Liz Ortiguera is a senior executive with over 25 years of global experience and expertise in general management, marketing, business development, and partner network management. Liz is passionate about innovation, business transformation, and community building.

Her career spans several industries – travel/lifestyle, technology, financial services, and pharmaceuticals. She’s experienced in working in both MNC (American Express and Merck) and startup environments (SaaS, e-commerce, and ed-tech). For 10 years she was the General Manager for Amex’s Travel Partner Network, Asia-Pacific/ANZ managing partnerships with the top TMC, MICE, and leisure agencies in the region. She is able to adeptly work across cultures and business environments to catalyze opportunities and drive growth.

In her personal life, she has been a continual advocate for poverty eradication programs and education initiatives across the region. Liz is an alumna of Stanford University Graduate Business School, Columbia University Business School, New York University, and The Cooper Union in New York.

Marloes is the visionary who has established Kerten Hospitality as a disruptive, dynamic international hospitality group dedicated to the management of mixed-use developments in global destinations.

She has successfully grown the organization’s operational and pipeline portfolio from one brand in one country to 11 aspirational lifestyle-driven concepts in 35 development projects across 3 continents.

Her industry journey started with Hilton where she held senior operational and commercial management positions for over a decade. She sits on a number of industry boards and supports the Sustainability Hospitality Challenge as a co-chair of the global initiative

Sandeep Walia is the Chief Operating Officer for Marriott International in the Middle East. With over 25 years of international experience in the hotel industry, Sandeep is currently responsible for the operations of Marriott’s properties in the Middle East (including Egypt and Turkey) which features over 190 operational properties and more than 100 properties in its pipeline.

Sandeep is a seasoned hospitality professional with strategic business acumen driven to deliver operational and financial excellence to create market leading returns and establish mutually beneficial partnerships and relationships with stakeholders.

A dynamic and result-oriented leader, he is adept at building and nurturing high performance teams guiding and motivating them towards setting and achieving visionary goals by effectively aligning company values with key business initiatives and brand experiences.

Sandeep joined Marriott International in 2005. Prior to his current role, Sandeep was the Area Vice President for the United Arab Emirates and overlooked the operation of the company’s largest market in the Middle East. Before taking on his role in the UAE, he was the Area Vice President – Luxury Brands for Western Europe, overseeing the company’s luxury portfolio across Austria, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Iceland, Netherlands, Poland, Switzerland, the UK and all BVLGARI hotels in Europe.

Having worked for brands across Asia (India), Middle East, Africa and Europe, Sandeep has a global mindset and a key understanding of the consumer landscape and their evolving needs and aspirations.

Sandeep’s other key accomplishments include an Executive MBA from the Kellog School of Management at Northwestern University, a degree in Leadership from Harvard Business School and a post-graduate from the Oberoi Center of Learning and Development.

Of Indian origin, Sandeep currently resides in Dubai and is a member of the Young Presidents Organization.

Fiona Ngesa is a destination-marketing specialist with over 16 years’ experience in the tourism industry. She is well accomplished and educated to help destinations design marketing campaigns that drive tourism in ways that are authentic and sustainable, as well as profitable and growth-oriented.

With her Post-Graduate Diploma in Marketing from the Chartered Institute of Marketing (UK) & a Masters degree in International Tourism & Leisure Management from Stenden University in the Netherlands, Fiona knows what it takes to drive traffic to new destinations.

She is currently the Ag. Director for Market Development at the Kenya Tourism Board where she is responsible for leading the development & implementation of the business & market development strategy in collaboration with stakeholders in Kenya and in the
source markets.

She is also a Maxwell Leadership expert and loves to help others in the tourism industry achieve results in a sustainable, & values-driven way. She is a mother of two. When she is not working, you are likely to find her reading a book or exploring a new destination. She lives in Nairobi, Kenya and is a proud advocate for tourism in Kenya & East Africa on the global stage.

Ariella Kageruka is Head of Tourism and Conservation for The Rwanda Development Board.

The Rwanda Development Board was set up by bringing together all the government agencies responsible for the entire investor experience under one roof.

Ariella is tasked with leading the conservation efforts within the tourism vertical and has had great success in connecting public, private and community programmes across Rwanda.

Zephanie Niyonkuru is the Deputy Chief Executive Officer of the Rwanda Development Board (RDB), a Government of Rwanda entity tasked to transform Rwanda into a global hub for business and innovation by fostering an attractive investment environment, enabling regional and global exports, as well as creating jobs.

Mr. Niyonkuru holds a Master’s degree in Finance (Economic Policy) from the University of London, School of Oriental of African Studies (SOAS). He obtained a diploma in private sector development from the Swedish Institute of Public administration and completed training in management of economic development zones in developing countries at the Jiangxi College of Foreign Studies in China. He also holds a CFA level 1 certificate and is a member of the CFA Institute.

Prior to his appointment as Deputy CEO of RDB, Mr. Niyonkuru had a worked in the private and public sector and led projects for development partners.

Mr. Niyonkuru was the lead Analyst and Operations Manager at Offshore Technology Focus Group (OTF) for mining (extractive industry), mining services, and dairy products. later on he was promoted to lead all finance, logistic, IT and HR operations including dedicating part of his time supporting research activities.

He had initially worked for RDB as a Strategy expert and Acting Head of the Planning Division. He provided technical support to the CEO and heads of departments on investments, exports and job creation strategic matters. He subsequently spearheaded the establishment of a legal and regulatory framework for Special Economic Zones in Rwanda. He also provided technical support for the establishment of policy framework for the same schemes (SEZs & EPZs) to the East Africa Community Secretariat and later on led corporate strategic planning, monitoring and evaluation activities.

After his time at RDB, he became a ESPartners Associate where he carried out consultancies related to strategy, entrepreneurship, and export development among other things for public and private sector clients across East and West Africa. He led quantitative modelling (financial and economic models) and spearheaded main consultations with stakeholders.

Mr. Niyonkuru carried out research related to the status of inspection and competition across food and drugs in Rwanda to inform the establishment of the Rwanda FDA as part of a short term consultancy for the World Bank Group.

He designed for the Rwandan Ministry of Finance (MINECOFIN) a Monitoring and Evaluation Framework for the first generation of the National Strategy for Transformation (NST 1). He subsequently trained more than 300 employees from the public sector on how planning, M&E activities for NST1 will be carried out. He later on formulated the overall M&E matrix to track performance of different NST 1 indicators across economic, social and governance clusters.

Mr. Niyonkuru was then named Country Representative to Rwanda for the USAID East Africa Trade & Investment Hub where he oversaw all the activities of the project in Rwanda. The project facilitated companies from agro processing, footwear, home decor and fashion accessories to penetrate and/or increase their sales in the export markets with a special focus on the East Africa and the United States of America. Additionally, he supported companies in raising financing allowing them to expand their activities and meet orders from buyers in the export market.

Nicolatte is the current Global CEO for the ZimAchievers Awards.
An International organization that recognizes the excellence of African individuals in the diaspora
She heads 7 countries , USA, UK, South Africa , Botswana , Dubai, Canada Australia and Zimbabwe.

Nicolatte is a passionate pan african youth development specialist, with over 10 years experience in youth marketing and business development strategy.

With a well vested interest in African practical solutions, Nicolatte practices and teaches on Food security, Climate Change , Sustainability & Nation Adaption plans for African countries.

She advocates on the importance of African youth dialogue and inter African political and socio economic relations and African tourism , because our biggest potential lies within trading within Africa.

Makhosazane is the founder of Allegro Enterprises, a Pan-African management consulting and advisory firm headquartered in Johannesburg. A Chartered Accountant by profession, in her early career she worked as a statutory reporting accountant for JSE-listed companies as well as a corporate finance lecturer before pursuing her entrepreneurial ventures.

A student of the University of Johannesburg, Makhosazane is currently completing her Masters’ degree in Accountancy where her research focus is on corporate governance and capital markets. She serves as a member of the audit and risk committee of the Institute of Business Advisors of South Africa (IBASA), and has recently joined the Gauteng Innovation Advisory Panel of the KTN Global Alliance.

Makhosazane is passionate about developing, scaling and commercialising technological innovations and businesses that solve societal problems and empower African women entrepreneurs.

Amanda Mvinjelwa is the Key Account Manager for Airlines and Government Agencies at Cape Town International Airport, working for Airports Company South Africa.

p style=”text-align: justify;”>Amanda believes the Travel is the only to transform any economy and will make it sustainable for the future.

p style=”text-align: justify;”>Amanda has worked at different part of the travel sector including travel agencies creating innovation ways to service the traveling clients and garnishing unique partnerships for the sector.

p style=”text-align: justify;”>Amanda is a trained Tax Practitioner and a Green Belt Six Sigma certified practitioner.

p style=”text-align: justify;”>Amanda holds a BCom in Industrial and Organisational Psychology in from the University of South Africa (UNISA).