Solomon Quaynor
Vice President for Private Sector, Infrastructure and Industrialization, AfDB
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Solomon is currently the Vice President for Private Sector, Infrastructure and Industrialization at the African Development Bank; where he started in May 2020. He has over 25 years’ experience in development finance and investment banking. He is an emerging markets specialist investor with experience investing across FIs including banks & NBFIs, TMT, Infrastructure, Energy, Manufacturing, Agribusiness & Services. He has experience supporting executives and board leadership of corporates,Read more
Solomon is currently the Vice President for Private Sector, Infrastructure and Industrialization at the African Development Bank; where he started in May 2020. He has over 25 years’ experience in development finance and investment banking. He is an emerging markets specialist investor with experience investing across FIs including banks & NBFIs, TMT, Infrastructure, Energy, Manufacturing, Agribusiness & Services. He has experience supporting executives and board leadership of corporates, in strategy development, key government/regulatory and private sector partner relationship engagement, and overall served as trusted advisor at the C-Suite with companies across multiple sectors in Africa.
From 2018-2020 after Solomon left IFC for the private sector, he provided specialized advisory services as: Senior Advisor to Rothschild Global Advisory for Africa (excluding SA); Senior Advisor to IFU (Danish DFI) for sub-Saharan Africa; IC and Senior Advisor to a $350 million PE Fund; Senior Advisor to an African infrastructure fund; and on the boards of InfraCredit Nigeria and Verdant Ventures. One area of interest for Solomon is infrastructure investing and channeling African pensions and long-term savings pools into this asset class.
Solomon departed IFC in 2018 after a distinguished global career spanning circa 20 years. During this period, he served as:
- Chief Investment Officer in IFC’s Client Leadership Group, engaging strategically and long-term with the C-suite and Boards of select key IFC clients globally, with a focus on Africa;
- IFC’s Country Manager in Nigeria and led the development of IFC’s business there into the 9th largest country portfolio globally, and largest in sub-Saharan Africa. IFC’s annual investment increased ten-fold to circa US$1.5 billion, and he led the establishment of a strong franchise in advisory services in areas such as housing, domestic capital markets development, financial infrastructure, SME capacity building, and corporate governance, amongst others.
- Before Nigeria, he served as IFC’s Head of Infrastructure for sub-Saharan Africa based in Johannesburg from 2002-2006.
- Between 2001-2002, he oversaw IFC’s business in Ghana, Sierra Leone, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
- After joining IFC in 1999 until 2001, he worked on projects in Eastern Europe and subsequently led IFC’s Infrastructure Advisory Services Group’s business development in sub-Saharan Africa.
- Before IFC, Solomon worked in the US for several years in investment banking on Wall Street, providing corporate finance advisory services to large and medium corporations. He worked for Merrill Lynch and Bear Stearns in New York City as an Associate and Vice President in the generalist and media & communications groups, respectively.
- For several years before business school Solomon was a college professor at the Atlanta University Center in Math and Engineering.
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