Executive Team
Founder, CEO
A businessman and consultant in Finance and Development who advises governments and private compagnies, Zephirin Diabré has served as Chairman, Africa and Middle East of AREVA (now ORANO) the french nuclear, electricity and mining conglomerate, from 2005 to 2011. He came to Areva from the United Nations, where he was the Associate Administrator (the second in command) of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the largest UN program covering Africa, Latin America, Asia, Arab States, East Europe and CIS countries, from 1999 to 2005.
Prio to his UN career, Diabré has served in the government of his native country Burkina Faso, in numerous positions including Minister of Mining and Industry, and Finance Minister. He started his professional career as Assistant Professor of Business Administration at the university of Ouagadougou (Burkina faso) before joining the Burkina Breweries Corporation, the local branch of the multinational beer group Castel, as Deputy managing director.
Diabré has also served on the African Advisory Board of investment bank Renaissance Capital.
Diabré has received a Master of Management degree from the Kedge Business School of Bordeaux (France) and a PhD in Business Administration from the university of Bordeaux. He was a Visiting scholar at the Harvard Institute for International Development (HIID) from 1997 to 1998.
Chief Investment Officer (CIO)
A highly experienced mining industry professional, Brian K. Ziswa has demonstrated expertise in project generation, evaluation, and investment execution across the metals space including gold and critical minerals.
Brian K. Ziswa joined AGMP in late 2024 from McKinsey & Co where he was commodity head and manager of aluminum at McKinsey MineSpans.
Prior to that, he held senior roles in leading metal and mining consultancies in the UK including Brook Hunt & Associates, Wood Mackenzie, Global Metal Analytics and Roskill, where he acquired deep expertise in precious metals and critical minerals including cobalt, lithium, tin and aluminium among others. Earlier in his career, Brian K. Ziswa worked as Exploration Geologist and Resource Evaluation Geostatistician for various companies including Delta Gold, AfriOre and Rio Tinto.
Brian K. Ziswa holds a Bachelor of Sciences (Hon) in Geology from the University of Zimbabwe, a Master of Science in Mining Geostatistics from the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Paris, France, and a Post Graduate Diploma in Actuarial Sciences from the University of Kent, UK.
Senior Advisor, Business Development
Dr Serge Nitiema is a founder, investor and seasoned mining executive with more than three decades + experience, from Greenfields to business & economic valuation of mineral resources, in Africa, Australia and Canada. He worked for many years as Program Manager at BHP and VP Exploration and Business Development for Goldfields and was instrumental on delineating and developing Gold, Cu-Co deposits and expanding both companies’ footprint across Africa.
Dr Nitiema is the co-founder of GenGold Capital Resources Pty Ltd, active in gold in Cote d’Ivoire. He is also the co-founder of Predictive Discovery, owner of advanced exploration assets in Burkina Faso and Guinea, where it recently made a Tiers 1 gold discovery.
Dr Nitiema sits on the board of TSX listed Rock Wealth Discovery that operates greenfields and advanced projects in Guinea. He also serves on the board of Not Raw Drilling (Pty) Limited, a premier elite-focussed drilling services headquartered in Johannesburg, dedicated to fostering the next generation of African Resources Drilling services.
Dr Nitiema holds a PhD in Structural Geology Applied to Mineral Exploration from the Cheikh Anta Diop University of Dakar, Senegal (1992), and is a former intern in the laboratory of Tectonophysics & Structural Geology of the Universite Paul Sabatier of Toulouse, France.
Advisory board
Chair
Rob Karpati is a long-term Finance leader who focuses on strategic transformation and on global process optimization. During his 35+long career, Rob has developed a unique capability for integrating complex end-to-end ecosystems in ways that optimize cross-stakeholder value. He is currently a Partner at The Blended Capital Group, where he works on transforming the global artisanal mining sector in order to reimagine financial, social, environmental and economic value given the inherent potential of the 45 million person sector.
Prior to joining TBCG, Rob has held senior responsibilities in various companies including Dupont and Apotex. As the leader of the Advisory Board at Africa Green Mining Partners, Rob is particularly interested in implementing responsible mining projects that catalyze sustainable development, positive social outcomes as well as significant value.
Rob holds a Bachelor degree in Commerce from the University of Toronto
Advisory Board Member
John Howchin is the former Secretary General of the Council on Ethics of the Swedish National Pension Funds. He is Chairman and CEO of Transition Inc, through which he provides advisory services.
He is the Global Ambassador for the UN convened Global Tailings Management Institute and the co-convener of the Investor Mining and Tailings Safety Initiative, setup post the tragic Brumadhino accident in Brazil. He is also a Special Advisor for the Global Investor Commission on Mining 2030.
John has been working within the responsible investment community for the last 20 years and is a firm believer in responsible businesses in general and mining specifically. At the Council he initiated and lead hundreds of corporate engagements on all kinds of sustainability and ethics related issues. Before that, as the first Senior Analyst being responsible for environmental stewardship at Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM) in Oslo, he wrote the initial Climate Change expectations document, initiated climate change engagement with the portfolio companies and spent three years focused on corporate lobbying on climate change legislation in the US.
John started his career at ABB where he worked with corporate sustainability and reporting.
John holds a BSc in environmental science and human ecology at Goteborg University.
Advisory Board Member
Tshepo Magagane is a Natural Resources Investment Banker with over 2 decades of experience across Sub-Saharan Africa primarily based in London.
Tshepo’s career has spanned through banks and financial institutions including Standard Bank Plc (Strategic Equities – Natural Resources Risk Capital Unlock), Talbot Investment Group (Natural Resources Private Equity), Bhramavira Capital Partners (Commodities Special Situations Investing), Citigroup (Commodities Investment Research), HSBC (M&A, DCM, ECM, Financing & Lending), UBS Warburg (M&A, DCM, ECM, Financing & Lending).
He is known to be a vocal thought leader on how the clean energy transition can be used to catalyse Africa’s development with his thoughts taking centre stage at key forums such as the EU Raw Materials Week, EU-Zambia Business Forum and the Zambia Mining Insaka to name a few.
He is currently working on various projects that seek to unlock Africa focused specialist mining capital, guiding key players on how to unlock independent projects and artisanal small-scale miners to contribute to the Copperbelt’s development.
Tshepo hods a Post Graduate Degree in Quantitative & Economic Sciences from the University of Pretoria (South africa)
Advisory Board Member
A finance veteran with more than two decades in business development, capital markets, project finance and fund management, Brice Beumo is the Founder and Ceo of Beko Capital Advisory S.A, a pan-African financial institution licensed as a brokerage firm in the Central African Economic and Monetary Union, covering Cameroun, Congo, Gabon, CAR, Tchad and Equatorial Guinea.
Brice has held several senior positions in the financial sector, including Managing Director at Eaglestone Advisory BV in London, where he covered capital market transactions across Sub-Saharan Africa. He has also held senior positions at BMCE Bank International, Ecobank Development Corporation, Renaissance Capital and Iroko Securities (FMO Holding Company).
He is the current Rotating Chairman of the Advisory Board of the Developing Market Association “DMA INVEST” in the United Kingdom, a full-service development consultancy established to “facilitate the flow of funds into the world’s emerging economies” through several instruments. He is also a Board Member of UBA Cameroun Plc bank, and a former consultant to Delarue, the world’s largest commercial banknote printer.
Brice holds a Master of Arts in International Business and Administration from the University of Westminster (United Kingdom).
