Teresa Clarke, an investment banker and internet entrepreneur, was the first African-American woman promoted to Managing Director in the investment banking division of Goldman Sachs, where she led corporate finance and merger & acquisition transactions for corporate clients in the industrials and real estate sectors for over a dozen years. Among the transactions she led was a $3 billion merger to create the largest home building company in the U.S. She also led several advisory assignments for corporate boards of directors, including multiple fairness opinions for merger transactions. Teresa is a Qualified SEC Audit Committee Financial Expert.
Currently, the chair of Africa.com, a holding company that operates a network of websites providing news and information about Africa to over 15 million monthly visitors from over 150 countries around the world.
Teresa serves on the boards of two public companies, American Tower (NYSE:AMT), the global provider of wireless infrastructure, where she serves on the audit committee, and Arthur J. Gallagher (NYSE: AJG), the fourth largest global insurance brokerage, where she also serves on the audit committee.
She previously served on two international public company boards: Change Financial Limited of Australia, (ASX:CCA) whose board she chaired, and where she served on the audit committee; and Cim Financial Services Ltd (SEM:CIM), listed on the Stock Exchange of Mauritius, where she served on the corporate governance committee.
Teresa’s vast experience in finance includes serving as one of fifteen American private sector leaders appointed to President Obama’s Advisory Board on Doing Business in Africa; serving on the investment committee of a regional private equity fund; and teaching corporate finance in a global MBA program. She has lectured on doing business in Africa extensively, and delivered the keynote address at the White House Summit on Africa. In addition, she has lectured on this topic at several major universities around the world including Harvard, Wharton, Stanford, Princeton, Wellesley, Tufts, and Oxford.
She serves on the Leadership Council of Women Corporate Directors (NY Chapter), is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and serves on the advisory boards of the Rhodes Scholarship for West Africa, Human Rights Watch, and the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art.
She chairs the board of the non-profit she founded, the Student Sponsorship Programme of South Africa, which has provided scholarships valued at over $15 million to over 1,500 high school students. She also chairs the board of the Friends of the Legal Resources Centre South Africa, a public law organization that employs over 100 human and civil rights attorneys and staff.
She has earned numerous awards for her business and philanthropic work, including two awards from the South African government, and was named one of the 25 Most Influential Women in Business by the Network Journal. Teresa earned an A.B. in economics, cum laude, from Harvard College, an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School.