For years, African diasporans, including Sierra Leoneans, have supported home through remittances, that is, paying school fees, supporting families, funding healthcare, and helping communities survive difficult times. 

But across the continent, a bigger conversation is emerging which asks, what happens when diaspora money moves beyond survival and starts building industries?

That conversation sits at the heart of the second panel titled, “The Power of the Collective: Investment Vehicles for Diaspora-Led Industrialization” at this year’s Sierra Leone Diaspora Investment Conference (SLDIC) happening in London on June 19th to 20th, 2026.

The timing for this conversation could not be more important. According to recent World Bank and African Investment Reports, Africa received an estimated $95 billion in remittances in 2024 and was projected to hit a staggering $100 Billion by the end of 2025. In many African countries, diaspora remittances now rival, and sometimes exceed, foreign investment and development aid. 

According to the latest World Bank updates, Sierra Leone’s real GDP growth is projected to grow at 4.5% by end of 2026, driven by robust agricultural output under the Feed Salone program, steady services, and mining sector expansions.

The World Bank also noted in its 2025 Sierra Leone Economic Update that the country needs to create at least 75,000 new jobs annually to support its growing workforce, making investment and private sector participation more important than ever. 

Across Sierra Leone, many diaspora-led businesses are already contributing to sectors like technology, finance, agriculture, media, and professional services. What is changing now is the scale of ambition. Increasingly, conversations are shifting from individual contributions to collective investment models capable of supporting industrialization, innovation, and sustainable economic growth. 

The Power of the Collective: Investment Vehicles for Diaspora-Led Industrialization panel at this year’s SLDIC event in London brings together leaders who have spent years building investment ecosystems, scaling businesses locally and internationally, structuring capital, and supporting entrepreneurship across Africa and beyond. 

Together, they will unpack what it really takes to move from individual support to coordinated, long-term investment and industrialization in Sierra Leone’s future.

Here are the Panelists

Simon Levell

Simon Levell is a Director of Truestone, one of the leading impact investment firms operating in Sierra Leone, with a ‘venture studio’ model for starting and scaling businesses. He is also the CEO of MiKashBoks, one of Truestone’s portfolio companies, which is a fintech that provides a gateway to financial services for the informal sector, with an app that enables users to save, earn interest, access a marketplace of products, and build up a financial profile to access financial services such as loans and insurance.

He was previously a Managing Director at Capital Group, one of the world’s largest investment management firms, where he worked for 27 years. Simon has a BA in Classics from Clare College, Cambridge and an MBA with distinction from London Business School. 

He is based in London and is a long-suffering Arsenal fan.

Tomi Davies 

Harry ‘Tomi Davies, known as TD, is an African angel investor, technology strategist, author, and ecosystem builder. He is the Founder and Collaborator-in-Chief of TVC Labs, co-founder of the Lagos Angel Network, founding President Emeritus of the African Business Angel Network, and a board member of the Global Business Angel Network. 

Over the past decade, he has helped build and support angel investment networks across Africa, working with founders, investors, innovation hubs, and institutions to structure early-stage capital for African ventures.

TD is the author of Investment Worthy Startup, in which he sets out the POEM Framework®: Proposition, Organisation, Economics, and Milestones. His work focuses on helping African founders become investment-ready and helping investors deploy mentor-led capital that creates economic value and social impact. 

He has served on several boards, advised technology-enabled ventures across the continent, and remains committed to finding, funding, and following African founders building the future.

Ben Hyman 

Ben Hyman is Co-Founder & COO of the Africa Jobs Fund, a fund and venture-builder focused on building new businesses in export manufacturing and international labour mobility to create high-productivity jobs at-scale for Africa’s next generation.

He is also Non-Exec Chair at Talent Safari, a company he started that helps startups and innovative companies across Africa to hire their teams. He previously led product and growth at Leta.ai, a Kenyan logistics-tech startup building the operating system for last-mile delivery in Africa which raised a $5m seed round from Google Ventures, SpeedInvest and others. He has a BA in PPE from the University of Oxford and studied as a graduate student at Harvard.

Victor Williams

Victor Williams is a distinguished finance and sports business leader with over 30 years of transformative experience driving business growth across the U.S. and Africa. As the former CEO of NBA Africa from 2020 to 2023, he spearheaded the league’s basketball and business development initiatives, significantly enhancing the NBA’s footprint on the continent. Before this role, Victor served as the Executive Head of Corporate and Investment Banking (CIB) for African regions at Standard Bank Group, where he was instrumental in shaping the strategy, execution, and financial performance for the bank’s corporate, sovereign, and institutional investor client relationships in 19 sub-Saharan African countries. His leadership in this pan-continental position fostered the growth of key business lines, including global markets and investment banking. He helped lead Standard Bank’s strategic expansion into Côte d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, and South Sudan.

Joining Standard Bank in 2011, Victor initially led the Corporate and Investment Banking division for East Africa, later taking charge of the business in Nigeria. His previous experience includes a notable tenure as Managing Director at Wells Fargo Securities in Charlotte, North Carolina, where he directed over $5 billion in mergers and acquisitions and provided critical advisory to senior executives and boards of directors on complex corporate transactions.

Victor’s illustrious career also includes a significant tenure as Vice President of Investment Banking at Goldman Sachs in New York City, where he delivered strategic insights to Fortune 500 companies on merger and financing analysis and execution.

A proud Sierra Leonean-American, Victor holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a bachelor’s degree in applied math and economics from Brown University. He is an esteemed member of the Harvard Business School Africa Advisory Board. He has served on the boards of publicly listed companies and non-profit organizations across the U.S., Nigeria, and Kenya. Victor is also a proud alumnus of the Prince of Wales School in Freetown, embodying the school’s legacy of excellence and leadership.

Join Us in London

Registration is now open for SLDIC 2026, with delegate passes available across both days. The conference offers a valuable opportunity to engage with Sierra Leonean cabinet members, investors, and diaspora professionals shaping the country’s investment landscape.

For small and medium-sized Sierra Leonean and diaspora-led businesses, a curated marketplace will run alongside the conference, showcasing food, fashion, art, and locally rooted products in the heart of London. Vendor spaces are limited, book your vendor booth today!

Register for your delegate pass: https://makesierraleonefamous.com