Our Team
Leadership driving the mission of Nehemiah Impact Ventures.
Gavin Ryan
Founder
Gavin Ryan is the Founder and Managing Partner of Nehemiah Impact Ventures. With a distinguished career spanning private equity, investment banking, and international development, Gavin brings a unique blend of financial rigour and social vision to the organization.
Prior to founding NIV, Gavin was a mid-cap private equity fund manager with Advent International and then Soros Fund Management, investing in Emerging Markets companies. He then served as a consultant for the World Bank, advising on private sector development in emerging markets. His extensive experience in deploying capital and structuring deals has given him deep insight into the challenges and opportunities of sustainable growth.
He established Nehemiah Impact Ventures to bridge the gap between institutional capital and community-level impact, focusing specifically on empowering youth through employment and entrepreneurship.
Ugo Ikemba
Co-Founder
Ugochukwu (“Ugo”) Ikemba is a global venture capitalist and impact investor with over two decades of experience backing and scaling small and medium-sized enterprises across emerging markets. He is the Founder and CEO of Mscale LLC, a venture capital firm focused on technology, fintech, and climate solutions. Through Mscale, Ugo serves as Fund Manager of the Caribbean Venture Capital Fund, a US$50 million early-stage fund investing in high-growth tech and climate businesses across the Caribbean.
Ugo’s career spans private equity, venture capital, and development finance. He began at African Capital Alliance, Nigeria’s pioneering private equity firm, before joining the World Bank, where he later led a US$160 million entrepreneurship and SME development program in Nigeria from 2017 to 2019, focused on enterprise growth, capacity building, and job creation.
In 2013, Ugo was appointed by the President of Nigeria to the Board of the Securities and Exchange Commission of Nigeria, where he chaired the Corporate Governance Committee and played a key role in shaping regulatory frameworks for Nigeria’s private equity industry. He is also the founder of the African Business Enterprise Corps at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business, an experiential learning platform connecting students with Africa-focused investment and business opportunities.
Beyond investing, Ugo is an entrepreneur and community builder. He co-founded Road Warriors Fitness Club in 2012, which has grown into Nigeria’s largest running club, with members competing in marathons around the world.
Sandra Glasgow
Co-Founder
Mrs. Sandra A. C. Glasgow is the Managing Director of her consulting company, BizTactics Limited, a Co-Founder and Managing Director of Jamaica’s first Angel Investor Network, FirstAngels Caribbean, and a Co-Founder and Managing Director of RevUP Caribbean, a virtual business incubator. She is alsoHonorary Consul for the Republic of Suriname in Jamaica.
A graduate of the University of the West Indies, she holds a Bachelor of Science Degree and a master’s degree in business administration, with a specialisation in the Management of Technology. Mrs. Glasgow was Jamaica’s Eisenhower Fellow in 2000, spending 8 weeks in the USA exploring the topics of business incubation and angel investing.
As well as chairing the JAMPRO Pension Fund, she also chairs National Commercial Bank’s Staff Superannuation Funds (1986 and 1999) and the SMART Retirement Plan. She serves as an independentdirector on the boards of National Commercial Bank Jamaica Limited, and Stanley Motta Limited. She also serves on the Boards of two private companies in the FirstAngels Caribbean portfolio, chairs the Board of the National Crime Prevention Fund (Crime Stop) and is a director of the Multicare Youth Foundation, the LTM Foundation and the Caribbean Climate-Smart Accelerator.
Mrs. Glasgow spent 5 ½ years as the CEO of The Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica and before that,20 years at the University of Technology, Jamaica, where she founded the Technology Innovation Centre, Jamaica’s first state-of-the-art technology business incubator.