Emerging-Markets Believers Defend Nigeria, Korea, and African E-Commerce at Sohn 2026

Few conversations at the 2026 Sohn New York Conference drew on more direct operational experience than the one between Thea Jamison, Founder and Managing Director of CHANGE Global, and Francis Dufay, CEO of Jumia. Jamison, a CFA charterholder who began her career at Allianz Global Investors and Morgan Stanley before founding CHANGE Global, has spent two decades investing across emerging and frontier markets, logging over 200,000 miles of travel in a single year to stay close to the companies she backs. Her fund has delivered 20% five-year annualized returns at a 10% standard deviation. Dufay came to the conversation from the other side of the ledger: a former McKinsey consultant who relocated to Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire more than fifteen years ago, built Jumia’s Côte d’Ivoire unit from scratch, and was appointed Group CEO in late 2022.

Together, they argued that the emerging-markets moment has arrived, that it will last far longer than a tactical trade, and that the most overlooked opportunities today sit in the places least covered by the mainstream investment industry. Jamison made her case with three stock ideas spanning Korea, Poland, and Argentina. Dufay delivered a first-person pitch for the company he runs.