President Biden on September 26, 2023, announced the inaugural members of the President’s Advisory Council on African Diaspora Engagement in the United States within the U.S. Department of State.
These twelve leaders have all played important roles in strengthening United States-Africa relations and shaping United States foreign policy toward Africa.
They reflect the diversity of the African diaspora from African American and African immigrant communities.
The president will rely on their advice and counsel on how to strengthen cultural, social, political, and economic ties between African communities and the African diaspora.
The appointed members for the 2023-2025 term of the PAC-ADE are:
Silvester Scott Beaman of Delaware, Chair, Mimi E. Alemayehou of Washington, D.C., Member, Rosalind Brewer of Georgia, Member, Viola Davis of Rhode Island, Member, Helene D. Gayle of Georgia, Member, Patrick Hubert Gaspard of New York, Member, C.D. Glin of Connecticut, Member, Osagie Imasogie of Pennsylvania, Member, Almaz Negash of California, Member, Chinenye Joy Ogwumike of Texas, Member, Ham K. Serunjogi of California, Member, Kevin Young of Washington, D.C., Member.
Silvester Beaman
Silvester Beaman is the 139th elected and consecrated Bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. He is currently the Presiding Prelate of the Fifteenth Episcopal District serving in South Africa, Namibia, and Angola.
Mimi Alemayehou
Mimi Alemayehou is the Founder and Managing Partner of Semai Ventures LLC, which collaborates with mission-driven enterprises to advance sustainable development in emerging economies.
She is also a Senior Advisor of the Three Cairns Group, an investment and philanthropic firm working to accelerate the transition to a low-carbon economy.
Previously she served on the board of Climate Change Crisis Real Impact and the board of Energy for Growth Hub. Her other board roles have included Fin Dev Canada, the US African Development Foundation, and Twitter, Inc.
Rosalind Brewer
Rosalind “Roz” Brewer most recently served as Chief Executive Officer of Walgreens Boots Alliance from March 2021 through August 2023.
Brewer previously served as Chief Operating Officer and Group President at Starbucks from October 2017 to January 2021.
Before Starbucks, she was President and Chief Executive Officer of Sam’s Club, a membership-only retail warehouse club and division of Walmart, Inc., from February 2012 to February 2017.
Brewer has held several executive leadership positions with Walmart beginning in 2006.
Brewer currently serves as the Chairperson of the board of trustees for Spelman College, where she did her undergraduate work. Brewer also is a Board Member of VillageMD, World Business Chicago, Business Roundtable, and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African-American History and Culture.
Viola Davis
Viola Davis is a critically revered artist, activist, producer, philanthropist, and New York Times best-selling author.
Davis has earned EGOT status through her Oscar, Emmy, Grammy, and multi-Tony Award wins. She was honored in 2017 by Time 100 as one of the world’s most influential people and, in 2022, was honored with the Public Counsel’s William O. Douglas Award for her commitment to social justice causes.
Davis has partnered with multiple programs to eradicate childhood hunger in the United States.
In 2012, Davis and her husband Julius Tennon founded their production company, JuVee Productions, with a focus on giving a voice to the voiceless through strong, impactful narratives.
Helene D. Gayle
Dr. Helene Gayle, M.D., M.P.H., began serving as the 11th president of Spelman College on July 1, 2022. Dr. Gayle previously served as president and CEO of The Chicago Community Trust one of the nation’s oldest and largest community foundations.
Dr. Gayle serves on public company and nonprofit boards, including The Coca-Cola Company, Organon, Palo Alto Networks, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Brookings Institution, Center for Strategic and International Studies, New America, and the ONE Campaign.
She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, National Academy of Medicine, and Council on Foreign Relations among others. She is a tenured Full Professor in the Department of Environmental and Health Sciences at Spelman College and has received 18 honorary degrees.
Patrick Gaspard
Patrick Gaspard is the president and CEO of the Center for American Progress, a leading public policy think tank working to build an inclusive and just nation.
He has been a leader in government, philanthropy, labor, and global diplomacy, with an insistent focus on equity.
Gaspard most recently served as the president of the Open Society Foundations (OSF), one of the largest private philanthropies in the world, where he confronted significant global threats to democracy and rights.
He shaped the foundation’s $220 million commitment to civil rights groups in the wake of the national reckoning on race following the murder of George Floyd, and refashioned investments in global health infrastructure in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.
C.D. Glin
C.D. Glin is President of the PepsiCo Foundation and Global Head of Social Impact for PepsiCo.
In this role, Glin leads the food and beverage company’s global social impact and community engagement efforts as well as a portfolio of global employee giving and volunteer programs.
Before joining PepsiCo, Glin served as President and CEO of the U.S. African Development Foundation, a U.S. government agency dedicated to supporting African-led, African-driven development solutions via catalytic financial investments in and local technical assistance to African grassroots communities and local enterprises.
Glin began his career as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the first group in South Africa, during the transformational presidency of Nelson Mandela
Osagie Imasogie
Osagie Imasogie is Chairman of the Investment Bank and SEC/FINRA registered Broker-Dealer, Quoin Capital and Quoin Advisors.
In addition, Osagie is a co-founder of PIPV Capital, a private equity firm that is focused on the life sciences vertical and has invested over $1 billion into that industry.
Osagie is a serial entrepreneur and investor who serves on the board of several financial institutions such as FS-KKR Capital Corp and Haverford Trust, institutions that cumulatively manage over $28 billion.
Osagie holds LLM degrees from the London School of Economics and the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School and is a member of the New York State Bar in addition to being admitted to practice in other jurisdictions.
Almaz Negash
Almaz Negash is the founder of the African Diaspora Network (ADN), an organization with the mission of informing and engaging Africans in the Diaspora and fostering direct collaboration with social entrepreneurs, innovators, and business leaders.
Almaz is currently devoted to mobilizing Africans from the Diaspora, encouraging them to explore innovative approaches for diaspora engagement that go beyond remittances and extend to sustainable investments on the continent.
Chinenye Ogwumike
Chinenye “Chiney” Ogwumike is a 2-Time WNBA All-Star for the Los Angeles Sparks and a full-time, multi-platform ESPN host and NBA analyst.
Chiney stars on ESPN daily on ESPN’s NBA Today and NBA Countdown, and also stars on the court as a forward for the Sparks.
Chiney is a proud first-generation Nigerian-American, born in Cypress, Texas.
She served as the vice president of the WNBA Players Association (WNBPA) from 2018 to 2022, instrumentally helping negotiate the groundbreaking 2020 collective bargaining agreement.
In August 2020, Chiney became the first Black woman to host a national, daily sports-talk radio show. The 2021 Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree also holds the title of Executive Producer, producing an ESPN Films documentary “144” on the 2020 WNBA season.
Ham Serunjogi
Ham Serunjogi is the Co-founder & CEO of African fintech giant, Chipper Cash. As CEO, Ham heads the Executive Leadership Team and is responsible for leading the company’s overall direction and strategy.
After graduating from Grinnell College in 2016 with a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics, Ham began his career at Meta (formerly Facebook) where he worked in their Dublin, Ireland office managing relationships with some of Facebook’s top advertisers.
Today, Ham serves on the Board of Trustees of his alma mater Grinnell College, where he sits on the Investment Committee, which is charged with the responsibility of overseeing and allocating the college’s approximately $2.5 billion endowment.
Kevin Young
Kevin Young is the Andrew W. Mellon Director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture.
Prior to joining the Smithsonian, Young served as the Director of The New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture from 2016 to 2021 and spent two decades prior as a distinguished professor of creative writing and English.
The author of fifteen books of poetry and prose is also the editor of nine volumes, most recently the anthology African American Poetry: 250 Years of Struggle & Song (2020).
Young holds degrees from Harvard College and Brown University and has held a Stegner Fellowship in Poetry at Stanford University and a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship. She is also the poetry editor of the New Yorker magazine.
The Advisory Council will be supported by the State Department’s Bureau of African Affairs and Executive Director Deniece Laurent-Mantey.
Members will meet for the first time in the coming months and approximately three times per year.
Advisory Council meetings will be open to the public and announced in the Federal Register at least 15 days in advance.
