Chenelle Ansah OBE

Chenelle Ansah OBE is an investor, entrepreneur, and board adviser focused on tackling systemic inequality through innovation, capital, and entrepreneurship. She was awarded an OBE in the King’s Birthday Honours 2026 for services to investment, to women in business and to charity.

She serves as Chair of the Investment Committee and Board Adviser at Crisis Venture Studio, the venture arm of the UK’s national homelessness charity, where she oversees investment strategy and long-term stewardship of capital to support venture-led solutions addressing homelessness and economic exclusion. She is also an Advisory Board member at Village Capital, a global organisation supporting mission-driven entrepreneurs and inclusive innovation ecosystems.

Chenelle has over 19 years of experience across financial services, technology, consulting, and investing. She began her career in investment banking and management consulting, including roles at Grant Thornton UK LLP and State of Flux, where she developed expertise in strategy, procurement, and organisational transformation before moving into innovation, venture, and investment leadership.

She is a Partner and previously held a senior leadership role at Cornerstone Partners, a UK-based investment firm, where she ran the investment syndicate and led investment activities, contributing to early-stage capital deployment and portfolio development across high-growth ventures. This experience strengthened her focus on disciplined capital allocation and founder support within emerging investment ecosystems.

Through her investment and advisory work, Chenelle focuses on early-stage financial inclusion, sustainability, and impact-driven ventures that expand financial inclusion and address structural barriers to economic opportunity. She has worked across Europe, Africa, and Asia, supporting the design and scaling of digital financial products and infrastructure that improve access to essential financial services for underserved communities.

Her experience includes contributing to the development and scaling of digital banking and fintech propositions such as Nomo, the UK’s first Kuwait–UK cross-border sharia compliant digital bank, as well as Tandem Bank and Zopa Bank, giving her practical insight into how financial systems can be designed to enable mobility and inclusion at scale.

Chenelle is a recognised investor and has been featured by Innovate Finance as one of its Standout Women in Fintech, as well as on Innovate UK’s Fintech Power List. She is a member of Green Angel Syndicate and is recognised by the UK Business Angels Association as one of the UK’s leading female angel investors.

Alongside her investment work, she is the founder of Nell Consulting, a boutique advisory firm specialising in the design and scaling of digital banks and financial services infrastructure. Through this work, she has supported a number of clients across four continents, including leading global financial institutions, and has advised on cross-border financial products and digital banking propositions.

Chenelle’s work is driven by a core belief that access to capital is one of the most powerful determinants of economic mobility, and that financial systems must be intentionally designed to broaden participation, not concentrate opportunity. She is regularly featured in Forbes, BBC News, BBC Radio 4, and The Sunday Times, and is a sought-after speaker on financial inclusion, venture capital, and the role of capital in addressing systemic inequality.