Babacar Seck

Managing Partner at Askya Investment Partners

Speaker

Babacar is Managing Partner at Askya Investment Partners. He is passionate about African development and believes that entrepreneurship holds the key to unlocking pan-African prosperity and dynamism. He has supported and invested in a number of African startups including MAX, Jumia, GoMyCode, Socium, Chargel, Jetstream, Moneyfellows, Complete Farmer, Maad, Tolbi, Poa Internet, Anka, Koree and Kwely.

He was previously the CEO of Digital Africa, leading the company's transformation towards a platform for African startups, and was a founding member of Proparco's €300m Venture Capital program, where he successfully positioned the firm as a top VC in Africa. At Proparco, he also led financial services private equity, delivering landmark exits and supporting companies across banking, insurance and financial services, while serving on the boards of Bank of Africa, MUA, Disruptech, Ventures Platform and Lok Capital.

Before joining Proparco in 2018, Babacar served as Advisor to the Chairman/CEO and Strategy Manager for AXA Group, where he played a key role in the group's digital transformation, tech partnerships (Alibaba, Ant financial, Jumia) and expansion into Asia and Africa, in addition to spearheading multi billion-dollar strategic initiatives.

Earlier in his career, he worked at Lazard, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the OECD. Babacar studied at Sciences Po, Tsinghua and Renmin University.