The Strategist

DURING A RECENT TRIP ABROAD COOK WATCHED as two fellow diners split the check. One paid with a smart- phone, the other transferred her share by text. Was Cook in Beijing, or maybe London? Try Nairobi, Kenya, a leader in mobile money. “Kenyans think we’re so archaic with our swiped credit cards,” she says.

That’s the kind of story Cook likes to share. As managing director of African Sunrise Partners—a boutique firm that provides research and advice on the country’s markets to U.S. investors—erasing misconceptions is often a challenge. “I always joke that my clients think Africa is one country, and that’s really not much of a joke,” she says. “People as- sume it’s all starving children and burned-out buildings.”

Cook fell in love with the continent as a tourist when she visited Kenya, Tanzania and Rwanda in 2007, charmed by the warmth of the people and their enterprising spirit. She left a job as head of global research at Lazard Asset Management to found her company in 2010. She has since returned to Africa more than 30 times, watching it swell with entrepreneurs—from soap being sold by women on East African roadsides to Nigeria’s publicly traded Dan- gote Cement, built by one of the country’s most successful businessmen. The White House has taken note. Last year Cook was appointed to the President’s Advisory Council on Doing Business in Africa, alongside heavy hitters from corporations such as Walmart.

A Boston native who lives in Patterson, New York, Cook trained as a competitive horseback rider while at Dartmouth. She switched gears after earning a history degree, finding a niche as an equity analyst. “I have a short attention span. I always like to be on the move,” she says. These days that means traveling to the next location on her ever-expanding hot list. “There are 54 countries in Africa,” she says. As she likes to tell CEOs, “Business is happening there, so either get on board now or you’re going to miss it.”

The entrepre- neur has visited Africa more than 30 times since 2007.