Aïcha Diop Joins African Collaborations Group Advisory Board as Continent's Sport District Push Continues

Aïcha Diop | Image by ACG

African Collaborations Group (ACG) has added Aïcha Diop, a former NBA Africa and Basketball Africa League (BAL) executive, to its Advisory Board, giving the London-based project originator a brand-marketing and audience-development voice as it works to turn sport and entertainment district concepts into bankable projects across the continent. Diop was part of the team that launched the BAL in 2021, the first professional league the NBA has operated outside North America. Earlier this year, Diop was appointed as Chief of Staff role at Rugby Africa reporting directly to Chief Executive Officer, Herbert Mensah.

ACG describes itself as a strategic project origination and collaboration platform focused on industrialising sport in Africa by originating bankable sport and entertainment district ecosystems. It convenes governments, public-private partnership authorities, development finance institutions, private investors, developers, sport federations and media partners around district projects that combine venues with wider commercial development, rather than standalone stadiums or arenas.

Experience Across Africa

Diop brings more than 18 years of experience across Africa, Europe, the Middle East and North America. At NBA Africa and the BAL, she led multi-market initiatives and coordinated cross-functional teams behind the league's brand campaigns and audience-development programmes. Earlier in her career she held senior positions at IBM, managing regional initiatives across African markets, and at Flash Entertainment, where she worked on the delivery of major international events including Formula 1, UFC, athletics, tennis and football competitions, as well as large-scale concerts. She is currently a consultant in brand marketing for sports organisations and athletes. She holds a Master's degree in Sport & Lifestyle Management from Rome Business School and a Bachelor's degree in Business Administration.

"Her presence on our Advisory Board is a genuine strategic asset," said Nicolas Pompigne-Mognard, Founder and Executive Chairman of ACG.

ACG puts Africa's sport economy on a path to $20 billion by 2035, and argues the continent still lacks the integrated district ecosystems needed to capture that growth. Its pitch to governments and investors is to move beyond single-venue development toward mixed-use, revenue-generating districts, built by convening PPP authorities, DFIs, private capital, legal and transaction advisors, operators, federations, and media and broadcast partners around a single project.

Audience-development and Brand campaigns

Diop's experience covers both ends of that problem: she has run audience-development and brand campaigns inside a league (the BAL) built specifically to prove African sport properties could carry international commercial weight, and she has handled the operational mechanics of staging Formula 1, UFC and top-tier concerts on the continent through Flash Entertainment. Advisory boards at origination-stage platforms like ACG are usually built to do one thing: lend credibility to a project pipeline that has yet to reach financial close. A name tied to the BAL's launch, still the clearest recent proof that an NBA-grade commercial operation can be built in Africa, gives ACG a reference point when it makes that case to DFIs and infrastructure investors.

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