Biography

Franklin Amoo is a co-founder and the Managing Partner of Baylis Emerging Markets, a leading pan-African investment firm with headquarters in New York and Lagos; he is also the Chairman of Baylis Digital. As an active investor in a number of operating companies across Africa, Franklin serves on the boards of several African companies.

Prior to co-founding Baylis, Franklin helped lead the Strategic Credit Group at Mizuho Securities USA, the securities brokerage arm of the $1.8 trillion Mizuho Financial Group, overseeing the firm’s activities with regards to originating, structuring and trading illiquid and real assets. At Mizuho, Franklin reported to the CEO and helped establish the CLO, High Yield sales and trading, secondary loan trading, structured finance and asset finance businesses. Franklin led a group which pioneered the application of the EXIM credit guarantee to Japanese Yen denominated financings and participated in several landmark transactions – including a $340 million loan facility supporting the first ever Boeing Dreamliner aircraft sold into the Chinese market and the first ever Exim Bank guaranteed Japanese Yen denominated bond supporting new order Boeing Aircraft by Turkish Airlines. Prior to Mizuho, Franklin worked at Deutsche Bank, Bank of America and Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette. He began his career as an analyst in the Media & Telecom Investment Banking Group at Bank of America.

Franklin is an appointed member of the United States’ President’s Advisory Council for Doing Business in Africa and serves as a board director for the US-Nigeria Council. He is also an informal commercial liaison for the Japanese External Trade Organization and advises several Japanese trading companies on their African investments. Franklin chairs the UK board of the Africa Center in New York City, is a co-founder of the Africa Pandemic Response Alliance, serves as a founding member of the Wharton African Students Association Alumni Advisory Board and serves on the Prep for Prep Associates Council.

A Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst and a proud Brooklyn native, Franklin holds a BA in Economics from Columbia University and an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania where he was a Howard E. Mitchell and a Venture Incubation Program Fellow.