Nigerian economist Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala has been chosen as the next Director-General of the World Trade Organization (WTO). She would be the first woman as well as the first African nation to lead the organization. Okonjo-Iweala, the former finance minister of Nigeria, will succeed Roberto Azevedo, who stepped down in August 2020.
The 66-year-old Harvard-educated development economist is seen as a down-to-earth hard worker and despite recently taking out US citizenship, she revels in being Nigerian and is fiercely patriotic - flaunting her African identity in her African-print tailored outfits.
Biography
- Born 1954 in Nigeria
- Studied at Harvard 1973-76 and earned a PhD at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1981
- Spent 25 years at the World Bank, rising to the No.2 position as Managing Director (2007-11)
- Twice Nigerian finance minister - 2003-2006 and 2011-2015 - and the first woman to hold the post
- Served briefly as foreign minister in 2006, also the first woman to do so
- Sits on the boards of Twitter, Standard Chartered Bank and the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI)
- Nominated by President Mohammadu Buhari as candidate for director-general of the WTO in June 2020
No comments:
Post a Comment