Sara Benchina
Founder and Principal
Trained as an engineer at l'École Nationale Supérieure d'Arts et Métiers, Sara Benchina began her career at Keller Group plc, the world's largest geotechnical contractor, progressing through site engineering, project management and business development across infrastructure projects in North and West Africa.
Her early career was grounded in delivery: ground improvement, marine construction and complex site execution. She later transitioned to the client side at PFO Africa, where she was responsible for the geotechnical scope of large and complex projects, including F Tower, the Abidjan Exposition Centre and Café Cacao Tower.
Her role then expanded beyond geotechnical delivery into the capital and governance core of infrastructure. She drove lender readiness across a €1B+ EPC-F portfolio, built the financing evidence required by banking stakeholders, coordinated ESG and contractual compliance, and advanced capital mobilisation from bank due diligence through to project execution. She also built a risk-reporting architecture that connected construction sites with executive leadership. This turned field exposure into decisions and operational follow-up before risks could escalate.
After thirteen years inside infrastructure and capital programmes, Sara stepped back to deepen her expertise through an MBA at Warwick and executive study in applied AI at MIT, AI ethics and regulation at Oxford Saïd, and AI for business at Wharton.
Sylvaia was built from that combination: field experience, client-side governance, capital programme discipline and applied AI insight. It exists to support African infrastructure programmes with the judgement of someone who has operated inside them, now independent of any single public client, contractor or lender.
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