Sebastian has since 2010 served as the Global Managing Director & Chief Frontier Markets Analyst at DaMina Advisors. Sebastian has counseled dozens of large global multinationals and asset managers in deploying over $30bn of foreign direct investment into Africa. Sebastian has also advised former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair’s Commission on Africa, as well as other major OECD governments on Africa.

A prolific writer and an ambidextrous thinker, Sebastian has published extensively on global frontier markets and has been quoted widely.

Previously, Sebastian led the US debt capital markets surveillance unit at Thomson Reuters in New York where he provided capital markets advice on high yield fixed income instruments in excess of $10billon. Sebastian also helped to establish the Middle East & Africa practice at leading global political risk consultancy firm, Eurasia Group in New York, London and Tokyo. He concurrently served as the Africa sovereign risk analyst for a novel global risk index developed by Eurasia Group with Lehman Brothers, Deutsche Bank, and subsequently with Citigroup.

Sebastian has been recognized as one of the world’s leading frontier markets risk analysts and was voted among the ‘Top 30 under 30 Analysts’ by New York’s Institutional Investor Magazine in 2006.

Sebastian is currently the Chairman of the Canada-Africa Chamber of Business, Canada’s largest Africa-focused trade association. He recently retired as Vice Chair of the $35+ million Christian Children’s Fund of Canada where he had served a full term on the board. Sebastian was formerly a director of Jewish Heart for Africa (Innovation Africa), New York & Tel Aviv.

Sebastian holds a B.A (double major) in Economics and Political Science from Middlebury College, Vermont, USA and a Juris Doctor of Laws (J.D) from Rutgers University, New Jersey, USA. Sebastian is a past Fellow of the Washington DC Center for the Study of the Presidency.