK) and Tokyo, and concurrently served as a sovereign risk analyst on Sub-Saharan Africa’s two largest economies, Nigeria and South Africa for a novel global stability index developed by Eurasia Group with Lehman Brothers, Deutsche Bank, and subsequently, with Citigroup between 2005 and 2010. Since 2010, Sebastian has been Global Managing Director & Chief Frontier Markets Analyst at DaMina Advisors where he advises the boards, CEOs and portfolio managers of many of the world’s leading multinationals and largest institutional investors on Africa. A prolific writer and an ambidextrous thinker, Sebastian has been quoted extensively by the international media.  

Previously, Sebastian led debt capital markets surveillance unit at Thompson Reuters in New York. Sebastian also advised former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair’s Commission on Africa.  Sebastian sits on the board of Christian Children’s Fund of Canada, African Business Media, Canada – Africa Chamber of Business and Jewish Heart for Africa – Innovation Africa. Sebastian is a member of Toronto’s High Park and Parkdale Rotary Club and a Fellow at the Washington Center for the Study of the Presidency. Sebastian holds a B.A (double) in Economics and Political Science from Middlebury College, Vermont and a Juris Doctor (J.D) in law from Rutgers University, New Jersey.

Francis Mensah

Advisory Partner - UK & The British Isles spv

Francis Mensah is a Partner at DaMina Advisors covering UK and the British Isles. Francis is also an independent management consultant with fifteen years of experience in the financial services industry mainly focusing on large complex change projects and business operating model development. Francis’ clients include HSBC, Barclays Bank, Santander and the Royal Bank of Scotland. Prior to becoming an independent consultant Francis worked for Accenture, Deloitte Consulting, and Arthur Andersen Business Consulting. Francis is also an independent investor and has a keen interest in spread trading global stocks and taking long term positions in African equities.  Francis has an MSc in information systems from the London School of Economics.

Lars Henriksson

Senior Research Fellow; Co-Head, Frontier Asia Consulting

Lars is an investment professional who haven been involved in Asian frontier markets for more than two decades. He has held a number of senior positions on the sell- and buy-side (including portfolio manager, head of research, head of foreign institutional sales and independent adviser) in Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, London and Stockholm.

He has built a track record providing invaluable insights on the region, which is helped by his command of five languages, including two Asian – Thai and Malay. His comments have been published in Financial Times and interviews/quotes appeared in Bloomberg, Reuters and a number of other international publications. Lars has also acted as expert speaker at investment forums and continuous professional development courses in Asia.

For nearly four years, Lars acted as the editor and strategist for the well known and popular Profit Hunter (premium investment newsletter dedicated to unearth the best thematic investment ideas in frontier markets) and The New World (free investment letter tasked to come up with the hottest investment ideas in Asian frontier markets) in London.

Lars writes on Asian financial markets for Myanmar Business Today, the leading weekly business newspaper in Yangon, Myanmar, home to the world’s youngest frontier stock market (Yangon Stock Exchange, founded in Oct 2015).

Lars holds a BA in East & Southeast Asian Studies (major in Thai language) and studied politics, economics at Lund University, the highest ranked university in Sweden in the QS ranking in 2018. He is an associate member of the Chartered Institute for Securities & Investments (CISI, London) and the certification of Statement of Professional Standing (SPS).

Lars lives in Asia but regularly spends extended periods in London, which serves as the external hub for several Asian frontier markets he focuses on. 

Johannes Adomako-Mensah

Analyst (Global Health Research - Sub Saharan Africa) 

A product of Yale University Medical School and Middlebury College’s department of Neuroscience, Johannes has previously conducted research for Yale University Medical School, Rockefeller University in New York and Middlebury College's Biology Department, Vermont. Johannes has interned at Porter Hospital in Vermont and at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital in Accra, Ghana. He was previously a global health research Intern at DaMina Advisors New York. Johannes peer reviwed scientific publications are cited below:

  • Zhou, Y., Adomako-Mensah, J., Yuferov, V., Ho, A., Zhang, J., Xu, M., Kreek, MJ.Effects of acute binge cocaine on mRNA levels of µ-opioid receptors and neuropeptides in Dopamine D1 or D3 receptor knockout mice.  (Synapse, 61, 50-59, January 2007)

 

  • Zhou, Y., Huynh, J., Choi, J., Schlussman, S.D., Adomako-Mensah, J., Ho, A., and Kreek, M.J.  Persistent increases in rat hypothalamic neuropeptide gene expression with HPA hyposensitivity to naloxone during withdrawal from chronic escalating dose cocaine. (Proceedings of the College on Problems of Drug Dependence, 2005)

Natalee Vernon, Esq

Natalee Vernon, DaMina Senior Legal Advisor

Natalee was until recently Legal and Business Affairs Counsel at Mattel, Inc., and previously served in a similar role at Thomson Reuters. Natalee was an associate at Shearman & Sterling LLP New York and previously worked at Bloomberg. Natalee obtained her JD in law from Cornel University and BA in Political Science and Spanish from Middlebury College. Natalee has been admitted to the New York bar. 

 

 

Alex Wark, Partner, Business Development UK

Alex Wark, Partner, Business Development UK

Alex has had over two decades of experience in senior business development roles at several major global political risks, research and consulting firms. A longtime resident of London, he helps oversee DaMina's business development outreach in the UK