Maggie Gu - President

Maggie Gu has more than 18 years of experience in the management of international affairs, excelling in public relations and crisis management.
Ms. Gu began her career in a prestigious international consulting firm, handling strategic issues for large corporate groups. She then moved to the public sector and worked in Europe and Africa for more than ten years, which not only expanded her knowledge of both continents, but also established a tight and unique link with them.
After this experience, she became an expert of international affairs with strong leadership, managing multiple teams across several continents to handle multilateral issues, solve international disputes and coordinate global projects. Since then, she has increasingly emphasized on the research of African issues, studying and advising African countries on the development and execution of national strategies.
As a long-active member of the Fondation pour Genève, Mrs. Gu has always been concerned with human development and heavily involved in the promotion of philanthropy, public welfares and cross-cultural communications.
Targeting the existing social, political and economic problems that Africa is facing in the new era, Ms. Gu has proposed many creative, practical and effective solutions, some of which have resulted in substantial impact. In order to promote an effective transfer of existing techniques and technologies, optimize the utilization of limited resources, increase the transparency and accountabilities of all the sectors in Africa and ultimately reach a fair and long term win-win relation between Africa and other parties, Ms. Gu founded the Tomorrow Foundation.
Ms. Gu has obtained a professional medical degree and a Master of Communication and Public Relations in China, a MBA of Global Management in the United States, and a Master of International Relations and Economy in Switzerland. She is also proficient in ancient Chinese language.

Jean-Christophe Manghardt - Member Secretary

Jean-Christophe Manghardt has more than 10 years of experience in the fields of finance, economic development and technological innovation, and has worked in ten countries for the public and private sectors as well as non-government organizations.

 Mr. Manghardt started his career as an economist and project manager at the Economic Development Office of the State of Geneva, and then worked for a leading international bank in trade and commodity finance. Focusing mainly on Africa and Asia, he has structured numerous transactions that were in total worth of billions of US dollars. Mr. Manghardt also advises companies across different industries, especially on financial structuring in Africa. He recently led the development of a platform that has launched the world’s first physical oil transaction with the blockchain-based technology.

 Mr. Manghardt holds two master degrees, one in International Relations from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva and one in Commodity Trading and Finance from the University of Geneva. He also has received executive education certificates in China and South Africa. He speaks English, French, Spanish, German and Chinese fluently.

Denis Lebsis-Daronnat - Member

With more than 15 years of experience in the banking sector, Denis Lebsis-Daronnat is an expert in asset management, international organizations and financial regulation advisory.

 He started his career as a wealth manager of BNP Paribas, and soon became in charge of the inspection of global private banking and wealth management activities. Then he extended its scope to investment banking activities and risk management, performing multiple assignments across the globe, including MENA region and Sub-Saharan Africa. 

One of his major achievements was the lead of comprehensive sensitive investigations for the Bank regarding financial sanctions and embargoes involving several African countries in order to respond to the US authorities. At that stage, Mr. Lebsis-Daronnat decided that it was the right time to leverage on his extensive experience in the financial sector and international operations by following new business opportunities. He then disengaged progressively from his advising responsibilities to the bank and started leading family business activities in the digital economy and high technology sectors.

Mr. Lebsis-Daronnat has a master degree in Economy from the European Business Management School of Strasbourg and an Economic License in International Affairs in Austria. He speaks French, English, German and Russian fluently.