QuestBridge Alum, UChicago ‘12
Founder of Atenu Developments and Emanya Capital Group
Originally from Venezuela, David is a developer-entrepreneur, founder of Atenu Developments and Emanya Capital Group.
Through Atenu, David has been building since 2014 in Namibia. Atenu builds privately-funded, affordable housing projects in towns around Africa, providing integral solutions to first-time home buyers. On the health and education fronts, Atenu builds clinics and classroom blocks for underserved populations around the nation, partnered with the Pupkewitz Foundation and Palms for Life Fund. Emanya Capital Group is the private equity arm of his operations, which has a majority stake in FinTech company OperFin, a digital identities and eMortgage processing platform. David is actively engaged in consulting projects for real estate funds and developers in Namibia, Cameroon, Zambia and Nigeria.
Before moving to Namibia, David Akinin worked for Credit Suisse in NYC as an Investment Banker in the Energy industry, and later covering Latin America from Chile and NYC. Previous to CS, he held positions at Google in California, Clarteza in Chicago/Paris, Fundacion Don Juan De Borbon in Madrid, and Rallytel (startup).
Fluent in six languages, Akinin holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics from the University of Chicago, where he was a QuestBridge Scholar. He’s completing a Masters in Philosophy in Inclusive Innovation at the University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business, and coursework at Harvard University and Paris VII-Diderot.