Meet the Team

Nomad Team

Ben Peterson

Publisher

Ben fell in love with Africa in 2001, when he moved to Ghana to work at the Ghanaian Ministry of Justice. Since then, Ben has accumulated eighteen years of experience investing in, founding, growing and managing companies and non-profits across Africa. Ben is also the Recipient of Canada’s Meritorious Service Medal (MSM) one of Canada’s highest civilian honours, winner of Canada’s Top 40 Under 40 Award and the Queen’s University Alumni Humanitarian Award. Ben has a MSc from the London School of Economics.

Jan van der Does de Willebois

Director

Jan has spent most of the last 20 years working as an investment banker with Credit Suisse, Standard Bank (UK and Nigeria) and Dyer and Blair (Kenya).Over the last four years Jan has co-founded and invested in a string of companies across Africa focused on the growing lower middle mass market, including a digital lending platform in Kenya, a gym and laundromat chain in Nigeria, mass housing in Sierra Leone and agriculture in Ghana. His exits to date have had an average multiple of 3.2x.

Mikul Shah

Director & Founder

Born and raised in Mombasa on the Kenyan coast, Mikul Shah is a foodie, travel enthusiast, angel investor and serial entrepreneur with over 20 years experience in mature and emerging markets. In 2010, having relocated from London to Nairobi, he founded the award-winning restaurant discovery portal, EatOut. After seeing a significant gap in the market, Mikul founded Nomad magazine in 2017 with the mission to promote regional and domestic tourism in Africa, through high quality content.

Wendy Watta

Editor-in-Chief

Having decided to specialize in travel writing but not seeing any high-end publications in the market (before Nomad), she started a now-defunct travel website. Her next years were spent traversing Africa for the website, which led to travel columns for all three of Kenya’s leading dailies at separate times, consulting for tourism bodies and media companies, uncovering destinations for up to five African in-flight magazines as well as known international platforms. When a position opened up at Nomad for a three-month period, she stepped in, and hasn’t left since.

Vanessa Wanjiku

Head of Sales

Vanessa’s outgoing, positive and social personality has driven her success; she has managed to work her way up as a sales and marketing professional in the media industry. Vanessa is a living example of the famous Penelope Douglas quote “experience is the best teacher”. As the head of sales for Nomad Magazine her main goals are to make sure that the magazine is consistent, profitable and sustainable. Vanessa has a deep passion for traveling, fashion and music.

Brian Siambi

Creative Director

Brian is seasoned tea drinker known for carrying his fancy tea bags during his travels. Born and raised in Nairobi, his love for art started at a young age then later became a graphic designer for a leading entertainment company. He later found his way in the publishing industry by working for a leading women lifestyle magazine for 5 years that later saw him lead the creative team and also this is where he discovered his passion for photography.