Paulo Gomes, Former World Bank Executive Director for Africa and AfroChampions Co-Chair Joins African Collaborations Group (ACG) Advisory Board to Advance Sport and Entertainment Districts Across Africa

African Collaborations Group (ACG) (www.ACGafrica.com), a strategic project origination and collaboration platform focused on the industrialisation of sport in Africa through the origination of bankable sport and entertainment district ecosystems, today announced the appointment of Paulo Gomes to its Advisory Board.

Mr Gomes is Founder, Chairman, & CEO of Constelor Investment Holdings, a pan-African investment management and strategic advisory firm, and Founder and Chairman of Orango Investment Corporation, a strategic advisory and investment platform dedicated to advancing Africa’s investment agenda under the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). He is also Co-Chair of the AfroChampions Initiative, the flagship pan-African platform promoting the economic and industrial transformation of the continent.

He brings to the ACG Advisory Board more than 30 years of executive experience in sovereign advisory, infrastructure finance and corporate investment across Africa. From 1998 to 2006, Mr Gomes served on the Board of the World Bank Group, first as Alternate Executive Director and then as Executive Director from 2002 to 2006, representing 25 African countries and playing an instrumental role in the launch of the Africa Finance Corporation (AFC) and in securing more than USD 1 billion for the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s post-conflict recovery.

A founding member of both the Africa Finance Corporation and the Green Climate Fund — the world’s largest dedicated fund supporting developing countries in climate mitigation and adaptation — Mr Gomes has been at the heart of the creation of several of the institutions that shape modern African finance. Through Orango, he has advised several African sovereign funds (including Angola and Senegal), and participated in the resource mobilization strategy of the ECOWAS Bank for Investment and Development, and currently serves as strategy advisor to a leading African industrial group on its continental expansion.

Mr Gomes is a co-founder of Geronimo, an integrated cocoa value chain initiative developed with Chocolaterie de Monaco and Afreximbank, and of Alta Mar, a sustainable aquaculture venture. He chairs the Advisory Board of the Africa–South East Asia Chamber of Commerce (ASEACC) based in Singapore, and has been appointed Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the NTU-SBF Centre for African Studies, a fellowship funded by the Government of Singapore, positioning him at the interface between African and Asian capital and trade.

His board memberships have included Ecobank Transnational Inc., ASKY Airlines, AFIG Private Equity Fund, the African Capacity Building Foundation, the African Media Initiative, Roll Back Malaria, NSIA Ivory Coast and Alta Mar Norway. He also chairs the BioGuinée Foundation in Guinea-Bissau.

Mr Gomes holds a Master’s in Public Administration (MPA) in Economic Policy and Management from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and a Bachelor’s degree in Economics and International Trade from Sciences Po and the Institut Libre d’Étude des Relations Internationales (ILERI), Paris.

His appointment to the ACG Advisory Board reflects a shared strategic vision: the conviction that Africa’s long-term prosperity depends on the industrialisation of its core sectors through pan-African, financially sustainable and continentally owned models. The doctrine that underpins the AfroChampions Initiative — Africa building its own champions in strategic industries — maps directly onto what ACG is applying to the sport and entertainment sector, moving from a fragmented, project-by-project logic to an ecosystem approach centred on bankable, mixed-use district models.

“Paulo Gomes is one of the most respected architects of modern African finance and continental strategy. His track record — from the Board of the World Bank representing 25 African nations, to founding roles at the Africa Finance Corporation and the Green Climate Fund, to his current leadership of the AfroChampions Initiative — places him among the very few figures who have shaped how Africa builds its own institutions. That is precisely the perspective ACG requires as we originate sport and entertainment district projects that fit within a coherent, continent-wide industrialisation logic. His presence on our Advisory Board is a genuine strategic asset,” said Nicolas Pompigne-Mognard (www.Pompigne-Mognard.com), Founder and Executive Chairman of ACG.

“Sport and entertainment are among the highest-yield sectors Africa has — but only if approached with the same industrial discipline we apply to energy, infrastructure or finance. That means continental scale, integrated district ecosystems, bankable financial models, and African ownership at the core. Extending the AfroChampions logic into this domain is precisely why I am joining the ACG Advisory Board,” said Paulo Gomes.

The ACG Advisory Board provides strategic guidance as ACG originates and structures large-scale sport and entertainment district projects across the continent, aligning governments, development finance institutions (DFIs), investors, sport bodies and infrastructure partners to support the development of financially sustainable, mixed-use district ecosystems.

Africa’s sport economy is projected to reach USD 20 billion by 2035, up from approximately USD 12 billion today, according to analysis by the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and Oliver Wyman, yet the continent continues to lack the integrated district ecosystems required to support large-scale development. ACG addresses this gap by originating bankable sport and entertainment district projects, moving beyond single-venue development models towards mixed-use, revenue-generating and financially sustainable district ecosystems.

Through its collaborative model, ACG convenes governments, PPP authorities and regulators, development finance institutions, private investors, developers, designers and engineers, legal and transaction advisors, operators, sport federations and leagues, event promoters, media and broadcast partners, academic institutions and host communities, creating structured pathways from concept to feasibility, bankability and delivery.

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