Anta Babacar Ngom Diack is a Senegalese political leader, entrepreneur, and public servant whose career bridges business leadership, democratic reform, and women’s empowerment across West Africa. Born and raised in the suburbs of Dakar, she spent over a decade building one of West Africa’s largest agro-industrial enterprises, driving regional food sovereignty and creating thousands of jobs for young people from low-income communities.
As franchisee and CEO of KFC Senegal, she opened the first franchise location run entirely by women, and another designed to employ persons with disabilities. She now serves on the Law and Finance Commissions of the National Assembly, where she works on budget review and legislation. She holds degrees from York University, Université Paris-Dauphine and Sciences Po Paris, and is a Knight of the National Order of Merit of Senegal.

Zhijun He is an M.A. candidate in African Studies at Yale’s MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies, where he holds a full-tuition fellowship. A Graduate Affiliate of Pierson College, he convenes The View From—, the Yale MacMillan Center–Yale Center Beijing Dialogue Series. His research asks how state capacity is built and negotiated within imperfect institutions in Africa and the wider Global South. A graduate of UWC Changshu China, he earned his B.A. magna cum laude from Macalester College, Kofi Annan’s alma mater, where he was a Kofi Annan Scholar. He previously led the informal-economy track of the World Bank Youth Advisory Group. In 2024 he received the Xiangzhang Qingmiao Award from the School of Economics at the University of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences; in 2026 he received the Award of Excellent Abstract at the PKU–Yale Global Health Economics Summer Institute and chaired the opening roundtable at China Agricultural University’s Summer School of Country and Region Studies & Global Development.