Chinenye Uwanaka is a lawyer and social entrepreneur who is passionate about nation building and fighting extreme poverty and injustice in Africa. In line with this, she supports businesses that create wealth and lift people out of poverty.
Uwanaka began her legal career in the law firm of Afe Babalola & Co., where she gained relevant experience in corporate and commercial law and disputes. She represents clients locally and internationally on multi-party transactional matters.
She is the Founder and Managing Partner of The Firma Advisory (TFA) – a Pan African Law and Consulting Firm with clients across the world. TFA provides services to clients in the private sector, non-profit and public sector.
They specialise in intellectual property, technology and creative economy, energy, infrastructure and climate finance, mergers and acquisitions, finance, investment and trade facilitation, public policy, government relations and stakeholder engagement.
The Firma Advisory is developing technology to boost cross border trade and outsourcing of top talent and services to clients across Africa, Middle-East, Europe and America.
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The Firma Advisory also runs an access to justice initiative which provides pro bono legal aid and human rights sensitization to pre-trial detainees, indigent members of society and women and children who are victims of violence.
Chinenye is very passionate about impact investing, and she facilitates investments in agriculture (The Firma Foods Ltd) and renewable energy (The Firma Energy Ltd) in unserved and underserved areas.
Furthermore, Chinenye is the convener and co-founder of Africa Policy Conversations (AfPC), a Pan African Think Tank with members from across 15 African countries. The idea for AfPC came about while studying implementing Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School USA in 2019.
Uwanaka is the co-Chair of the Advisory Board of the ‘Nigeria Youth Futures Fund’ a 5 million dollar fund seeded by MacArthur Foundation and Ford Foundation, managed by Leap Africa.
She also serves as the Thematic Lead for Innovation and Intellectual Property for the National Assembly Business Environment Roundtable (NASSBER), which is a partnership between the National Assembly and the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG).
She has received many awards including a Social Impact Award by the former Vice President of Nigeria, Yemi Osinbajo (SAN) for efforts in improving access to justice for the less privileged members of the society. She is also a recipient of the 40 under 40 Esq Legal Awards.
Chinenye attended Harvard Kennedy School in 2019 where she obtained a degree in Public Policy and obtained her LLB from the University of Essex, United Kingdom in 2012.
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