Opportunity Africa

General Olusegun Obasanjo

Olusegun Obasanjo was president of Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, from 1999 to 2007. He oversaw his country’s first democratic handover of power and administrative reforms that accelerated economic growth.

Mr Obasanjo has played a pivotal role in the regeneration and repositioning of the African Union, including helping to establish the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD)  and the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), designed to promote democracy and good governance. He has consistently supported the deepening and widening of regional cooperation through the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the Co-prosperity Alliance Zone incorporating Benin, Ghana, Nigeria and Togo. He has served as chairman of the Group of 77, chairman of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, and chairman of the NEPAD Heads of State and Government Implementation Committee.

Mr Obasanjo has also been involved in international mediation efforts in Angola, Burundi, Namibia, Mozambique and South Africa. In 2008, the United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, appointed Mr Obasanjo as his Special Envoy to the Great Lakes region, where he has played an integral part in mediation efforts in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Mr Obasanjo was born on March 5, 1937, in Abeokuta, Ogun State, South Western Nigeria. He attended Baptist Boys High School, Abeokuta, then worked as a teacher before enlisting in the Nigerian Army in 1958.

Peter Eigen

Founder and Chair of Advisory Council of Transparency International, Founding Chair of Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, Chair Governance Projects of Humboldt-Viarina Governance Platform

Professor Peter Eigen, a lawyer by training, worked in economic development for 25 years, mainly with the World Bank in Africa and Latin America. From 1988 to 1991 and from 1999 to 2001, Professor Eigen directed the World Bank’s regional mission in East Africa. He has also provided legal and technical assistance to the governments of Botswana and Namibia.

In his development work, Professor Eigen saw how systematic corruption perverts policymaking, leading to poverty, conflict, violence and widespread desperation. Armed with this first-hand knowledge, in 1993 he founded Transparency International, now the world’s leading non-governmental organization promoting transparency and accountability in development. Since then, the World Bank, many major corporations and many national governments have adopted tough regulations cracking down on bribery.

Born in 1938 in Augsburg, Germany, Professor Eigen has taught at the universities of Frankfurt, Georgetown, Johns Hopkins, Harvard and Berlin’s Freie Universität. In 2005, Professor Eigen chaired the International Advisory Group of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI). He was chair of the EITI from 2006 to 2011 and is now EITI Special Representative.

Strive Masiyiwa

Strive Masiyiwa, a Zimbabwean national, is one of Africa’s most respected business leaders. He first came to international prominence when he fought a landmark constitutional legal battle in Zimbabwe. The ruling, which led to the removal of the state monopoly in telecommunications, is generally regarded as a milestone in opening Africa’s telecommunications sector to private capital.

Mr Masiyiwa is chairman and chief executive of Econet Wireless, a global telecommunications group based in South Africa with operations in 18 countries. He is also involved with leading African businesses in areas including financial services, insurance, renewable energy, hotels and safari lodges.

Mr Masiyiwa is internationally recognised for his leadership in campaigning against corruption in Africa and championing the rule of law. He has served on numerous boards and trusts in Zimbabwe and internationally. He is a trustee of the Rockefeller Foundation and a board member of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa.

Mr Masiyiwa is also active in promoting awareness of the impact of AIDS in Africa.  He and his wife established and fund a foundation that provides scholarships to more than 25,000 orphans. Mr Masiyiwa and his family live in Johannesburg.

Michel Camdessus

Michel Camdessus, an economist and French national, was managing director of the International Monetary Fund from 1987 to 2000.The Fund’s longest-serving leader to date, he managed it during a period of immense global change, including the enormous acceleration of globalisation and challenges ranging from the break-up of the Soviet Union to financial crises in Latin America and East Asia.

Upon taking office at the Fund, Mr Camdessus faced debt crises in more than a dozen countries and deepening poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa. From the start, he believed that widespread poverty threatened global financial stability and should be a leading concern for the IMF. He also brought renewed focus at the IMF on debt reduction, low-interest loans, poor governance and military spending.

Mr Camdessus joined France’s Ministry of Finance in 1960. He served as governor of the Bank of France from 1984 until his appointment as managing director of the IMF. He remains a member of the UN Secretary-General’s Advisory Board on Water and Sanitation.

Linah Mohohlo

Linah Mohohlo has played a key role in one of Africa’s most successful economies as governor of Botswana’s central bank since 1999. She became governor in 1999 after 23 years with the bank and service with the International Monetary Fund in Washington. She served as governor of the Bank of Botswana until October 2016. She sits on the boards of several major companies in Botswana and elsewhere.

Kofi Annan, then secretary-general of the United Nations, appointed Ms Mohohlo as Eminent Person in 2001 to oversee the evaluation of the United Nations New Agenda for the Development of Africa. She is a member of Tony Blair’s Commission for Africa and of the Africa Emerging Markets Forum.

Ms Mohohlo has received many awards, including The Banker Magazine’s Central Bank Governor of the Year (2001) for Africa and the Middle East, Euromoney’s Emerging Markets Central Bank Governor of the Year for Sub-Saharan Africa (2003), Presidential Order of Honour 2004 (Botswana’s highest public service award), African Times Africa Leadership Award (2007) and African Banker’s Banking Regulator of the Year (2007).

Ms Mohohlo has read accounting and business, economics, finance and investments at the University of Botswana, George Washington University and the University of Exeter, and has undertaken an executive management programme at Yale University. She has written and published on economics, finance, reserves management and governance.

Tidjane Thiam

Tidjane Thiam, born in Côte d’Ivoire in 1962, is the Chief Executive of Credit Suisse since June 2015. He previously served as chief financial officer and then chief executive of the London-based international financial services group Prudential plc.

Mr Thiam spent the first part of his professional career with McKinsey & Company in Paris and New York, serving insurance companies and banks. He then spent several years in Africa where he was chief executive and later chairman of the National Bureau for Technical Studies and Development in Côte d’Ivoire and a cabinet member as Secretary of Planning and Development. Mr Thiam returned to France to become a partner with McKinsey & Company and one of the leaders of its financial institutions practice before joining the British multinational insurance company Aviva in 2002. He worked at Aviva until 2008, holding successively the positions of Group Strategy and Development Director, Managing Director of Aviva International, Group Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer, Europe.

Mr Thiam is a member of the council of the Overseas Development Institute in London and a sponsor of Opportunity International, a charity focusing on microfinance in developing countries. In January 2012, he was appointed to the UK Prime Minister’s Business Advisory Group and he has been a member of the European Financial Round Table since January 2013.

Mr Thiam holds engineering degrees from the Ecole Polytechnique in Paris and the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Paris (top of his class), and an MBA from the French business school INSEAD. A national of both Côte d’Ivoire and France, he was awarded the rank of chevalier of the Légion d’honneur by the French government in July 2011.