Sandy Abena trained in business school and earned a Master's degree from an engineering school, building an early career as an international software buyer. In March 2021, at 30, she left that corporate path to devote herself fully to a passion project already taking off: sharing African and Afro-diasporic history and culture online. A lifelong solo traveler of Guadeloupean origin, she once set out to cross the 'Afroworld' at a pace of ten countries in ten months, an experience that deepened her belief that culture is best understood by seeing it firsthand.

That instinct for connecting people to heritage led her to found L'Afro Agenda, which grew into Paris's most-followed Afro cultural calendar, and later Abenafrica, where she works as a speaker and cultural advocate known as 'the most African of Caribbean women.' She built Abenafrica to make African and diaspora history approachable, championing Black-owned businesses and pushing back on stereotypes about the continent.