Rebecca Gaskin Gain

Rebecca has more than 30 years of experience in the emerging markets and 25 years of experience in Africa. She has served in advisory, executive and director roles. She is a lawyer by profession and was admitted to the New York State Bar Association in 1990. She completed a clerkship at the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York, and subsequently served as a transaction advisor on privatization portfolios for the Czech Ministry of Privatisation and the Russian Privatisation Centre. She later served as a Privatisation Advisor to the Ugandan Minister of Finance responsible for Privatisation.

In 1998, Rebecca moved to the Democratic Republic of Congo to work as a Counselor at Law with Mitchell & Associates (the first American law firm in Sub Saharan Africa). She represented mining and ITC investors for the firm. In 2000, she was the first female appointed by the Standard Bank Group to serve as Chief Executive Officer for a group subsidiary, Standard Bank Congo. She was, subsequently, the first female appointed to the Group’s Africa Executive Committee. In the domain of foreign direct investment, Rebecca understands the range of complex issues involved with negotiating and implementing investment conventions with governments and related project finance agreements with developers, investors and financial institutions.

More recently, Rebecca provided business development support to Nexant Inc’s energy advisory and government service operations. She was the Lead Transaction Advisor in Djibouti from 2015 to 2018, with the responsibility to originate and drive priority projects in energy and related pipeline infrastructure projects under the United States initiative, Power Africa. She also served as the Senior Energy Advisor to Power Africa for Somalia and led the due diligence of the Electricity Supply Industry in Somalia and Somaliland in 2017.

Rebecca has served on the UNHABITAT Consultative Board in Nairobi, Kenya, and represented a private investor on the Investment Committee of CASF, a fund providing equity and debt investments into the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic. She is a Member of the National Order of Civil Merit of the Democratic Republic of Congo.