I have spent more than fifteen years working in gender and development and eight years in entrepreneurship, across more than twenty African countries with the UN, World Bank and FCDO. My sectors are the green economy, especially clean cooking, agtech, and education, working mainly with women and girls, including in refugee camps.
ICF-ACC Certified Coach · IFC-LPI Certified TPMA Trainer
Every engagement is scoped in the first conversation, with measurement built in from the start.
Programme design and delivery for your entrepreneurs: capital readiness, ESG, leadership. Short courses, retreats or multi-month cohorts.
Diagnostics and executive coaching across your founder portfolio, so you invest in leaders ready to steward capital, not just receive it.
Building the pool your programmes draw from: readiness assessment, cohort curation, and support that moves founders from almost fundable to fundable.
Advising funds and facilities on how founder development fits their model, from design through deployment, with gender-lens depth throughout.
Independent evaluation of enterprise, youth and gender programmes, and commissioned research on African enterprise and access to finance.
Keynotes and panels on women-led enterprise, access to finance and leadership. Board and trustee roles for mission-led organisations.
A sample of recent and current delivery. Client references and full engagement histories are available on request.
Designing skilling programmes in green economy trades, from e-waste repair to clean energy, that move women refugees into immediately employable work. Includes clean cooking clubs in rural schools, building the next generation’s norms around clean energy.
Working with the agri-fintech ecosystem connecting smallholder farmers to storage, finance and better prices — pictured moderating the launch of agriBORA’s agriGHALA platform, alongside the IFC.
Training hundreds of entrepreneurs annually across the Advanced Entrepreneurship Program and Female Accelerator Program: ESG, capital readiness and leadership, with participant feedback averaging 4.9 out of 5.
Leading multi-country enterprise and gender programmes spanning policy change, fundraising and growth support, alongside ecosystem programmes such as GrowthAfrica and Stanford Seed.
Shared with written consent. Full case studies and references are available on request.
“What stands out most is how she creates clarity and offers strategic guidance while also placing me in opportunities that stretch my growth both personally and professionally. I would describe her as someone who not only supports your journey, but actively helps you become more confident, focused and aligned in how you lead, build and grow.”
EstherMonitoring & Evaluation Specialist, INGO“Working with Liza was genuinely transformative. She creates a safe, supportive space while still asking the kinds of questions that really make you pause and reflect.”
Annancieta MwololoESG, Impact & Sustainability Professional, Financial & International Development Sector“You are a person of integrity who values confidentiality. You are also easy to talk to, because you do not judge. And yes, you are a great listener and an excellent coach.”
Well-funded ventures stall, and the post-mortems rarely point to the business model; they point to leadership. We resource the business and overlook the person carrying it, and that is why, for so many capable entrepreneurs, presence has not become scale.
I have deployed funds to many organisations across Africa, and I know the other side of that table too: I have founded and scaled businesses of my own, failed, and faced auctioneers and everything in between. That experience gives me a unique understanding of what your programmes ask of the entrepreneurs they fund.
A paragraph is enough: the mandate, the geography, the timeline. TORs welcome but not required.
What I would do, how, with whom, and an honest note on fit, including when I am not the right person.
Co-design against your results framework, with measurement and learning built in from the start.
Baseline and endline, participant-level data, and reporting for your board and your donors.
ICF Associate Certified Coach · IFC-LPI Certified TPMA Trainer, 2026
References from commissioning institutions are shared during scoping, with their permission.
Send a short brief and we will come back within three working days with a scoped response.
Start a Conversation Or email liza@lizaakinyi.com