enterprise risk · Governance · Controls · Strategic Advisory
The Risk and Governance Advisory Foundation Your Business Growth Depends On
Building a business in an emerging market means managing operational, vendor, compliance, and execution risk without the infrastructure that larger companies take for granted. Mission Global Risk Advisory (MGRA) helps emerging or frontier market businesses and nonprofits build the risk and governance foundation that lets them scale, pass diligence, and keep operating when things go wrong.
Most organizations build this after something goes wrong. It's cheaper, faster, and better before.
Experience Behind Our Risk and Governance Advisory Practice
24+
YEARS
Regulated industry enterprise risk & governance
$600M+
REMEDIATION
In regulatory programs led or validated
17
YEARS COMBINED IN EAST AFRICA
Nonprofit and Agricultural Development
3
COUNTRIES
Government approvals secured directly
Who We Work With
Businesses Building in Hard Places, and the Capital Behind Them
Companies between $1M and $50M in revenue with real operational complexity and no internal risk function - where processes live in peoples heads, vendor relationships are informal, and growth is outpacing the controls. We document risks against your business objectives, assess the control environment, design the controls and governance to close the gaps, and put the policies, standards, and monitoring in place to keep it working.
Growing & Mid-Market Businesses
Capital allocators structuring blended finance, deploying into Africa or emerging markets, or governing portfolios where outcomes matter alongside returns.
Impact Funds & Foundations
Operators & Founders
Independent firms seeking senior subject-matter expertise for client engagements in impact, Africa markets, or regulated industries.
Advisory Firms & Boutiques
Companies establishing or expanding operations in Sub-Saharan Africa, where the risks are unfamiliar - local partners and suppliers/third-parties you'll depend on, land and community relationships, regulatory and licensing exposure, and the governance structures a multi-country footprint requires.
Faith-aligned, impact-oriented, and multi-generational families building structured stewardship around values-driven investing.
Family Offices & Principals
NGOs, cooperatives, and social enterprises accountable to donors and grantmakers — where financial controls, procurement discipline, and program governance determine whether funding continues.
Nonprofits & Implementing Organizations
Institutions financing infrastructure, agriculture, and economic development in jurisdictions where governance and execution risk define success.
Development Finance & DFIs
Service Pillars
Enterprise Risk & Control Design
Market Entry & Third-Party Risk
Independent Risk Diligence
Regulated Industries & Remediation
Risk identification mapped to business objectives, control environment assessment, gap analysis, and control and governance design. Policies, standards, and the KRI and KPI monitoring that keeps the framework working after we leave. Built proportionate to the business — not a bank framework copied onto a mid-sized company.
Partner and supplier diligence, land and community relationships, regulatory and licensing exposure, and the governance structures a multi-country footprint requires. Grounded in nine years of in-country execution across Uganda, DRC, Burundi, and the broader region — not from a desk.
Operational and governance diligence for family offices, foundations, funds, and DFIs deploying into emerging markets. Not financial diligence — whether the business can execute, whether controls exist beyond the binder, and what happens if the founder leaves. Includes program governance for blended structures where concessionary and commercial capital converge.
Senior, scoped engagements in risk and control program architecture, regulatory remediation, business continuity design, audit validation, and issues management for banks and financial institutions. Consent order response, MRA/MRIA closeout, BSA/AML program validation, and independent risk advisory for boards and second-line functions.
The People Behind MGRA
A rare combination of regulated discipline and emerging-market execution.
Natosha "Tosha" Wallace
Founder & Principal, Risk and Governance, United States, Uganda and Africa
MGRA is led by Natosha (Tosha) Wallace, MBA, an independent advisor with 24 years of enterprise risk and regulatory governance experience inside global banking and ten years building and governing agricultural infrastructure in East Africa.
Tosha has built, validated, and governed risk, regulatory, and business continuity programs across U.S. and global financial institutions, work tied to more than half a billion dollars in enforcement actions and ranging from issue management framework design to enterprise risk and control architecture. That includes seven years as Vice President of Enterprise Risk at MUFG Union Bank, where she led remediation across 16 business lines and served as strategic liaison to the Tokyo Head Office, and her current engagement with RSM as an Audit and Risk Validation Consultant supporting Bank of America's regulatory consent orders covering Prepaid Card and BSA/AML programs.
She has been working in Uganda since 2016, first as a missionary and in support of another organization, and founded The Boon Project, Agriculture with a Purpose in 2019 alongside Global Industrial Hemp Solutions, a paired nonprofit and for-profit platform building agricultural economies communities can own. That work has produced government approvals in three countries, a 3,000-farmer cooperative, and a multi-entity operating structure across four jurisdictions. It is not a side project. It is where the governance, blended finance, and due diligence questions family offices, impact funds, and DFIs are asking get answered in practice rather than in theory.
Institutional governance discipline and lived emerging-market execution rarely sit in the same person. That combination is what MGRA brings to every engagement.
Catherine Smith
NGO & Development Consultant, Uganda and Africa
Catherine Smith brings thirteen years of nonprofit operations and community development work across Ugandan and developing-nation contexts, the last seven based in Uganda.
She founded Whispers of Love and served as its Executive Director, leading operational and administrative oversight for a nonprofit serving vulnerable children and underserved communities, and working alongside local leaders, Ministry of Gender representatives, and District Senior Probation Officers on alternative care initiatives. She has since transitioned the organization to local leadership, where it continues to operate.
Her consulting practice supports NGOs, faith-based organizations, agriculture initiatives, and donor-funded programs, covering stakeholder engagement, local partnership development, program coordination, donor and volunteer management, and safeguarding. She has supported women's empowerment and livelihood initiatives including mushroom cultivation, community gardening, and food security programs in rural communities.
For MGRA, Catherine anchors the nonprofit and development side of the practice: NGO operations and governance, donor accountability, community and stakeholder engagement, and the local government relationships that determine whether a program holds its footing on the ground.
Engagement Model
Senior, Scoped, Independent.
Advisory Retainers
Ongoing strategic counsel for principals, boards, or fund leadership. Typically 3–12 month engagements with defined deliverables and senior-level access.
Scoped Engagements
Bounded projects — due diligence support, governance design, market entry assessment, remediation validation. Clear scope, clear outcome, clear timeline.
Fractional Advisory
Part-time embedded support for organizations needing senior governance, risk, or Africa-market judgment without a full-time hire.
All engagements are senior-level and outcome-driven. MGRA does not provide staff augmentation or junior resourcing.
Start a Conversation
Whether you need to understand your risk for the first time or build the programs, frameworks, policies, and procedures to manage it, start here. Initial conversations are confidential and exploratory.