Dr. Deanne De Vries—who has spent much of the past thirty years working and living across Africa for startups (including her own), global non-profits and international organizations, venture capital firms as well as one of the world’s Top Ten logistics firms—looks at life, and Africa, differently.

With an intimate understanding of the largesse, diversity and vibrancy of Africa’s 55 countries, how this impacts business and where the opportunities lie, her speeches change the way people and companies start, operate and grow their operations across the Continent.

This is helped along by her fluency in Dutch, English, French, German, Portuguese and Swahili, along with a smattering of Spanish, Arabic and some local Bantu languages.

For over 30 years, her approaches and ideas shift her audiences’ mindset as she challenges conventional wisdom and outdated images of Africa on stages across the globe from WEF Africa to TEDx Women to Madison Square Gardens, as well as on university campuses and at local tech and entrepreneurs’ gatherings. She has also spoken at events sponsored by the Economist, the Financial Times, CNBC Africa and Super Return Africa.

As comfortable climbing to Everest Base Camp to fundraise to build a maternity hospital as she is interviewing Heads of State across Africa for her recently completed PhD, or crossing on foot the South Sudan border with Uganda to understand the situation her truck drivers face daily, Deanne looks to understand the “why” of the on-the-ground reality so she can raise others up as well as introduce everyone to AfriCAN: the can-do Continent.

She is the author of “Africa: Open for Business” which is available on Amazon. Her next book, “Political Leadership in Africa: In Their Words”, comes out in December, 2022.

You can follow Deanne @drdeannedevries on LinkedIn or Instagram.

To reserve a date for Deanne to speak at your company or your next event, please contact her on deannemdevries@icloud.com

You can also visit her website at www.drdeannedevries.com