Sports investment in Africa: get your head in the game
Sports investment in Africa: get your head in the game


Betty Salanic is the Chief Executive Officer and Founder of Accelerate Investors and the host of the CIO Conversations Podcast. Accelerate Investors creates educational content for institutional investors, develops strategic partnerships with allocator investors, and builds high-quality peerto-peer engagement opportunities. Additionally, on the podcast, she interviews leading chief investment officers of endowments, foundations, and pensions on their backgrounds, investment portfolios, and global outlook. Formerly, Betty conducted research and due diligence on multi-million dollar private equity and venture capital investments for Rice University’s ~$8 billion endowment. Previously, she was at an impact investment fund, Root Capital, in investor relations - raising capital from foundations, government agencies, and socially responsible investors. Betty began her career as an analyst at J.P. Morgan Asset Management in New York. Betty graduated from The University of Texas at Austin with a BBA in Finance and a BS in Corporate Communication. In addition, she studied abroad in Milan at Bocconi University and in Hong Kong at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, where she studied international economics and finance, and emerging markets, respectively. Betty serves on The University of Texas at Austin Diversity & Community Engagement Advisory Council and the Financial Advisory Committee for the New York Junior League, one of the oldest non-profit organizations in New York City. Previously, she served on the NYC Comptroller’s Advisory Council on Economic Growth through Diversity and Inclusion. She also served on The University of Texas at Austin McCombs School of Business BBA Advisory Board for six years and founded Women of McCombs. Betty is fluent in Spanish and enjoys swimming, reading (check out the 2023 Accel Summer Reading List!), and hiking.

As CEO of NBA Africa, Victor Williams oversees the league’s basketball and business development initiatives in Africa and is responsible for continuing to grow the popularity of basketball and the NBA across the continent through grassroots development, media distribution, corporate partnerships, the growth of the Basketball Africa League (BAL), and more.In May 2021, Williams oversaw the launch of NBA Africa as a standalone entity that conducts the league’s business in Africa, including the BAL. Under his leadership, the league opened its third office in Africa in Lagos, Nigeria, in February 2022 and successfully completed the second BAL season in May 2022.Prior to joining the NBA in August 2020, Williams served for five years as the Executive Head of Corporate and Investment Banking (CI😎, Africa Regions for Standard Bank Group, where he oversaw the strategy, execution and financial performance for Standard Bank’s business with corporate, sovereign and institutional investor clients in 19 countries across sub-Saharan Africa. In this pan-continental role, Williams was responsible for growing a wide range of business lines across Africa, including global markets, investment banking and transactional products and services, and helped lead Standard Bank’s expansion into Côte d’Ivoire, Ethiopia and South Sudan. Williams was named among the 100 Most Influential Africans of 2021 by New African Magazine. He is a member of Harvard Business School’s Africa Advisory Board and has also served on the boards of publicly-listed companies and non-profit organizations in the U.S., Nigeria and Kenya. A dual citizen of Sierra Leone and the U.S., Williams holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and bachelor’s degrees in applied math and economics from Brown University.