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.

Mark Willms

CEO

Mark spent much of his childhood living and travelling throughout Zimbabwe, Malawi, Kenya and Uganda. Since then, his professional career always brought him back to his “second home”. As a lawyer, Mark has experience working in business and start-up law, as well as in emerging and frontier markets. He was the Co-Head of Advisory for an African geopolitical risk firm, and has been a non-profit advisor to the Salama Shield Foundation, a Ugandan NGO. As an entrepreneur, he was named one of Canada’s “notable young entrepreneurs” after he co-founded a company called Mbuntu – a coffee and travel company. Mark was named a Canadian Millennium Scholar and has an International Master of Laws degree from Duke University.

Ruth Chelimo

Digital Marketing Manager

Ruth is passionate about the environment, conservation and all things digital marketing. She’s an ardent reader and always takes a good book and her camera when she travels. She discovered her love for digital marketing and storytelling whilst working with elephants and communities at Save the Elephants. Nomad Africa ties in with her greatest loves - Travel, tourism, conservation and storytelling. As the Digital Manager at Nomad Africa, her mission is to share the beauty of Africa and highlight what makes it the ultimate travel destination.

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.