Lade Araba

Executive Director, AlphaMundi Foundation

Ladé is the Executive Director of The AlphaMundi Foundation (AMF). Prior to that, she was the Managing Director for Africa at Convergence Finance and Co-Founder/President of the Visiola Foundation. 

She has more than a decade and a half of development finance experience.  Ladé previously served as Technical Adviser to the former Minister of Finance of Nigeria and was the Head of the Strategic Monitoring Unit. She was also an Adviser in the Power Sector Team at the Nigeria Infrastructure Advisory Facility (NIAF), a Technical Assistance Program funded by the UK Department for International Development (DFID).

Prior to NIAF, Ladé was Technical Adviser to the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) where she advised on the building blocks for financing regional infrastructure projects and promoting intra-African trade.  She was a Senior Investment Officer at the African Development Bank, where she played key roles in deal origination and appraisal and received Board approval for senior loans to several infrastructure projects across Africa. Ladé was also an Enterprise Development Specialist at the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and also worked for the QED Group LLC in Washington, DC.

She is Co-Founder and President of the Visiola Foundation which empowers African girls and young women through education, training, and mentoring in the science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields. The foundation provides scholarships for academically excellent girls and young women to earn degrees in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) at high-quality institutions across Africa. It pairs scholarship recipients with mentors to support them in their academic pursuits and to encourage their leadership potential.  Scholarship recipients are able to attend annual leadership summits where they can meet Africa’s emerging leaders. The foundation also underscores the importance of public service and collaboration and engages teenage girls in after-school and summer STEM activities to build their confidence in pursuing STEM careers.

She also Co-Chairs the EED Advisory Board.