Africa.com – Carefully Selected News, Travel, Information & Lifestyle

Teresa H. Clarke is the Chairman, CEO and Executive Editor of Africa.com LLC. She founded the company in 2010 after resigning from her position as a managing director in the investment banking division of Goldman Sachs & Co. Africa.com is the fastest growing Africa-related website, with about five million page views per month from visitors in over 200 countries throughout the world. The website showcases carefully selected news, information and travel about all 54 countries, and is playing a key role in shaping how the world sees Africa. At Goldman Sachs & Co, Ms. Clarke led mergers and acquisitions and corporate finance transactions for Fortune 500 companies in the U.S. and in Europe. She also led the Goldman Sachs Africa-Aspen Program, a leadership development project for emerging public- and private-sector African leaders. The program was developed in cooperation with the Aspen Institute. Ms. Clarke lived in South Africa from 1995-2000 during which time she taught corporate finance in the MBA program at Wits Business School and served on the investment committee of a private equity fund that invested in the Southern Africa region. A desire to help fill the leadership pipeline in South Africa led Ms. Clarke to found the Student Sponsorship Programme (www.sspsa.org). SSP provides academically talented but economically disadvantaged South African students with scholarships and mentors to attend private schools. SSP has provided scholarships to more than 600 South African high school students, valued at more than $10 million since its inception more than a decade ago. Over 90 percent of the programme’s graduates go on to attend university. She serves on the boards of the Student Sponsorship Programme South Africa, Southern Africa Legal Services (Legal Resource Centre), the Tony Elumelu Foundation, the Opportunity Agenda, and is an emeriti board member of the Harvard Business School Alumni Association. She has received numerous awards including one from the government of South Africa for her work with South Africa’s children. She was chosen by the International Women’s Society of Nigeria as Humanitarian of the Year. She has been featured in film and on television including Africa Investment Horizons, and was honored on BET’s Black Girls Rock. Ms. Clarke was named one of the 25 Most Influential Women in Business, and was recently honored with the Merrill Lynch Africa Business Leadership Award presented by Africa 2.0. Ms. Clarke is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Ms. Clarke received a bachelor's degree in economics, cum laude, from Harvard College, an MBA from Harvard Business School and a J.D. from Harvard Law School.