Teresa H. Clarke

Teresa H. Clarke
Chairman and CEO
Africa.com L.L.C., New York City

Teresa H. Clarke comes from a line of women trailblazers: her mother and grandmother were civil rights pioneers before the civil rights era. As the founder, chairman and CEO of Africa.com L.L.C., Clarke is a trailblazer in her own right. 

Africa.com is a Web site for world leaders to gain accurate information about Africa’s tourism sector, investment, political and education climates, and for Africans and the wider public to learn about the continent’s opportunities. “Our primary audience is American, and through our work we help to change the often uninformed and negative perceptions that many Americans have of Africa,” she says. “We do this by providing fair and balanced news, told through the voices of Africans, not through the Western media.”

The company is experiencing monthly growth rates in excess of 20 percent and Clarke is looking to take it public on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange by 2015. Working in corporate finance at Goldman Sachs gave her valuable financial expertise. “I developed skills in evaluating financial statements and learned what a viable company looks like from a financial perspective,” she says.  

Clarke has a bachelor’s degree in economics, cum laude, from Harvard College, an MBA from Harvard Business School and a law degree from Harvard Law School. Bent on having significant impact on future generations, she co-founded a scholarship program in South Africa that already has provided more than $10 million in scholarships to more than 600 children.

“I love working for Africa.com because our work is so broad.  We are embarking upon a deal that will provide our users information on the financial markets in Africa and we recently published a blog on developments in public education in South Africa.  I work with a great team of people that I have hand chosen, and I couldn’t be any happier,” she says.