Devang Vussonji - Founding Partner, Axum
Building bridges between government priorities and private capital, Devang Vussonji has spent over two decades helping shape development approaches across Africa.
His work—spanning education, youth employment, agriculture, and climate resilience—has focused on designing systems that are both inclusive and driven by local priorities and needs.
This June, Vussonji will take that experience to the 9th East Africa Philanthropy Network (EAPN) Conference in Kigali, Rwanda.
Scheduled for June 11–13, 2025, the conference convenes practitioners and leaders from philanthropy, government, and the private sector to examine how locally led giving can support sustainable and equitable development across East Africa.
Global Learning, Grounded Application
Vussonji’s educational background includes an MBA in Entrepreneurship (with honors) from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and a BA in Economics from Claremont McKenna College, with a semester spent at University College London.
He began his studies at Sydenham College of Commerce and Economics in Mumbai.
His exposure to different academic and professional environments has enabled him to navigate diverse institutional contexts while remaining focused on regional development goals.
This background has informed his collaborative approach to working with African governments, philanthropists, and businesses on complex policy and investment issues.
A Career Spanning Strategy, Policy, and Systems Change
Devang Vussonji’s professional experience spans over two decades, marked by work in development strategy, cross-sector partnerships, and systems-level innovation across Africa.
Since December 2022, Vussonji has served as Chair of the Business & Sustainability Committee at the CEO Roundtable of Tanzania, an influential platform that brings together the country’s leading private sector actors.
In this role, he has supported efforts to embed sustainability within corporate strategies, contributing to broader national conversations about responsible growth and environmental resilience.
His role involves engaging private sector leadership on how long-term business success is tied to inclusive development.
The committee also supports the alignment of corporate practices with Tanzania’s development priorities, including energy transition, job creation, and green industrial policy.
Advancing Sustainability Through Corporate Engagement
Before his current roles, Vussonji spent more than 11 years at Dalberg, a global development advisory firm, serving in progressively senior roles.
He started as a Project Manager in Johannesburg, and he later became a Partner and Director based in Dar es Salaam, leading major assignments across education, youth employment, agriculture, and inclusive finance.
He also headed Dalberg’s global Education to Employment practice, shaping efforts to better align school systems with labour market realities.
His work at Dalberg took him across more than a dozen African countries, advising governments, donor agencies, foundations, and private sector players on how to scale impact sustainably.
A Decade at Axum
In 2023, Vussonji co-founded Axum, a Dar es Salaam–based impact advisory firm.
Axum works across Africa and the Middle East to support climate-positive and inclusive development, with a focus on digital transformation, economic inclusion, and sustainability.
It partners with local governments, philanthropic institutions, and multilaterals to shape policies and investment strategies that are locally grounded.
Alongside this, he helped establish Elimu-Soko in 2024, a nonprofit that supports African governments in identifying and funding scalable education innovations.
With pilot initiatives underway in Rwanda and Zanzibar, Elimu-Soko connects research, implementation, and public financing to ensure that reforms align with national goals, not just donor agendas.
This combination of experience working within global advisory firms, local institutions, nonprofit innovation hubs, and national-level policy circles positions Vussonji as a practitioner with both strategic depth and operational perspective.
His career reflects an enduring focus on enabling African systems to lead their development trajectories, whether through government capacity, private sector alignment, or philanthropy that listens rather than directs.
Relevance to the Kigali Gathering
The 2025 EAPN Conference will convene around the theme “Agile Philanthropy: Adapting to Economic, Social, and Political Shifts.”
This theme captures the need for philanthropy in East Africa to be flexible and responsive amid fast-evolving global and regional challenges.
Vussonji’s cross-sector experience aligns well with this focus on agility.
His work exemplifies adaptive collaboration across government, private sector, and philanthropic actors, designed to respond to shifting development landscapes without imposing external agendas.
His efforts in embedding sustainability within corporate strategies, scaling education reforms through locally led innovation, and founding impact advisory and nonprofit organizations illustrate a commitment to nimble, context-sensitive development solutions.
As East Africa’s philanthropy sector seeks to navigate complex economic and political changes, Vussonji’s participation brings practical insights into how philanthropy can complement rather than replace public institutions, supporting resilient and inclusive systems.
Looking Ahead to Kigali
With just days to go before the 9th EAPN Conference opens in Kigali, interest is building around sessions exploring how philanthropy can effectively adapt to challenges ranging from climate change and food insecurity to gaps in basic education and youth employment.
In this context, Vussonji’s experience across advisory, nonprofit, and private sectors provides a grounded perspective on how impact-driven partnerships can remain flexible and locally accountable while contributing to long-term development goals.
