Ann-Elise Francis

Head of Growth Turaco 

Ann-Elise Francis is an impact-driven leader with over 11 years of experience advising and building commercially scalable and sustainable businesses; eight of which she has spent living in East Africa leading operations and partnerships in the agriculture, payments, and inclusive insurance space. 

Ann-Elise serves as the Head of Growth at Turaco, where she leads the growth strategy and implementation for new market expansion and partnership development. Turaco is an inclusive insurtech operating in East Africa and Nigeria. As a distributor, broker, and key customer interface between the underwriter and the end consumer, Turaco serves people at the base of the pyramid in their greatest times of need to offer a cushion to unexpected financial shocks caused by health emergencies. Turaco runs a B2B and B2B2C business model, partnering with other leading tech-enabled companies to design and distribute insurance products as a white-labeled offering that is bundled with the core products and services partners offer to their audience, while integrating with their existing payment systems to collect premiums. Since launching in 2019, Turaco has insured over 1 million lives.

Ann-Elise is also a Co-Founder and Partner of LendHer Capital and has previously worked at AZA Finance, KadAfrica, SHONA, and Bpeace (Business Council for Peace). She holds a Bachelors in Global Studies from Loyola University Maryland.