Contributor.

Sheena Raikundalia

Sheena Raikundalia
Kuza One

Sheena Raikundalia is the Chief Growth Officer at Kuza One, an agri-tech operating in seven African countries, digitizing agriculture value chains and building a network of rural agripreneurs who support farmers with advisory, finance, markets, climate-smart practices and regenerative agriculture solutions. Her work focuses on growth strategy, ecosystem partnerships, policy, fundraising, agriculture transformation, and scaling youth-led MSME models that strengthen food systems and rural livelihoods.

Previously, she led the UK–Kenya Tech Hub for the British Government, strengthening Kenya’s digital economy and supporting entrepreneurship ecosystems. Before that, she worked as a solicitor in London and a senior advisor to an impact investment group, and she is a (proud) failed entrepreneur, an experience that taught her more than any qualification ever has.

She serves as a Non-Executive Director with the Brink Foundation (UK) and sits on several boards in Kenya, including the Kenya National Innovation Agency (as Chair of its Resource & Partnership Committee) and ACTS (African Centre for Technology Studies). Her work spans agri-tech, climate adaptation, regenerative agriculture, youth employment, MSME growth, systems thinking, Africa finance, innovation strategy and development policy.

She holds a law degree from the University of Bristol and an MBA from Lord Ashcroft International Business School, and she is a UK-qualified solicitor – but her real education has come from working alongside farmers, founders, policymakers and innovators across the continent.

 

Articles by Sheena Raikundalia

  • Sheena Raikundalia

    Context Instead of Carbon: Why Climate Finance in Africa Must Shift its Focus from Mitigation to Adaptation

    Global climate action has long been framed through a binary lens: either mitigation or adaptation. As Sheena Raikundalia at Kuza One explains, this framework shapes how funding flows, how projects are designed and even how “success” is measured: Mitigation attracts the bulk of funding because it produces measurable carbon outcomes and enables high-emitting countries to meet their net-zero targets, while adaptation's local benefits are harder to quantify, commodify or sell. She argues that this imbalance risks turning African landscapes into carbon farms for the Global North, and also obscures the fact that many of Africa’s most climate-smart solutions could be promising investments — if the current financing architecture would support them. NOTE: In celebration of our 20th anniversary, NextBillion is highlighting key guest articles from our two decades online. We’re currently focusing on the healthcare sector: You can read these featured articles below.

    Categories
    Agriculture, Environment, Investing
    Tags
    blended finance, climate change, decarbonization, food security, impact investing, smallholder farmers, sustainable finance
  • Rajat Chabba / Sheena Raikundalia

    Inexpensive Impact: The Case for Frugal Innovations

    Over 4 billion people around the world lack necessities like food, water, energy, health care and housing. This represents not only a major social challenge but a major market, as low-income consumers have an annual purchasing capacity of US $5 trillion. Rajat Chabba and Sheena Raikundalia at Intellecap explore how entrepreneurs are developing innovative, frugal products to meet these customers’ needs – and why an ecosystem approach is needed to help them scale their solutions.

    Categories
    Technology
    Tags
    business development, circular economy, innovation, startups, sustainable business
  • Sheena Raikundalia

    ‘The Face of the African Entrepreneur’

    The third annual Sankalp Africa Summit takes place Feb. 24-26 in Nairobi and is centered on the theme “Spurring the Entrepreneurship Economy.” In previewing the summit, Sheena Raikundalia of Intellecap interviewed Vava Angwenyi, founder of Vava Coffee. The Kenyan enterprise is creating sustainable livelihoods for over 30,000 smallholder coffee farmers as well as employing HIV-positive women and ex-offenders in the informal settlements surrounding the capital.

    Categories
    Agriculture, Investing
    Tags
    smallholder farmers
Subscribe to Our Weekly Newsletter, "NextBillion Notes"
Published each Wednesday, our e-newsletter features NextBillion's latest original articles, along with a selection of news, jobs, bizdev opportunities and events from our recent coverage — and regular conference ticket giveaways.
We respect your privacy. Your information is safe and will never be shared.
Don't miss out. Subscribe today.
×
×