Devang Vussonji

Devang is a Founding Partner at Axum. He is passionate about building movements that lead to climate-positive growth and human capital development.

In the climate sector, Devang has built an initiative called BIRA – a Biodiversity Investment Researcher and Accelerator. The initiative is housed at the African Leadership University’s School of Wildlife Conservation, and it is run in collaboration with FSD Africa Investments, XILVA, and CreditNature. The initiative has created Africa’s First Biodiversity Project Accelerator, which aims to help biodiversity-focused projects/organizations assess their impact and connect with investors. The initiative aspires to build the impact measurement infrastructure required to unlock $700 billion in biodiversity financing.

In the human capital development sector, Devang has created Elimu-Soko, which unlocks public financing for innovations in education systems. The initiative is developed in collaboration with the Hempel Foundation, and piloted by the Governments of Rwanda and Zanzibar. In Rwanda, the initiative collaborated with Rising Academies to improve foundational learning outcomes for over 18,000 students. The Government of Rwanda is now considering the scale-up of the program using public financing.

Devang has also been involved in building other initiatives such as: 1) the Climate-Smart Forest Economy Program, which aims to unleash the potential of green infrastructure; 2) the African Circular Economy Alliance, which aspires to make sectors such as agriculture and manufacturing more circular through policy reform, corporate engagement and entrepreneurship support; and 3) Safe Hands Tanzania, which provided sanitation products to communities during COVID.

Prior to Axum, Devang was a Partner at Dalberg – based in South Africa and Tanzania – where he advised public and private sector clients across agriculture, industrialization, financial inclusion, health, youth, education, and unemployment. Devang also worked for 6 years with Mercer Consulting’s Human Capital Development arm in the US. He holds an MBA with honors from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and a degree in Economics from Claremont McKenna College. Devang is based in Dar es Salaam with his wife and son.