Florence Kasumba was born on October 26, 1976 in Kampala, Uganda, and grew up in Essen, Germany. After graduating from high school, she trained in singing, dancing and acting at the "Fontys Dance Academy" in Tilburg, the Netherlands. This was followed by various roles in musicals in Germany and Austria, among them "The Lion King", "Hair" and "West Side Story".  

She had her first screen role while still a student in the Dutch feature film "Ik ook van jou" ("I Love You Too", 2001). Further supporting roles in TV movies and series followed. On German television, she appeared in smaller roles from 2005, in such the series as "Die Anrheiner," "Soko Wien" or "Letzte Spur Berlin." In 2011, Kasumba played an episode lead role in the Tatort crime thriller "Der illegale Tod." Since 2019, Kasumba has been investigating as Anaïs Schmitz alongside Maria Furtwängler in the "Tatort" episodes set in Göttingen.

On the big screen, she has appeared in supporting roles in award-winning films such as Sarah Judith Mettke's drama "Transpapa" (2012), Johannes Naber's satire "Zeit der Kannibalen" (2014) and Miguel Alexandre's tragicomedy "Arthur & Claire" (2017).  

Kasumba has also made a name for herself in the US, where she appeared in lavish comic book adaptations and blockbusters: in 2016, she played the chief of security staff alongside Scarlett Johansson in the Marvel hit film "The First Avenger: Civil War," followed by "Black Panther" (2018), in which she is a member of the all-female fighting group "Dora Milaje" as the warrior Ayo. She went on to play this role in "Avengers: Infinity War" and the series "The Falcon and the Winter Soldier," for which Asumba was nominated for a Black Reel Award. In 2017, she played Senator Acantha in Patty Jenkins' hit "Wonder Woman." In the fantasy series "Emerald City - The Dark World of Oz" (2016/2017), she starred as East, the powerful witch of the East.

Her more recent German projects include the role of a South African anti-apartheid fighter in the Amazon Prime agent series "Deutschland 86" (2018) and its sequel "Deutschland 89" (2020), as well as a role in the Netflix series "Kitz" (2021). She reprised the role of the warrior Ayo in 2022 in the Marvel adventure "Black Panther: Wakanda Forever".  

Kasumba lives with her husband in Berlin.