Yousif Magid Yousif Yahya

Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford

“Global connector reimagining finance and institutions across Africa and emerging markets.”

Hometown: Born in Harrare, Zimbabwe but home is Khartoum, Sudan

Fun Fact About Yourself: I have lived across Africa, the Middle East, Brazil, the United States, and now the United Kingdom so global conversations feel natural

Undergraduate School and Major: BA in International Relations at Ursinus College

Most Recent Employer and Job Title: Founder and Managing Partner, Savannah Innovation Labs

Aside from your classmates, what was the key part of Oxford Saïd’s MBA programming that led you to choose this business school and why was it so important to you? Oxford Saïd’s position at the intersection of business, policy, and impact was decisive. I wanted an MBA that allowed me to step back from execution and think strategically about how capital, institutions, and incentives shape outcomes across regions and emerging markets globally.

What course, club, or activity has been your favourite part of the Oxford Saïd MBA experience and why? Global Strategy. The course has just begun, but it already captures exactly why I came to Oxford. It creates space to engage with geopolitics, power, and long-term competitive advantage at a truly global scale.

What is the most “Oxford” thing you have done so far as a full time MBA student?
Taking part in a dinner conversation that moved from theology to China’s expansion in the South China Sea to proxy wars in Africa before ending with a debate about what makes a great polo player.

Oxford is known as a place where worlds collide. What has been the most interesting interaction you have had so far as an Oxford MBA student? It was a late night discussion with classmates whose lived experiences span multiple continents, where perspectives shaped by Brazil, Africa, Europe and Asia challenged how we think about power, development and global responsibility.

Describe your biggest accomplishment in your career so far:
Building Savannah Innovation Labs and working closely with Sudan’s Ministry of Finance. While these efforts were country-specific, they gave me transferable insight into institution building, capital mobilization and navigating complexity that applies across markets globally.

Describe your biggest accomplishment as an MBA student so far: Joining Oxford Saïd as a Skoll Scholar and being selected for leadership roles within both the Sudanese Society and the Oxford Africa Business Alliance.

Oxford Saïd is considered a mission-driven MBA program. What social issue resonates most with you?
Structural economic exclusion across emerging markets, particularly in Africa, driven by institutions and capital models that fail to reflect local realities.

How do you plan to use your career path to address this issue? Rethinking blended finance and helping build institutions designed for emerging market realities rather than forcing complex local challenges into global systems that were never built for them.

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