Managing Consultant
Chief Operating Officer
Senior Consultant
Senior Consultant
Francis Osei is the Managing Consultant for IESO Agribusiness Consult with over 25 years’
experience in the agribusiness sector specifically in agricultural investment appraisal,
agricultural banking & financing and Food & Agro-Processing Industry. Throughout his
career, he has been involved in extensive business interactions with both the private and
public sectors and has been instrumental in the financing of several agribusiness projects
and initiatives worth over a $500 million dollars across Africa.
Francis has also been involved in the management of several multi-million multilateral and
bilateral donor projects for rural and agriculture financing for smallholder farmers
affecting more than 80,000 Ghanaian farmers in the various crop value chains since 2001.
Prior to founding IESO agribusiness Consult, Francis was Regional Manager (Agribusiness
Development) of Millennium Promise, Millennium Development Goals Center, Dakar,
Senegal where he was responsible for Strategy development for West and Central Africa.
Prior to that, he was also Head of Agricultural Banking at Stanbic Bank Ghana Limited, a
member of the Standard Bank Group, where he developed and drove the Agricultural
/Agribusiness Segment Strategy and value propositions of the Bank in Ghana. Francis is a
distinguished alumnus of the Harvard Agribusiness Seminar Program of the Harvard
Business School (2013).
He holds an MBA from the China Europe International Business School (CEIBS), an M.Phil.
(Food Science) from the University of Ghana and B.Sc (Hons) in (Biochemistry) from the
University of Science and Technology, Ghana. He is a Member of the International Food
and Agribusiness Management Association (IFAMA) as well as a member of Chartered
Institute of Marketing, UK. During his tenure as Regional Business Development Manager
for Millennium Promise, he played a key role in assisting over 30,000 farmers in food and
cash crop production, gain access to commercial credit in seven project sites in Ghana,
Nigeria, Mali and Senegal. Francis is also an International Finance Corporation, LPI,
Performance Monitoring and Assessment Certified Trainer.
Jacqueline Benyah is the Chief Operating Officer for IESO Agribusiness Consulting Limited.
Formally a corporate banking executive, Jacqueline is a qualified Agricultural Economist
with extensive experience in corporate banking, SME and business banking, relationship
management, product development and electronic delivery channels. Prior to joining
IESO Agribusiness Consult, she was the Deputy Managing Director of Premium Bank
Limited where she was involved in strategic planning, action plan execution, development
and implementation of corporate branding and culture change management.
In addition, Jacqueline developed, mentored and inspired teams for effective business
development in a highly competitive SME environment. Jacqueline began her career as a
relationship manager responsible for managing the corporate banking accounts of premier
customers of CAL Bank Ghana Limited. Within a few years of joining the bank, she rose to
become the Head of Corporate and Institutional Banking. In this capacity, she was
responsible for managing seventy percent of the Bank’s corporate loan portfolio to achieve
growth and profitability with a team of thirty relationship managers and officers.
Subsequently, she became the Head of Risk Management at CAL Bank Ghana Limited with
responsibility for formulating policies and developing measurement models for various
bank units engaged in generating risk.
In addition, she was responsible for ensuring a
satisfactory risk culture within the organization. After her corporate banking experience
with CAL Bank, she joined City Investment Company Limited, a finance house as Chief
Operating Officer where she had responsibility for developing and implementing
strategies for increasing growth and improving profitability. During her tenure at City
Investment Company Limited, the company restructured its business model to focus on
the SME market and grew its loan portfolio to approximately over $200m in 2016.
Jacqueline graduated from the University of London with a masters degree in Agricultural
Economics and has participated in a number of continuous improvement programs such
as the Global CEO Program organized by the IESE Business School, the Wharton School
and China Europe International Business School (CEIBS). This program provides
participants with invaluable insights into global markets in three continents. Jacqueline is
also an International Finance Corporation, LPI, Performance Monitoring and Assessment
Certified Trainer.
Steven is a Senior Agribusiness Consultant at IESO Agribusiness Consult and the Executive
Director of the AgroMinds Africa Challenge (www.agrominds.org), a pan African agribusiness
empowerment platform for youth driven agro-startups and agribusinesses across Africa to
secure equity financing in order to launch and grow and scale their agribusinesses.
He has held investment, business and strategy advisory roles in management consulting and
private equity since 2013. Prior to joining IESO Agribusiness Consults, Steven was a Senior
Associate at Konfidants, where he played a lead role in the foundational strategy team that
built and incubated the AfroChampions Initiative, a project that seeks to mobilise investment
funds through public-private partnerships to help give rise to African private sector
multinational champions. He was also instrumental in the development of the strategic
business model that led to the establishment of the Djondo Fellowship
(www.djondofellowship.com) - a prestigious management fellowship for Africa’s most
ambitious companies set up to support African companies to profitably expand beyond their
domestic economies and become multinational champions of African integration. He also led
several thought leadership efforts at Konfidants - building the African Sovereign Wealth
Funds Index Report which sought to benchmark and guide the restructuring of Africa’s $89
billion Sovereign Wealth industry and part of the team that developed the maiden African
Globalizers Report which focused on the global journeys of thirty (30) multi-billion dollar
African firms.
He began his career at the Global Investment Research division of Goldman Sachs & Co. in
London as a research analyst providing financial analysis on IT companies of fortune 500
companies. He then joined Sagevest Holdings Ltd, a Ghanaian private equity firm, where he
headed the investment research desk that conducted investment appraisals across various
agribusiness sectors and projects worth over $20 million.
He holds a Master of Arts degree in Economic Policy and Management from the University of
Ghana and a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from Ashesi University. In 2014 he was
invited by the Aspen Institute (U.S.A) and conferred Resnick leadership scholar for that year
following his achievements in social entrepreneurship at Ashesi University.
Nana is an experienced business and investment analyst and serves as Agribusiness Finance Consultant for IESO. Nana has a portfolio of diverse experience and knowledge across business management, finance and investment, project management as well as development management. He worked at AngloGold Ashanti for 4 years with a variety of responsibilities in agribusiness management and design and implementation of Local Economic Development Programs, from the entry-level to the lower management level.
Subsequently, he has worked at BDI Ghana Ltd, a Management Consulting and Private Equity firm for over a year, setting up the company’s Agribusiness division before being engaged by IGGS, a sustainable development think thank as Senior Consultant. At IGGS Nana was the lead consultant on several significant projects including an IFAD sponsored Feasibility Study for the establishment of a Gasification plant for the Gari processing enclave at Asueyi, near Techiman, in the then Brong Ahafo region of Ghana and was also a consultant to the Ministry of Finance and UNDP, providing expertise in conducting a Review and Analysis of Climate-Related Investments and Gathering of Baseline Information for GCF Pipeline Projects in Ghana, as part of the country’s application to the GCF for funding for its Climate-related energy projects in 2016.
Before joining IESO, Nana was Head of Investment Banking at Fincap Securities, a fintech-focused private Investment Banking firm, where he was responsible for leading teams in the execution of Corporate Fund Raising, Deal Structuring and Investment Advisory projects. In this role Nana was responsible for the fundraising and deal structuring, including development of feasibility studies and business plans, for various companies including the raise of $4million for Leapab Limited, a start-up Oil Palm Plantation and processing company. Nana has been involved in deal structuring for several other industry sector clients worth over $50million in total.
More recently, nana was a member of the team that conducted the Mid-term Review of the Swiss and Dutch governments sponsored Sustainable West African Palm Oil Program, which aims to improve inclusive increase in productivity along the Oil Palm value chain in West Africa.
Nana is currently a Doctoral candidate in Agribusiness at the University of Ghana. Nana holds a master’s degree in Industrial Finance and Investment from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science & Technology as well as a bachelor’s degree in Agricultural Economics from the University of Ghana. He also has certifications in Securities from the Ghana Stock Exchange, Business Management and Administration from the Institute of Commercial Management, London UK, and Monitoring and Evaluation from the African Centre for Capacity Building.