The Team

We take a unique approach to asset management. Our close-knit team shares 70 years of combined specialist experience gained at leading private equity and investment firms. This is bolstered by our expert shareholder base, which brings experienced strategic and operating partners to our transactions and best-in-class management teams.

Investment Team
 

Afsane Jetha is the Co-Founder, Managing Partner & CEO of Alta Semper Capital, a private equity manager founded in 2015 alongside Ronald Lauder (Chairman of Clinique LLC) and Richard Parsons (former CEO of Time Warner). The mission of Alta Semper is to invest flexible and strategic capital across selected growth markets, with a focus on the healthcare and consumer sectors. Alta Semper today manages funds on behalf of its founding shareholders as well as various US and European institutions, and is the most active investor in the healthcare space in Africa over the last two years. In recent years, the firm has invested in pharmaceutical manufacturing, retail pharmacy, cancer care and diagnostics platforms in Egypt, Nigeria and Morocco. Prior to founding Alta Semper, Afsane spent nearly five years with the Duet Group as the Managing Director of the firm’s African Private Equity platform, investing nearly US$200m across Sub-Saharan Africa. While at Duet, Afsane led the largest private equity transaction into Ethiopia, Dashen Brewery, as well as, sourced and executed on several consumer-facing transactions in Ghana, Uganda and Cote D’Ivoire. Prior to Duet, she was at GI Partners where she executed several transactions in the healthcare, consumer and real-estate sectors. Earlier in her career, she was part of the Consumer Team at Permira in London which followed her time at Wasserstein Private Equity and Merrill Lynch in New York. Afsane holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BSc in Economics, from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. She has strong personal and professional ties to East Africa being a fourth generation Tanzanian. Afsane speaks conversational French, Gujarati and basic Swahili.

Zachary joined Alta Semper in 2016 and brings more than nine years of advisory and investing experience to the firm. Prior to joining Alta Semper, Zachary was a Senior Associate at Emerging Capital Partners where he covered infrastructure and consumer / retail investments in Kenya. He worked across the private equity life cycle including fund raising, new investments, portfolio management and exits. Prior to Emerging Capital Partners, Zachary was an M&A Executive at SABMiller and worked on beverage related transactions in South Africa, Nigeria, Angola, Kenya, Ethiopia, Malawi, and Tanzania. Zachary’s advisory experience was developed within the investment banking divisions of UBS and Goldman Sachs in New York and Johannesburg. He focused on Consumer Products and broader Sub-Saharan Africa. Zachary has an MBA from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and a BA in Economics from Cornell University.

Chidi Okoro is the Operating Partner & Head of West Africa of Alta Semper Capital.

Prior to joining Alta Semper, Chidi Okoro was the Founder and Executive Consultant at Drugs and Medicaments Nigeria Limited, a retail chain/own-brands dealer in the pharmaceutical sector. He has consulted in areas of strategy and business development to organisations in FMCG, Pharmaceuticals, Retail, and Africa operations, and is a recipient of numerous awards including Pearl Quoted CEO of the Year in 2013 and the GSK Turn Around Manager award. He is an Adjunct Faculty member at the Lagos Business School, and has over thirty years of experience across industry sectors and geography in pharmaceuticals, personal care, food, and telecommunications as a general management-level executive.

He was the Managing Director and member of the Board of Directors at GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Nigeria, Plc, CEO Africa for Lucozade Ribena Suntory, CEO of UAC Foods/ Tiger Brands SA JV, General Manager at MTN Communications, and was a member of Board of Ogun State Security Trust fund. Currently, he is a member of the Board of Directors at Mecure Pharma Industries Limited, Drugs and Medicaments Nigeria Limited, ARTEE Industries Limited (SPAR Retail), Fundvine Investments Limited. He is also a member of the Advisory Board of Lagos Business School and Hadiel Health Management, and a Partner at Tytron Consulting Group Limited. As an aspiring writer with two books, he has an interest in politics and its relationship to the social and economic well-being of Nigerians.

Mr. Okoro has a Bachelor’s in Pharmacy and an MBA and Executive Master’s degree in Positive Leadership and Strategy.

Founding Shareholders
 

Afsane Jetha is the Co-Founder, Managing Partner & CEO of Alta Semper Capital, a private equity manager founded in 2015 alongside Ronald Lauder (Chairman of Clinique LLC) and Richard Parsons (former CEO of Time Warner). The mission of Alta Semper is to invest flexible and strategic capital across selected growth markets, with a focus on the healthcare and consumer sectors. Alta Semper today manages funds on behalf of its founding shareholders as well as various US and European institutions, and is the most active investor in the healthcare space in Africa over the last two years. In recent years, the firm has invested in pharmaceutical manufacturing, retail pharmacy, cancer care and diagnostics platforms in Egypt, Nigeria and Morocco. Prior to founding Alta Semper, Afsane spent nearly five years with the Duet Group as the Managing Director of the firm’s African Private Equity platform, investing nearly US$200m across Sub-Saharan Africa. While at Duet, Afsane led the largest private equity transaction into Ethiopia, Dashen Brewery, as well as, sourced and executed on several consumer-facing transactions in Ghana, Uganda and Cote D’Ivoire. Prior to Duet, she was at GI Partners where she executed several transactions in the healthcare, consumer and real-estate sectors. Earlier in her career, she was part of the Consumer Team at Permira in London which followed her time at Wasserstein Private Equity and Merrill Lynch in New York. Afsane holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BSc in Economics, from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. She has strong personal and professional ties to East Africa being a fourth generation Tanzanian. Afsane speaks conversational French, Gujarati and basic Swahili.

Ronald S. Lauder is an international philanthropist, diplomat, public servant, entrepreneur, investor and patron of the arts. Mr. Lauder is currently the Chairman of Clinique Laboratories, a division of The Estée Lauder Companies. Mr. Lauder is also Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Joseph H. Lauder Institute of Management and International Studies at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Mr. Lauder was appointed Ambassador to Austria by President Ronald Reagan after serving several years as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defence for European and NATO policy. Upon his return from Vienna in 1987, he established the Ronald S. Lauder Foundation, which supports Jewish schools, camps and community centers in several countries in Eastern Europe. A patron of the arts and a noted collector, Mr. Lauder was Chairman of the Museum of Modern Art from 1995 to 2005 and now serves as the museum’s Honorary Chairman. In 2001, he established the Neue Galerie New York, of which he is President. Mr. Lauder also created Central European Media Enterprises, Ltd (NASDAQ: CETV), a leading commercial television company that reaches 95 million people in seven countries throughout Central and Eastern Europe. Mr. Lauder has long been committed to civic causes, public policy issues and has pursued impact investments in Africa since 2012.

Richard Parsons is the Former Chairman of the Board of Citigroup Inc., and former Chairman of the Board, and CEO of Time Warner. Before joining Time Warner, in 1995, Mr. Parsons was Chairman and CEO of Dime Bancorp, Inc., one of the largest thrift institutions in the United States. Previously, he was the Managing Partner of the New York law firm Patterson, Belknap, Webb and Tyler. Prior to that, he held various positions in state and federal government, as counsel for Nelson Rockefeller and as a senior White House aide under President Gerald Ford. Mr. Parsons was named America’s Best CEO in the entertainment industry by Institutional Investor in 2005. In 2008, Mr. Parsons served as a member of then-President-Elect Barack Obama’s Economic Transition Team. More recently, he served as a member of the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. At present, he is a Senior Advisor at Providence Equity Partners, Inc., a leading private equity investment firm specialising in media, communications and information companies and is the Chairman of Governor Andrew Cuomo’s New NY Education Reform Commission. Mr. Parsons is also a member of the boards of The Estee Lauder Companies Inc., Lazard Freres and Company, and Madison Square Garden, Inc.

Advisory Board
 

Greg Parsons is the CEO of Semper Capital Management, and has been part of Semper Capital since 2008. He also serves on Semper Capital’s Risk Management and Compliance committees. In addition to his role at Semper Capital, Greg is on the Board of Pan African Investment Company, an early-stage venture capital investor in Africa, founded by Mr. Ronald Lauder and Mr. Richard Parsons. Greg is responsible for oversight and portfolio management at PIC. Prior to joining Semper Capital, Greg served as Founding and Managing Member of CP Capital Partners, LP. Previously, he served as an Associate Principal at McKinsey & Company in the Financial Services Group. Greg began his career over 19 years ago and served as a Captain and Infantry Officer in the United States Marine Corps. He holds an AB from Princeton University.

Stephen M. Sammut is a Senior Fellow in Health Care Management and a Lecturer in Entrepreneurship at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania where he has taught over 11, 000 students in the last 25 years. He is a co-founder of Pangea University for the Health Sciences, a newly formed international platform for medical, nursing and health technology education for the emerging and frontier markets. His health-related management education works includes the design and delivery of the health care management MBA and executive programs at the Indian School of Business, as well as the health care management program at Strathmore University in Nairobi. To support African health management excellence, he co-founded the African Institute for Health Care Management. His research and publications focus on international development with a special focus on capacity building in health care and biopharmaceutical production in emerging economies. He has done extensive work on the implementation of precision medicine in the developing world. He holds graduate and undergraduate degrees in life sciences and humanities from Villanova University, studied medicine and epidemiology at the Hahnemann Medical College, and has an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and a Doctorate in Business Administration from the Fox School of Business at Temple University. He has also studied Precision Medicine at Harvard Business School and Fintech at the Said School of the University of Oxford.

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