Guillaume Fonkenell

Guillaume Fonkenell is the founder of the Pharo Foundation and serves as the chair of its board of trustees. He is also the founder and managing partner of Pharo Management, a leading hedge fund firm focusing on emerging markets, and a sister company of the Pharo Foundation.

Prior to founding Pharo Management in 2000, he was a managing director at Merrill Lynch in New York overseeing trading activities in Latin American markets. Prior to that he was a vice-president at Bankers Trust in New York where he ran the interest rate options desk.

Mr. Fonkenell holds Masters’ Degrees in both Civil Engineering and International Business from Ecole Nationale des Ponts-et-Chaussées as well as a Science Degree from Ecole Polytechnique in Paris.

Matthieu Baumgartner

Matthieu Baumgartner has a wide range of general management experience in three continents (Americas, Europe and Asia) within large international groups such as Schneider Electric and Air Liquide. From 2008 to 2019, he was a founding partner and Chairman of the Board for respectively TREIS Partners and Manor Investment SA, two private capital advisory and investment firms.

He is currently a member of the Haltra Group Advisory Board and a Trustee to the Pharo Foundation.

Mustafa Jama

Mustafa Jama is the CEO of Ardmore Capital Management. He is also the President of the Sidciyo Jaamac Suldaan Diiriye Foundation. He spent 13 years at Morgan Stanley as Global Head and Chief Investment Officer of the Firm’s Hedge Funds Investing business. Mustafa worked at Glenwood Capital Investments in Chicago where he was a Managing Director and a member of the Investment Committee. He spent 7 years at Deutsche Bank AG / Bankers Trust in New York. Initially he traded fixed income derivatives and later managed money for clients of Deutsche Bank’s Private Bank.

Mustafa worked as a Design Engineer for 6 years for Los Angeles Water & Power. He received a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering from Southern University A & M in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and a Master of Science in Civil Engineering from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. He earned a Master of Business Administration from Harvard University in Boston.

Farah Jirdeh-Fonkenell

Farah Jirdeh-Fonkenell moved to London in 2009 to focus on setting up The Pharo Foundation where she served as CEO, Trustee and Chair until 2016.

She is currently serving as a Trustee of The Pharo Foundation. Farah focuses her time exploring potential investments into companies, organisations and funds in order to generate the greatest positive social impact.

She travels throughout the year visiting projects in Ethiopia, Somaliland, Uganda and Kenya. She is also involved in numerous personal charitable endeavours around the world with a keen focus on Africa.

Prior to setting up the Foundation, Farah worked from 1992 to 2008 as an executive at one of the leading retail companies in the USA. She holds a BA Degree from Macalester College in Minnesota.

Nicolas Sagna

Born and partially raised in Senegal. Portfolio Manager at Pharo Management in January 2012 and responsible of the Pharo Africa Fund.

Previously, Head of Latin American Structured Products at Goldman Sachs in New York from 2006 to 2011 and Head of EEMEA Credit Derivatives Trading at UBS London from 2003 to 2006.

Also worked as a credit derivatives trader in emerging markets at Credit Suisse in London and Zurich from 1997 to 2003.

Received a Ph.D in Atomic Physics from the University of Neuchatel in Switzerland and a Diplome de l’ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne in Theoretical Physics.