A finance profile for an origination platform
African Collaborations Group (ACG), a strategic origination and collaboration platform dedicated to the industrialisation of sport in Africa, announced on 28 September 2026 the appointment of Paulo Gomes to its advisory board. His remit: to support the development of integrated sport and entertainment district ecosystems designed from the outset to be bankable.
Paulo Gomes is the founder, Chairman and CEO of Constelor Investment Holdings, a pan-African investment management and strategic advisory firm. He also founded and chairs Orango Investment Corporation, an advisory and investment platform dedicated to Africa’s investment agenda under the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). In addition, he co-chairs the AfroChampions Initiative, which focuses on the continent’s economic and industrial transformation.
Three decades at the heart of African finance
Paulo Gomes brings more than 30 years of executive experience in sovereign advisory, infrastructure finance and corporate investment. From 1998 to 2006, he sat on the Board of the World Bank Group, first as Alternate Executive Director and then, from 2002 to 2006, as Executive Director representing 25 African countries.
In that role, he was instrumental in the creation of the Africa Finance Corporation (AFC) and in mobilising more than €870 million (over USD 1 billion) for the post-conflict reconstruction of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He is also a founding member of the AFC and of the Green Climate Fund, the world’s first fund dedicated to supporting developing countries in tackling climate change.
Through Orango, he has advised several African sovereign wealth funds, including those of Angola and Senegal, and contributed to the resource mobilisation strategy of the ECOWAS Bank for Investment and Development. He currently serves as strategic adviser to an African industrial group on its continental expansion.
Mandates spanning Africa, Europe and Asia
Co-founder of Geronimo, an integrated cocoa value-chain initiative developed with Chocolaterie de Monaco and Afreximbank, and of Alta Mar, a sustainable aquaculture company, Paulo Gomes chairs the advisory board of the Singapore-based Africa-South East Asia Chamber of Commerce (ASEACC). He has also been appointed Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the NTU-SBF Centre for African Studies, a chair funded by the Singaporean government.
He has served on the boards of Ecobank Transnational Inc., ASKY Airlines, the AFIG Private Equity fund, the African Capacity Building Foundation, the African Media Initiative, Roll Back Malaria, NSIA Côte d’Ivoire and Alta Mar Norway. He also chairs the BioGuinée Foundation in Guinea-Bissau.
Educated in France, he holds a bachelor’s degree in economics and international trade from Sciences Po and the Institut Libre d’Étude des Relations Internationales (ILERI) in Paris, followed by a Master of Public Administration (MPA) in economic policy and management from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.
The AfroChampions doctrine applied to sport
According to ACG, the appointment reflects a shared conviction: Africa’s long-term prosperity depends on industrialising its strategic sectors through pan-African, financially viable and continentally owned models. Applied to sport and entertainment, this approach aims to move beyond fragmented, project-by-project development in favour of bankable, mixed-use districts.
Nicolas Pompigne-Mognard, founder and Executive Chairman of ACG, described Paulo Gomes as one of the most respected architects of modern African finance and continental strategy. He pointed to a career running from the World Bank Board, where Gomes represented 25 African nations, through his founding roles at the Africa Finance Corporation and the Green Climate Fund, to his current leadership of the AfroChampions Initiative – a record that, in his view, places him among the very few figures to have shaped how Africa builds its own institutions. That, he said, is precisely the perspective ACG needs as it develops sport and entertainment district projects rooted in a coherent, continent-wide industrialisation strategy, adding that Gomes’s presence on the advisory board represents a genuine strategic asset.
Paulo Gomes, for his part, set out his conditions. Sport and entertainment, he said, rank among the highest-return sectors available to Africa – but only if they are approached with the same industrial discipline applied to energy, infrastructure and finance. That, he explained, requires continental scale, integrated district ecosystems, bankable financial models and African ownership at the heart of the structure. Extending the AfroChampions logic to this field is, he said, precisely why he is joining ACG’s advisory board.
A growing market, infrastructure still to be structured
According to an analysis by the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and Oliver Wyman, Africa’s sport economy is expected to reach around €17.4 billion (USD 20 billion) by 2035, up from around €10.5 billion (nearly USD 12 billion) today. The continent, however, lacks the integrated ecosystems needed to support this growth at scale.
ACG aims to address this gap by replacing stand-alone venues with revenue-generating, mixed-use districts. Its advisory board guides the structuring of these projects by aligning governments, development finance institutions (DFIs), investors, sporting bodies and infrastructure partners. The platform’s collaborative model also brings together PPP authorities, developers, designers and engineers, operators, federations, media partners and host communities, from concept through to delivery.
Analysis – The mixed-use district model echoes issues familiar to hotel investors: capturing non-event-day revenue and anchoring accommodation to sports facilities. In Burkina Faso, the state recently took a different route, launching a publicly funded 300-room sports hotel in Ouagadougou. The two approaches illustrate growing interest in sport-related hospitality on a continent where the major hotel groups account for the bulk of the pipeline.
At a glance by The Hospitality Tribune
Paulo Gomes joins African Collaborations Group (ACG) Advisory Board
Announced in London on September 28, 2026
Former World Bank Executive Director (2002-2006), representing 25 African countries
Founding member of Africa Finance Corporation and the Green Climate Fund; Co-Chair of the AfroChampions Initiative
ACG originates bankable, mixed-use sport and entertainment district ecosystems across Africa
Africa’s sport economy projected to reach USD 20bn by 2035, up from around USD 12bn (IFC / Oliver Wyman)
