• Thursday, March 28, 2024
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Women in Business: Marcia Ashong

Women in Business: Marcia Shong

Marcia Ashong is Founder and Executive Director of Theboardroom Africa (TBR Africa), and Brace Energy. TBR Africa an initiative that champions women in executive leadership across Africa by working with venture capital and private equity investors, development finance institutions, companies and organisations to improve female representation in boardrooms and investment committees. Brace Energy is a nascent pan-african oil and gas service company and fully licensed to operate in Ghana and Uganda.

Marcia has a varied background in international energy, petroleum law, and extensive work experience in the upstream oil and gas service industry and has held leadership roles on four continents.

In 2010, Marcia founded the Ghana Oil Club ( GOC), a professional organisation aimed at providing a forum for petroleum and energy professionals, as well as an avenue for active dialogue about Ghana’s petroleum and energy sectors. She also serves as a member of the Board of Directors for the GOC. She was part of the implementation team of the World Bank’s ‘Extractive Industries Technical Advisory Facilities’ Sourcebook initiative (EI Sourcebook); a project to provide best practice policy frameworks for governments and stakeholders in the extractive industries; with specific emphasis on resource-rich developing nations. Soon after this, she advised on a project which sought to evaluate the effectiveness of the Norwegian Oil for Development Program in Ghana.

Read also: Women In Business: Simi Fajemirokun

Marcia is published with the Oxford Journal of World Energy Law, where she made contributions on global trends in local content regulations in oil and gas. She was also awarded a research grant in 2014 from the Association of International Petroleum Negotiators (AIPN) on the same topic. She is part of the HATCH Global Network (which seeks to bring together change-leaders from across the globe by connecting people to resources to aid in accelerating ideas to action) and was invited as part of this network to host and speak at Vivatech, the world’s second largest technology conference, in 2018. She has been featured in publications including African Business Magazine, CNBC Africa, BBC Africa, Devex, and Stylist UK, among others.

Under her leadership at TBR Africa, the company has successfully created the largest network of board-ready women in Africa and has placed several women onto Boards. The company’s unique positioning in the market led it to securing a long-term partnership and a backing of $2m dollars in funding from CDC Group (the UK’S Development Finance Corporation, and largest Private Equity investor in Africa). She is passionate about the opportunity to impact policy in the natural resource space, and is an avid blogger, and speaker on gender equality and the impact of women in leadership.

She has a Bachelor of Arts in International Relations & Political Science at the University of Minnesota, United States, LLB Hons. (Law) at the University of Exeter, United Kingdom and Master of Laws (LLM) in Energy Law and Policy at University of Dundee, United Kingdom.