Mrs Ngozi Okonjo is Nigerian-American economist, who is also the Director-General of the World Trade Organization since March 2021.
She became the first woman and first African to lead the World Trade Organization as Director-General. She has sit on boards of Standard Chartered Bank, Mandela Institute for Development Studies, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security, One Campaign, Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization, Rockefeller Foundation, Results for Development, African Risk Capacity, and Earthshot Prize amongst others. check out Top 20 Most Famous Person in The World
Before now, she has sat on the Twitter Board of Directors, and stepped down in February, 2021 due to her appointment as Director General of the World Trade Organization on March 1st 2021.
Before I go into her biography in detail,let me give you a brief summary of her profile.
Ngozi Okonjo Iweala date and place of Birth:
Ngozi Okonjo Iweala was born on 13th June 1954 in Ogwashi Ukwu, Southern Region, British Nigeria (now in the present day Delta State, Nigeria).
Ngozi Okonjo Iweala Citizenship:
She is a Citizen of Nigeria from birth till present, and a Citizen of
United States since 2019 till present.
Ngozi Okonjo Iweala Political party:
People’s Democratic Party.
Ngozi Okonjo Iweala Spouse:
Ikemba Iweala.
Ngozi Okonjo Iweala Children:
Ngozi Okonjo Iweala is a mother of four children including Uzodinma Iweala.
Ngozi Okonjo Iweala Education:
Harvard University (BA)
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MA, PhD).
Ngozi Okonjo Iweala Early life and education
Mrs Ngozi Okonjo Iweala was born on 13th June 1954 in Ogwashi-Ukwu, Delta State, Nigeria, where her father, Professor Chukwuka Okonjo, was the Obi (king) of the Obahai Royal Family of Ogwashi-Ukwu.
She attended Queen’s School, Enugu, Saint Anne’s School, Molete, Ibadan, Oyo State; and the International School Ibadan.
She left for the US in 1973 to study at Harvard University and graduated magna cum laude with an AB in Economics in 1976. She also earned a master’s degree in city planning in 1978 and her PhD in regional economics and development in 1981 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with the thesis Credit policy, rural financial markets, and Nigeria’s agricultural development.
She was recognized as an international member from the American Association of University Women (AAUW), which supported her doctoral education.
Ngozi Okonjo had a 25-year career at the World Bank in Washington DC as a development economist and rose to the second position of Managing Director Operation. As the managing director, she has the responsibility for the World Bank’s $81 billion operational portfolio in Africa, South Asia, Europe, and Central Asia respectively.
She no doubt had controlled several World Bank initiatives to assist low-income countries during the 2008 to 2009 food crises and later during the financial crisis.
In 2010, she was the chairperson of the IDA replenishment, the World Bank’s successful drive to raise $49.3 billion grants and low-interest credit for the poorest countries in the world.
During her tenure at the World Bank, she was also a member of the Commission on Effective Development Cooperation with Africa, which was formed by Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen and the meetings were held between April and October 2008.
Ngozi konjo served twice as Nigeria’s Finance Minister from 2003 to 2006 and from 2011 to 2015 and acted as Foreign Minister in 2006 for a short time. She broke a record by becoming the first woman to hold both positions.
During her first tenure as Finance Minister in the presidential administration of President Olusegun Obasanjo, she took the lead in negotiations with the Paris Club that led to the wiping out of $ 30 billion (USD) of Nigeria’s debt, including the outright cancellation of $18 billion (USD).
In 2003, she tried her best to improve Nigeria’s macroeconomic management including the implementation of an oil-price based fiscal rule.
Revenues coming from the above reference benchmark oil price were saved in a special account, the “Excess Crude Account,” which helped the country to reduce macroeconomic volatility.
Ngozi Okonjo Iweala was also a vital instrument in helping Nigeria obtain its first ever sovereign credit rating (of BB minus) from Fitch Ratings and Standard and Poor’s in 2006.
She also introduced the practice of publishing the federal, state, and local government shares of revenue from the country’s federal account. That action went a long way in increasing transparency in governance in all areas of government levels, the sub-national level was the major area.
In 2011, Mrs Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala was appointed again as Minister of Finance in Nigeria with the expanded portfolio of the Coordinating Minister for the Economy by President Goodluck Jonathan. In her second tenure as Finance Minister, Mrs Okonjo-Iweala was fully responsible for leading reform that enhanced transparency of government accounts and strengthened institutions against corruption, including the implementation of the Government Integrated Financial Management System, the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Management System, and the Treasury Single Accounts.
In February 2015, the IPPIS platform eliminated 62,893 lazy workers from the system and saved the government about $1.25 billion in the exercise.
Her legacy is to strengthen the country’s public financial system and boost the housing sector with the establishment of the Nigerian Mortgage Refinance Corporation (NMRC).
Following her first tenure as Minister of Finance, she served two months as Minister of Foreign Affairs in 2006.
She later returned to the World Bank as a Managing Director in December 2007.
Under her leadership, the National Bureau of Statistics carried out a rebasing exercise of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), this was the first in 24 years, which made Nigeria to stand as the largest economy in Africa.
She also empowered women and youth with the Growing Girls and Women in Nigeria Programme (GWIN), This is a gender responsive budgeting system, and the highly acclaimed Youth Enterprise with Innovation Programme; to support young entrepreneurs, that created thousands of jobs. As part of Goodluck Jonathan’s presidency administration, she received threats and endured the kidnap of her dear mother when she tried to sanitize Nigeria’s fuel subsidy payments to some marketers in 2012.
Hence, apart from her role in government, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala served on the Commission on Growth and Development from 2006 to 2009, it was led by Nobel Prize winner Professor Michael Spence.
She was a member of the International Monetary and Finance Committee of the IMF from 2003 to 2006 and 2011 to 2015 and the United Nations’ Secretary-General’s High-ranking Panel on the Post-2015 Development Agenda. She also was among the Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation with UK Secretary Justine Greening.
In 2012, she served as a candidate for President of the World Bank, running against former Colombian finance minister Jose Antonio Ocampo and Dartmouth College President Jim Yong Kim; assuming she was elected, she would have become the organization’s first ever female president.
Ngozi Okonjo Iweala Later career
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After leaving the government, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala became an active member of the International Commission on Financing Global Education Opportunity from 2015 to 2016, headed by Gordon Brown, and the Eminent Persons Group on Global Financial Governance, which was founded by the G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors in 2017 to 2018 Since 2014, she has also been co-chairing the Global Commission for the Economy and Climate, with Nicholas Stern and Paul Polman.
In 2016, precisely by January, she became the chair-elect of the Board of Gavi.
Ngozi Okonjo Iweala is the establisher of Nigeria’s first indigenous opinion-research organization, (NOI-Polls). She also founded the Centre for the Study of the Economies of Africa (C-SEA), a development research think-tank situated in Abuja, and is a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Center for Global Development and the Brookings Institution.
Since the year 2019, Mrs Okonjo-Iweala has been part of UNESCO’s International Commission on the Futures of Education, chaired by Sahle-Work Zewde. Also since 2019 too, she has been serving on the High-Level Council on Leadership and Management for Development of the Aspen Management Partnership for Health (AMP Health).
In 2020, the International Monetary Fund’s Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva appointed her to an external advisory group to provide input on policy challenges.
Also in 2020, she was appointed by the African Union as special messenger to solicit international support to help the continent deal with the economic impact of the CoronaVirus pandemic.
In June 2020, The President Of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari nominated Ngozi Okonjo as the country’s candidate to be director-general of the World Trade Organization (WTO).
She later paved way to the election’s final round and eventually competed with Yoo Myung-hee. Before the vote, she received the support of the European Union for her candidacy.
In October 2020, the government of the United States indicated that it would not back Ngozi Okonjo Iweala’s candidacy. The World Trade Organization in its formal report said that Ngozi Okonjo Iweala “carried the largest support by Members in the final round; and, enjoyed larger support from Members from all levels of development and from all regions and has done so throughout the process.”
On February 5th 2021, Yoo Myung-hee made it known publicly about her withdrawal from the race in “close consultation with the United States.” According to a statement issued from the United States Trade Representative, “The United States takes note of the present decision by the Republic of Korea’s Trade Minister Yoo Myung-hee to withdraw her candidacy for Director General of the World Trade Organization. The Biden-Harris Administration is happy to express its strong backing for the candidacy of Ngozi Okonjo Iweala as the next Director General of the World Trade Organization.” Ngozi Okonjo Iweala was happily appointed as the next Director-General on 15th February 2021, She began her career fully as Director General of the World Trade Organization on 1st March 2021.
In the early months of 2021, Ngozi Okonjo Iweala was appointed as co-chair, alongside Tharman Shanmugaratnam and Lawrence Summers, of the High Level Independent Panel (HLIP) on financing the global commons for pandemic preparedness and response, which had been established by the G20.
In July 2021, she joined the Multilateral Leaders Task Force on CoronaVirus Vaccines, Therapeutics, and Diagnostics for Developing Countries, co-chaired by Tedros Adhanom and David Malpass.
In January 2022, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo Iweala became a participant of the Group Of Thirty (G30), an independent body of distinguished policymakers from around the world.
Ngozi Okonjo Iweala Personal life
Mrs Ngozi Okonjo Iweala is married to Ikemba Iweala, who is a neurosurgeon from Umuahia, Abia State, Nigeria. They are blessed with four children, including the well known author Uzodinma Iweala.
During her campaign to become the next Director-General of the World Trade Organization, it was revealed that Ngozi Okonjo became a United States citizen in 2019 after spending several years working and studying there.
Given the ongoing trade tensions between China and the United States, analysts commented that the disclosure would be a contributing factor in shaping China’s attitude towards her.
Ngozi Okonjo House and Cars
Having spent many years in the United States, Ngozi Okonjo Iweala and her dear husband have a home in Potomac Maryland near Washington DC. We believe she and her husband have houses in Nigeria as well.
Her cars have rarely been pictured together with her. without notwithstanding, she has been seen alighting from a Mercedes-Benz S-Class on her first day at work as the Director General of the World Trade Organization. This car has been found to be worth owning by world leaders and notable elites.
Ngozi Okonjo Iweala Other Activities
These are some the list of Government agencies she has worked with;
Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA),
Member of the International Advisory Board since 2017.
List of international organizations Ngozi Okonjo Iweala worked with
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She has worked with;
Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB).
Member of the International Advisory Panel since 2016.
Tax Inspectors Without Borders (TIWB).
Member of the Board
GAVI, Chair of the Board from 2016 to 2020.
African Development Bank (AfDB).
Ex-Officio Member of the Board of Governors from 2003 to 2006, and from 2011 to 2015.
Member of the International Monetary and Finance Committee from 2003 to 2006, and from 2011 to 2015.
Joint World Bank-IMF Development Committee, she co-chaired in 2004.
List of corporate boards she has worked with;
Twitter, Member of the Board of Directors since 2018.
Standard Chartered, Independent Non-executive Member of the Board of Directors since 2017.
Lazard, Senior Advisor since 2015.
List of non-profit organizations she worked with includes;
Africa Europe Foundation (AEF),
Member of the High-Level Group of Personalities on Africa-Europe Relations since 2020.
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace,
Member of the Board of Trustees since 2019.
Bloomberg New Economy Forum,
Member of the Advisory Board since 2018.
Results for Development (R4D),
Member of the Board of Directors since 2014.
Women’s World Banking,
Member of the Africa Advisory Council since 2014.
The B Team, Member since 2013.
Friends of the Global Fund Africa,
Member of the Board since 2007.
Global Financial Integrity (GFI),
Member of the Advisory Board since 2007.
African Risk Capacity, she served as chair of the Board.
African University of Science and Technology, as chair of the Board.
Georgetown Institute for Women.
Peace and Security, member of the Advisory Board.
Global Business Coalition for Education, Member of the Advisory Board.
International Growth Center (IGC), Senior Advisor.
Mandela Institute for Development Studies (MINDS), Member of the Advisory Board.
Mercy Corps, Member of the Global Leadership Council.
Rockefeller Foundation, Member of the Board of Trustees from 2008 to 2018.
Nelson Mandela Institution, Chair of the Board.
One Campaign, Member of the Board.
Oxford Martin School, Member of the Advisory Council.
Vital Voices, Member of the Global Advisory Council.
World Economic Forum Young Global Leaders Foundation, former Member of the Board.
Ngozi Okonjo Iweala Recognition And Awards
Mrs Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala has received a reasonable number of recognition and awards. She has been listed as one of the top 10 richest women in Nigeria,
top 50 Greatest World Leaders,
the Top 100 Most Influential People in the World,
the Top 100 Global Thinkers of Foreign Policy, between 2011 and 2012,
the Top 100 Most Powerful Women in the world,
Top 3 Most Powerful Women in Africa,
the Top 10 Most Influential Women in Africa,
the Top 100 Women in the World, the Top 150 Women in the World, the Top 100 most inspiring people in the World Delivering for Girls and Women,
She was listed among 73 “brilliant” business influencers in the world by Condé Nast International.
In 2019, She was conferred High National Honors from the Republic of Côte d’Ivoire and the Republic of Liberia.
She is also the recipient of Nigeria’s Commander of the Federal Republic (CFR).
Ngozi Okonjo Iweala honors
honors include:
2004 TIME’s European Heroes Awards.
2004 Finance Minister of the Year, in the Africa Investor Magazine.
2005 Finance Minister of the Year for Africa and the Middle East, at the Emerging Markets Magazine.
2005 Global Finance Minister of the Year, at the Euromoney.
2005 Finance Minister of the Year for Africa and the Middle East, at The Banker awards.
2010 Bishop John T. Walker Distinguished Humanitarian Service Awards.
2010 Global Leadership Award, Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs.
2011 Global Leadership Award, at Chicago Council on Global Affairs.
2011 President of the Italian Republic Gold Medal, Pia Manzu Center.
2014 David Rockefeller Bridging Leadership Award
2016 Global Fairness Award, at Global Fairness Initiative.
2016 Power with Purpose Award, at the Devex Development Communications Network.
2017 Madeleine K. Albright Global Development Award, Aspen Institute.
2017 Women’s Economic Empowerment Award, WEConnect International.
2017 Vanguard Award, Howard University.
2020 African of the Year, Forbes Africa.
2022 50 Over 50: EMEA Award, Forbes.
In October 2022, a Nigerian national honor of Grand Commander of the Order of the Order of the Niger (GCON) was conferred on her by President Muhammadu Buhari. (GCON)
Ngozi Okonjo Iweala honorary Degrees
Ngozi Okonjo Iweala has received honorary degrees from 14 universities worldwide, including some from the most prestigious colleges, some which are;
Brown University in 2006.
Colby College in 2007.
Trinity College, Dublin in 2007.
Amherst College in 2009.
University of Pennsylvania in 2013.
Yale University in 2015.
Northern Caribbean University, Jamaica.
LUISS Guido Carli, Italy in 2021.
She has also received degrees from a host of her mother’s land universities (Nigeria)
These includes;
Abia State University,
Delta State University,
Abraka, Oduduwa University, Babcock University,
and the Universities of Port Harcourt, Calabar, and Obafemi Awolowo university.
In 2019, Ngozi Okonjo Iweala was awarded with an honorary degree from Tel Aviv University.
Ngozi Okonjo Iweala Books
Ngozi Okonjo Iweala is also a well known author who has written many books that have been distributed worldwide.
Some of the publications she has written and published includes;
Chinua Achebe: Teacher of Light, A Biography.
The Debt Trap in Nigeria: Towards a Sustainable Debt Strategy.
Reforming the Unreformable: Lessons from Nigeria.
Fighting Corruption Is Dangerous: The Story Behind the Headlines.
Women and Leadership: Real Lives, Real Lessons.
Ngozi Okonjo Iweala Net Worth
Ngozi Okonjo Iweala has proven to be very hardworking based on her achievements and awards, her Networth is estimated to be at $ 550 million.
Thanks for reading through, what exactly do you appreciate about this hardworking Nigerian-American citizen?
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