This week we're back in East Africa in conversation with Kenyan, Farhan Guled, coming to you in two parts. Farhan takes us with him from his native homeland to Europe and back to East Africa where he is currently Executive Director of Salaam Bank Limited in Kampala, Uganda; he has been instrumental is building the bank's start-up operation in the country. Born and raised in Kenya he began his entreprenuearship journey as founder of Maisha Fitness Center in Nairobi. Wearing many professional hats, Farhan is a "Multipotentialite Creative Thinker" offering an off the shelf business growth consultancy. As a visionary strategist, he helps businesses with the right intuitive and informative strategies that guarantee transformational growth. In his service endeavors, he is a board member of The Young Leaders of Finance (Le Club des Jeunes Dirigeants Financiers), which gathers young and mid-level professionals with various backgrounds who work with or within the financial sector taken in the broad sense. Some highlights of our conversation are Farhan's in depth tutorial on the links between Islamic finance and sustainable development goals as well as his delight with the sites and sounds of Uganda. Like me, I think you'll be ready to book your visit straight away!

Where to find Farhan?
On LinkedIn
On Instagram
On X

What’s Farhan Reading?
Burn the Boats: Toss Plan B Overboard and Unleash Your Full Potential by Matt Higgins

Other topics of interest:
On Islamic Banking and Finance
Salaam African Bank
Jinja, Uganda
Fort Portal, Uganda and traditions of the Tooro Kingdom
Kabale, Uganda: City of Peace
About Merck HQ Germany
Afrika Kommt

Special Guest: Farhan Guled.

This week we're back in East Africa in conversation with Kenyan, Farhan Guled, coming to you in two parts. Farhan takes us with him from his native homeland to Europe and back to East Africa where he is currently Executive Director of Salaam Bank Limited in Kampala, Uganda; he has been instrumental is building the bank's start-up operation in the country. Born and raised in Kenya he began his entreprenuearship journey as founder of Maisha Fitness Center in Nairobi. Wearing many professional hats, Farhan is a "Multipotentialite Creative Thinker" offering an off the shelf business growth consultancy. As a visionary strategist, he helps businesses with the right intuitive and informative strategies that guarantee transformational growth. In his service endeavors, he is a board member of The Young Leaders of Finance (Le Club des Jeunes Dirigeants Financiers), which gathers young and mid-level professionals with various backgrounds who work with or within the financial sector taken in the broad sense. Some highlights of our conversation are Farhan's in depth tutorial on the links between Islamic finance and sustainable development goals as well as his delight with the sites and sounds of Uganda. Like me, I think you'll be ready to book your visit straight away!

Where to find Farhan?
On LinkedIn
On Instagram
On X

What’s Farhan Reading?
Burn the Boats: Toss Plan B Overboard and Unleash Your Full Potential by Matt Higgins

Other topics of interest:
On Islamic Banking and Finance
Salaam African Bank
Jinja, Uganda
Fort Portal, Uganda and traditions of the Tooro Kingdom
Kabale, Uganda: City of Peace
About Merck HQ Germany
Afrika Kommt

Special Guest: Farhan Guled.

This week’s guest is fast becoming a cultural icon across her chosen disciplines. Ghanaian by ancestry and born in German and spending a formative part of her life in England, Nana Oforiatta Ayim is a writer, filmmaker, and art historian. She is Founder of the ANO Institute of Arts and Knowledge, through which she has pioneered a Pan-African Cultural Encyclopaedia, a Mobile Museums Project, and curated Ghana’s first pavilion at the Venice Biennale. She published her first novel The God Child in 2019, and in German in 2021. She has made award-winning films for museums such as Tate Modern, Los Angeles County Museum of Art and The New Museum. She is the recipient of various awards and honours, having been named one of the Apollo ’40 under 40’; one of 50 African Trailblazers by The Africa Report; a Quartz Africa Innovator in 2017; one of 12 African women making history in 2016 and one of 100 women of 2020 by Okayafrica. In 2020, she was appointed to the Advisory Council of Oxford University’s Cultural Programme and was a Principal Investigator on the Action for Restitution to Africa programme. She received the Ghana Woman of the Year Award in 2021. And in 2022 she was awarded the world’s biggest history prize from the Dan David Foundation for outstanding early and mid-career scholars and practitioners in the historical disciplines. Over the years it has been a treat to watch Nana’s vision come into being and even better was the chance to sit with her in one of her places of peace in Osu, Accra.

Where to find Nana?
https://www.nanaoforiattaayim.com/
On LinkedIn
On Instagram
On Facebook
On X

What’s Nana watching?
Past Lives

Other topics of interest:
About [Akyem, Ghana](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akyem ]
Aburi, Ghana
About Piet Mondrian
Gus Casely-Hayford
John Picton
About the Liverpool Biennial
Ousmane Sembène
Mooji
The Renoir Cinema

Special Guest: Nana Oforiatta Ayim.

This week on the podcast, rather than one last guest rounding out our March 2023 herstories series, I went into our archives with a specific goal of putting together a salon of sorts about craft. I think of craft as how vocation, location, persistence and passion fulfill us. According to Merriam-Webster, it is skill in planning, making, or executing.

I always ask this question because I feel it allows my guest to share more than what they do on a day-to-day basis for economic returns i.e. work, and gets closer to the heart of who they are and how they go about manifesting a new world. So, this week we’re re-visiting with:

• Jamaican-American, Nydia Swaby a Black feminist researcher, writer, and curator based in London about Archives, Art and Freedom Dreams;

• Filipino-Jamaican-American, Zee Clarke an author, mindfulness practitioner and racial healing professional about Healing in Breathing;

• Ghanaian-Afro-German, Ekua Yankah a thought leader in international development on being a Polyglot, Professor, Policy Advisor and Art Patron;

• Ghanaian-Brit, Esther Armah an author, journalist and entrepreneur on storytelling for structural change;

• Nigerian, Sarah Adeyinka a humanitarian researcher and author on Humanitarian CoCreating; and

• and Detroit Native, Dereca Blackmon an inclusion innovator, speaker and spiritual activist about Uncommon Conversations.

Be sure to check out full episodes using the links above, there’s a wealth of valuable, craft-inspired insights from each of these audacious women!

Special Guests: Dereca Blackmon, Ekua Yankah, Esther Armah, Nydia Swaby, Sarah Adeyinka, and Zhalisa "Zee" Clarke.

For this 111th IWD and in the spirit of advocacy and empowerment, my guest is, and continues to be a woman to watch. She's a thought leader in international development with a passion for young people, health and innovation in Sub-Saharan Africa. Ekua Yankah, an Afro-German was born in Germany to Ghanaian parents; after living in cities across the globe, she is now based in Portugal. Ekua, a polyglot has 20+ years of international experience working for UN agencies such as UNESCO, UNFPA, UNICEF, WHO in Sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast & Central Asia and the German Federal Centre for Health Education (BZgA) as part of the European Expert Group on Sexuality Education in Europe.

She is currently an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the Centre for Social Research in Health at University of New South Wales in Sydney where she has authored/co-authored five book chapters, numerous peer-reviewed journal articles, research reports, training manuals and curricula on education, sexual and reproductive health and health innovation.

Ekua also has a passion for contemporary art and cinema and is an active supporter and funder of various initiatives in the art world.

Be sure to catch both episodes of this two-part conversation as Ekua offers expansive insights into her ability to overlay her professional and passion pursuits for wide benefit.

Where to find Ekua?
On Linkedin
On Instagram
On Facebook

What's Ekua reading?
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

What's Ekua watching?
Our Madness
The Underground Railroad

Other topics of interest:
PSI.org
Peter Aggelton
The American of Journal Sexuality Education
The Clue app and Hormonal Podcast
Nana Oforiatta Ayim
ANO Institute of Art and Knowledge
We Are Born Free Online Radio
On Renee Mboya
HANGAR and Monica de Miranda
Savvy Contemporary
John Akomfrah
Kwesi Owusu
Kuukua Eshun
Shaolin Qi Gong Kung Fu Meditation online

Special Guest: Ekua Yankah.

For this 111th IWD and in the spirit of advocacy and empowerment, my guest is, and continues to be a woman to watch. She's a thought leader in international development with a passion for young people, health and innovation in Sub-Saharan Africa. Ekua Yankah, an Afro-German was born in Germany to Ghanaian parents; after living in cities across the globe, she is now based in Portugal. Ekua, a polyglot has 20+ years of international experience working for UN agencies such as UNESCO, UNFPA, UNICEF, WHO in Sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast & Central Asia and the German Federal Centre for Health Education (BZgA) as part of the European Expert Group on Sexuality Education in Europe.

She is currently an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the Centre for Social Research in Health at University of New South Wales in Sydney where she has authored/co-authored five book chapters, numerous peer-reviewed journal articles, research reports, training manuals and curricula on education, sexual and reproductive health and health innovation.

Ekua also has a passion for contemporary art and cinema and is an active supporter and funder of various initiatives in the art world.

Be sure to catch both episodes of this two-part conversation as Ekua offers expansive insights into her ability to overlay her professional and passion pursuits for wide benefit.

Where to find Ekua?
On Linkedin
On Instagram
On Facebook

What's Ekua reading?
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

What's Ekua watching?
Our Madness
The Underground Railroad

Other topics of interest:
PSI.org
Peter Aggelton
The American of Journal Sexuality Education
The Clue app and Hormonal Podcast
Nana Oforiatta Ayim
ANO Institute of Art and Knowledge
We Are Born Free Online Radio
On Renee Mboya
HANGAR and Monica de Miranda
Savvy Contemporary
John Akomfrah
Kwesi Owusu
Kuukua Eshun
Shaolin Qi Gong Kung Fu Meditation online

Special Guest: Ekua Yankah.