Nii Simmonds is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s GeoTech Center and an expert in emerging and frontier markets having held top leadership positions in corporate finance, entrepreneurial ecosystems, supply chains, and research commercialization. 

Simmonds has previously held managerial and profit-and-loss-statement roles for Fortune 500 firms including companies in the pharmaceutical, biotech, consumer product, and strategy consulting industries. Additionally, he advises and provides thought leadership on artificial intelligence and emerging technologies, analyzing their impact on society for innovation and policy, while accelerating impactful solutions to challenges. Simmonds has worked for World Bank Group, International Finance Corporation, and African Development Bank, providing consultation in the areas of private-sector development, diaspora engagement, financial inclusion, and agribusiness. He developed a diaspora engagement program at the World Bank Group with the goal of incentivizing professionals in the African diaspora to contribute both human and financial resources to early-stage enterprises for job creation in Africa.

Simmonds holds a BS in management from the Smeal College of Business at Pennsylvania State University with a minor in information systems and statistical analysis. In addition, he undertook graduate courses in operations/business process management at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School for Executive Education.