Capital stack Lagos, Nigeria · 6.52°N 3.38°E

I underwrite whatgets built onAfrican ground.

Chi Anyanwu. Private credit and infrastructure finance across African and emerging markets. I studied what's underground. Now I underwrite it.

I'm here to

EqCommon equity · first loss
Who I am

The riskiest layer is the one with a personality.

I started university at 16 and graduated in Soil ScienceAsk me about NPK and NPV. from FUTO. Field trials taught me the bottleneck for African land was rarely the soil. It was the financing.

Since then: equity research, fixed income, macro and portfolio work at Chapel Hill Denham, KPMG, Cowrywise, PAV Finance and AXA Mansard Investments. The thread through all of it is underwriting real assets in markets most models treat as noise.

The long game is portfolio management. The near game is credit that gets roads, power and refineries funded.

Base
Lagos, Nigeria
Now
Portfolio Management, AXA Mansard Investments, reporting to the CIO
Focus
Private credit, infrastructure, EM macro
Founded
Investment Society FUTO, CFA Institute-affiliated, 70+ members
Studying
CFA Level I, French
₦1B+client fixed income trades executed daily at AXA Mansard
+5%allocation to Nigerian Breweries in the equity income fund, informed by my call
13companies modelled, three statements each, at Cowrywise
70+members in the CFA-affiliated investment society I founded
LinkedIn ↗
MzMezzanine · hybrid
Field notes

Part analyst, part lab rat.

Mezzanine is the hybrid layer: some debt discipline, some equity upside. So is my curiosity.

Exhibit 01 The flame test

I set my own fingernails on fire. They barely flinched.

Nails and cuticles are keratin, the same protein family as wool. Wool won't ignite until about 570°C, more than double cotton. So could keratin line an F1 suit? Turn up the heat.

Ignition temperatures: Woolmark fire resistance factsheet. Nail keratin has no published ignition figure that I could find; that's the experiment.

So could keratin go into an F1 suit?

The instinct is right. Wool resists fire because it is rich in nitrogen, chars instead of melting, and puts itself out once the flame moves away. F1 suits are built on aramids like Nomex and must survive 12 seconds of direct flame under FIA 8856-2018. Keratin loses on weight and moisture. The open question I keep coming back to: could keratin waste from salons and abattoirs become a cheap flame-retardant coating?

Why is Nigerian soil so red?

Laterite. Heavy tropical rain leaches out silica and leaves iron and aluminium oxides behind. The iron rusts, and the ground turns the colour of this page's accent.

Do trees run a credit market underground?

Sort of. Mycorrhizal fungi trade phosphorus and water to plant roots in exchange for sugars. Plants appear to reward the fungi that deliver more. A collateralised exchange, with spores.

Why does rain on dry ground smell so good?

Geosmin, a compound made by soil bacteria. The human nose picks it up at a few parts per trillion.

The notebook Ideas I keep chasing
Building

Stash, the phone-hiding robot

Thirty minutes before my alarm, it takes my phone and hides it somewhere in the room, chosen at random so I can't learn the spot. The first thing I reach for in the morning is no longer a screen.

Pitched

Foldable solar for laptop lids

Photovoltaic cells thin enough to fold into the back of a laptop screen. I pitched it to AUO, and they asked for a written electrical framework.

Question

Hydroelectric lamps

A small turbine in a gutter, a stream or a tap that powers its own light. Could rainy-season runoff light a Lagos street for free?

Question

Water from air

Atmospheric water generators cool humid air below its dew point and collect what condenses. Lagos is humid most of the year, so the real question is cost per litre.

Question

Sticky notes that rot

Paper sticky notes usually carry a petroleum-based acrylic adhesive. Could a plant-based glue hold as well, peel as clean and still compost?

Question

Fibre for computer packaging

Moulded plant fibre is already replacing foam in some phone boxes. Could Nigerian farm waste become the trays laptops ship in?

SrSenior debt · the core
Library

The work, underwritten.

Research notes, articles, decks and talks. Open notes read in full; gated notes come on request.

SrSignature thesis
Interactive

The Atlantic barrel is changing direction.

SCHEMATIC · NOT TO SCALE
Crude oil
Refined products

SsSenior secured · collateral
Things I built

Analysts who ship.

MnemonicForge

2026

A solo-built AI learning app on the Claude API. Turns dense finance curricula into memorable hooks, with profiles, multiple output formats and in-browser audio. Built for my own CFA prep first.

Epsilon Foods

2020–22

Co-founded a food processing startup and raised angel funding from Bracken Darrell.

Investment Society FUTO

2023

Founding president. Grew it into a CFA Institute-affiliated society of 70+ student investors.

MnemonicForge example output
Responses What happened after I pitched
AUO

Pitched foldable solar for laptop lids. They asked for a written electrical framework.

Risevest

Pitched a "financial confessions" podcast to the CEO in person. He wanted to hear more.

Trafigura

Sent leadership a trade idea: US WTI as cheaper, steadier feedstock for Dangote.

Collateral Fellowships and recognition
Chatham HouseCommon Futures Fellow
World Bank GroupYouth Fellowship delegate
CFA Research ChallengeNational semi-finalist, 2023
Forvis Mazars HackathonFirst runner-up, 2024
ENACTUS FUTOACT Challenge winners
Women in BlockchainScaling access across Africa
Term sheet Your move

Let's talk
credit.

Open to roles, research retainers and good arguments about Nigerian rates.

LinkedIn ↗ Read the research

ac.chiagoziem@gmail.com

Curriculum vitae

Chiagoziem Anyanwu

Lagos, Nigeria · ac.chiagoziem@gmail.com · linkedin.com/in/chiagoziem

Experience

AXA Mansard InvestmentsJune 2026 – present
Portfolio Management
  • Executed client fixed income trades exceeding ₦1B in daily volume, supporting fund liquidity and execution accuracy
  • Monitored equity income fund performance and spotted an opportunity in Nigerian Breweries that informed a 5% allocation increase and a cut in cash to 5%
  • Produced the fund's quarterly report and fact sheet
Chapel Hill DenhamJuly – Sept 2025
Research Analyst Intern
  • Analysed Fed cuts, FX and inflation and their impact on Nigerian Eurobonds
  • Assessed fixed income spreads (MTN bond, Dangote Cement, Access Bank CP vs FGN/NTB) to quantify credit and liquidity risk
  • Built valuation models (P/E, EV/EBITDA, DCF) on MTN, Zenith and Okomu
  • Delivered sector risk analysis on the Paramount Equity Fund, flagging concentration risk
CowrywiseJune – July 2024
Portfolio Management Intern
  • Built three-statement models and ratio analysis for 13 companies
  • Ran daily market analysis to find trading opportunities
PAV FinanceMay 2023 – May 2024
Equity Research Analyst / Co-Founder
  • Researched XLV's top 10 holdings, semiconductors and defence stocks against their sector index
KPMGJune – Sept 2023
Advisory Intern
  • Built a sustainability benchmarking report from MSCI and Sustainalytics ratings
  • Researched seven ESG topics and contributed to an anthropogenic impact report for project financing due diligence
The Investment Society, FUTOOct 2023 – present
Founding President
  • Founded and led a 70+ member investment club; worked with the CFA Institute to grow participation

Education

B.Tech Soil Science, Federal University of Technology, Owerri (2025) · CFA Level I candidate

Financial Modelling and Valuation Analyst certificate, Corporate Finance Institute (2022)

Recognition

Chatham House Common Futures Fellow (2026) · World Bank Group Youth Summit delegate (2026) · CFA Research Challenge national semi-finalist (2023) · Forvis Mazars Hackathon first runner-up (2024)

Skills

Python, Excel (VBA), Bloomberg Terminal, PowerPoint