William Asiko

William is an experienced, results-oriented leader of international development institutions with both private and public-sector experience.

William started his career as an attorney for the Government of Kenya’s external resources department, handling transactions between the Government and international development finance institutions and monitoring the implementation of the obligations placed on the Government. William then moved to the private sector and, in a career spanning nearly 20 years with the Coca-Cola Company, held various positions in several countries, including the United States, Kenya, Morocco, the United Kingdom and South Africa. In 2007, William was appointed President of the Coca-Cola Africa Foundation based in Johannesburg, South Africa, managing programs in more than 30 countries across Africa, which he held for six years until May 2013.

William was formerly the Executive Director of Grow Africa, an innovative agricultural development partnership between the World Economic Forum, the African Union and NEPAD that accelerates private sector investment into African agriculture. Grow Africa runs over 40 programs in different value chains across 12 countries in Africa with an ambitious growth plan to take the Grow Africa model across all countries in Africa.

Before this, William spent three and a half years in Tanzania as Chief Executive Officer of the Investment Climate Facility for Africa (ICF), a pan-African development organisation that works with African governments to remove barriers to greater private sector investment in their countries. ICF ran 75 programs across 21 countries in Africa before completing its mandate in 2016.

Before joining Coca-Cola, William served five years as State Counsel in the Office of the Attorney General for Kenya and two years as a partner in the law firm of Hamilton Harrison & Mathews in Nairobi, Kenya. William earned a law degree from the University of Nairobi in 1987 and an MBA from Emory University’s Goizueta Business School in the United States in 2005. He is a non-practising member of the Kenya Bar.

William is an avid advocate for efficient and sustainable economic development in Africa. He firmly believes that Africa will only truly transform when its growth story stops being Africa Rising and starts to be Africans Rising. He believes that development is multifaceted and must take a multi-sectoral approach and have a strong emphasis on women and youth to be sustainable and impactful.