Garreth Bloor has served as President of the Canada-Africa Chamber of Business since 2019 and is a seasoned consultant.
As President of The Canada-Africa Chamber of Business he has led trade and investment engagements across Canada and on the African continent. They have included Prime Ministers, leading CEOs, Cabinet Members and entrepreneurs on both sides of the Atlantic. Under his leadership the organization has grown, with new offices in Toronto, Ottawa and Accra.
Bloor is committed to intra-African free trade and their supporting institutions. In 2024 he served as an expert witness on Canada-Africa relations appearing before the Canadian Parliament's Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development (FAAE), as well as the Senate's Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade. He was an invitee to the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) deliberations during the Extraordinary Summit in Niger in 2019.
During his tenure he has rapidly expanded the programs offered by the organization, welcoming thousands of participants drawn from every country on the African continent and receiving coverage in hundreds of media outlets.
On Africa Day last year he received the Zambezi-Kilimanjaro Excellence Award from the African Group of Ambassadors, in recognition of his 'exceptional contribution to promote relations between Canada and Africa’
As of 2024, he is a Limited Partner in Launch Africa Ventures, a frontier Pan-African fund solving the significant funding gap in pre-Series A funding. Previously he served as Managing Director of Glenheim Venture Capital, which he set up in 2016 as a joint venture with the South African-based OutsourcedCFO (OCFO). Glenheim was named one of the top 25 Most Innovative Companies of 2017 by FastCompany SA and was profiled in an inaugural report of the Southern African Venture Capital and Private Equity Association’s (SAVCA) top 15 success stories.
Prior to his private sector career Bloor was an executive politician, heading economic development in the City of Cape Town - elected at age 23, and to a Parliamentary seat at age 26.
He led changes to over 300 policies and by-laws through scrapping an equivalent number, inherited from the pre-democracy city planning regime. A year following the municipal reforms the value of new building plans in the city saw a growth of 46% year-on-year. He has addressed events and presented papers at dozens of conferences globally.
After his post-graduate studies, he served as a member of the University of Cape Town’s Council from 2011 to 2016 and its University Research Committee during the same period.
St Gallen University in Switzerland named Garreth one of the Top 100 global Leaders of Tomorrow at their annual symposium in May 2014 and in 2016 he was named a Leader of Today. The Cape Town Press Club awarded him its Graduate Bursary Award in 2010, recognizing “over 500 articles published locally and abroad with contributions to over a dozen publications undertaken”.
His research has been published by - among others - Canada's Fraser Institute, where he currently serves as a Senior Associate.