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Dr George Agyekum Donkor is the President and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the ECOWAS Bank for Investment and Development (EBID), a regional international financial institution belonging to the fifteen (15) ECOWAS Member States.

Dr Donkor had previously held the position of Vice-President, Finance and Corporate Services, for seven (7) years and prior to that, Head of Legal Division/Compliance for four (4) years of the same institution. His professional interest focuses on corporate law, leadership, change management and improvement.

A lawyer by profession and a development banker by training, Dr Donkor’s illustrious career which spans close to three decades has been marked with outstanding success. He focuses on implementing change to drive progress not only in the West Africa sub-region but also stimulate a wider international impact through regional integration and engagement. With several years of internationally recognised credentials across Europe, America, Asia, and Africa, Dr Donkor is reputed to be an experienced and successful leader with a record of accomplishments in producing, presenting, and managing the implementation of innovative business and administrative solutions. Proactive and highly self-motivated in converting opportunities into success and driving profit and growth, Dr Donkor possesses hands-on experience in innovation, organisational design, development, and improvement.

He is well-networked and highly successful in implementing business process improvements, defining the company’s direction, achieving goals on time, and optimising business procedures. He possesses a unique gift for leading large diverse teams from multi-cultural environments.

Dr Donkor holds a Doctorate in Business Administration (DBA) and a Master’s degree in Applied Business Research (MABR) from the SBS Swiss Business School, Zurich, Switzerland. He earned a PhD (Marketing) from the Commonwealth Open University (CoU), British Virgin Islands, United Kingdom. He obtained an Executive MBA (Marketing) from the University of Ghana Business School, Legon, and a Postgraduate Certificate in Contemporary Management from the Noble International Business School (NIBS), Ghana. Dr Donkor holds a Bachelor of Laws (LLB) degree from the University of Ghana, Legon, and a postgraduate professional law certificate from the Ghana School of Law.
He is a Council Member of the University of Ghana and the Chairman of the Investment Committee of the University Council. He is also a Board member of Ecobank Transnational Incorporated (ETI), ASKY Airline, Waica Re Insurance, among others. He is an adjunct lecturer in the Department of Finance, School of Business, of the University for Development Studies (UDS), Tamale, Ghana.

Dr Donkor is a recipient of many awards notable among them are the 2023 Development Champion Award, at the Rebranding African Forum, Brussels, Belgium, 2023 CEO of the year – Africa, (Ghana CEO Vision and Awards), 2022 Prix de la Fondation award at the prestigious Crans Montana Forum, Geneva, Switzerland, and Ghana Innovation Leadership Award organised by the Ghana Innovation/NIBS Award in 2019. He is named in the list of 100 personalities who are transforming Africa by Financial Afrik, a renowned international magazine. He is the current Honorary President of the Global Network for Export-Import Banks and Development Finance Institutions (G-NEXID).

Dr Donkor is a Speaker and Resource Person at numerous international conferences and fora.

Omar Alieu TOURAY is a Gambian diplomat and development professional. For several years, he was Ambassador and Permanent Representative of The Gambia to the African Union and Ambassador to Ethiopia with concurrent accreditation as High Commissioner to South Africa and Kenya.

He had been Permanent Representative Designate to the United Nations in New York before he was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation. He also worked as Regional Policy Advisor at the Regional Bureau for East and Central Africa (ODN) of the United Nations World Food Programme, and as consultant for the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, United Nations Development Programme Gambia Country Office and the Commission of the African Union. He has been working at the Islamic Development Bank in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, since 2012.

Dr. TOURAY holds a Ph.D in International Relations from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, University of Geneva. He also studied Finance and Islamic Finance at IE Business School in Madrid. He is the author of peer-reviewed books: The African Union: The First Ten Years (Lanham, New York and London, Rowman and Littlefield 2016); The Gambia and the World: A History of the Foreign Policy of Africa’s Smallest State (Hamburg African Studies Series, 2000) and several papers on International development and African Affairs. In addition to English, Dr. TOURAY speaks French and Arabic.

Mr. Sani Yaya has been Togo’s Minister of Economy and Finance since 2016. A professional in the banking and financial sector, he has put his expertise to work for major institutions such as the Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO), the Banking Commission of the West African Monetary Union (UMOA) and the ECOBANK Group (ETI) after starting out at the Société Nationale d’investissements (SNI) in Togo.

Mr. Sani Yaya is also a specialist in the insurance sector, having worked for the Nouvelle Société Interafricaine d’Assurance (NSIA) Group. He has more than thirty years of experience in high-level positions of responsibility.

As a minister, he was one of the architects of the success of the Office Togolais des Recettes (OTR), created from the merger of the customs and tax authorities. He designed the debt reduction strategy and signed an agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on the Extended Credit Facility (ECF).

Mr. Keita holds a double Master’s degree in Business Administration and Financial Management from Edinburgh Business School, Herriot-Watt University. He also holds a Post-graduate Diploma in Financial Strategy from Said Business School, University of Oxford in the United Kingdom.

Before his appointment as Minister of Trade, Industry and Employment, Mr. Keita was Director of Finance Department at the Islamic Corporation for the Development of the Private Sector in Jeddah from 2011 to the date of his appointment as Trade Minister. He first joined the Corporation in 1999 as a Young Professional Core Team Member and rose through the ranks.

In The Gambia, Mr. Keita worked at the Accountant General’s Department and The Gambia Civil Aviation Authority, where he held various positions to the level of Chief Accountant before he left for a World Bank-funded Health Project in 1998.

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is the Director-General of the World Trade Organization (WTO), the first woman and first African to hold the position in the 75-year history of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and the WTO.

Dr Okonjo-Iweala is an economist and international development expert with more than 40 years of experience, whose service includes Chair of the Board of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance (2016–2020), the African Union’s African Risk Capacity Group (2014–2020), and Co-Chair of the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate. She was a member of the Board of Trustees of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Rockefeller Foundation. She co-chaired the G20 High Level Independent Panel on Financing for Pandemic Preparedness and was one of the founders of the COVAX Facility, designed to get affordable vaccines to Low and Low Middle-Income Countries. She currently serves on the Board of Trustees of the World Economic Forum and is co-chair of the Global Commission on the Economics of Water. She is also a member of the G30 Group of top 30 people in International Finance and the council of the Prince of Wales’s initiative Earthshot Prize.

Dr Okonjo-Iweala holds the distinction of being the first woman to serve as Nigeria’s Finance Minister, a post she held for seven years in two terms. She also served briefly as the first female Foreign Affairs Minister. As Finance Minister, she implemented policy and institutional reforms to help fight corruption and she spearheaded the complete write off by the Paris Club of $30 billion of Nigeria’s debt. She spent a 25-year career at the World Bank, rising to the number two position of Managing Director, Operations. Previously Dr Okonjo-Iweala, among other duties, served as Senior Advisor at Lazard Ltd. and sat on the boards of Standard Chartered Bank PLC and Twitter Inc. She served in 2020 as African Union COVID-19 Special Envoy as well as World Health Organization COVID 19 Special Envoy.

Dr Okonjo-Iweala is the recipient of numerous honors and accolades. She was inducted as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2019 and featured in the Foreign Policy’s Top 100 Global Thinkers in 2011 and 2012. She was also listed among 73 “brilliant” business influencers in the world by Condé Nast International and received the Alumnae Recognition Award from the American Association of University Women in 2022. She was named in 2014 and again in 2021, one of TIME magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the world. She was also featured on the TIME magazine cover page in 2021. She has been named seven times by Forbes as one of the Top 100 Most Powerful Women in the World and in 2020, was named Forbes African of the Year. In 2021, she was named by Financial Times as one of the 25 Most Influential Women in the World. Dr Okonjo-Iweala was ranked by Fortune as one of the 50 Greatest World Leaders in 2015.

Dr Okonjo-Iweala is the recipient of 21 honorary degrees from some of the world’s most prestigious institutions, including Tel Aviv University, Yale University, the University of Pennsylvania, USA, Brown University, University of Amsterdam, Luiss University, Italy, Trinity College Dublin, American University, and Nyenrode Business University. She is also the recipient of Nigeria’s second highest National Honor Grand Commander of the Order of the Niger (GCON) in 2022. She has been awarded national honours by the government of the Republic of Liberia and from the Republic of Cote d’Ivoire in 2016. She also received the Grand Cross of the Order of Rio Branco from the Federative Republic of Brazil in 2023.

She is the author of several books, including Reforming the UnReformable: Lessons from Nigeria, (MIT Press, 2012), Fighting Corruption is Dangerous: The Story Behind the Headlines (MIT Press, 2018), The Debt Trap in Nigeria: Towards a Sustainable Debt Strategy (Africa World Press, 2003), and Women and Leadership: Real Lives, Real Lessons co-authored with Julia Gillard (Penguin Random House, July 2020). She has also published numerous articles, including Rethinking Multilateralism for a Pandemic Era (Finance and Development Magazine, 2021), Nigeria’s Shot at Redemption (Finance and Development Magazine, 2008), Mobilizing Finance for Education in the Commonwealth (Commonwealth Education Report 2019), and Shine a Light on the Gaps — an essay on financial inclusion for African Small Holder Farmers (Foreign Affairs, 2015).

Dr Okonjo-Iweala holds a Bachelor’s in Economics Magna Cum Laude from Harvard University and a PhD in Regional Economics and Development from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Mrs. Kanayo Awani is the Executive Vice President, Intra-African Trade Bank (IATB) at Afreximbank. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Nigeria (Enugu Campus) and a Master of Public Administration in International Trade and Finance from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, Cambridge, USA. She is also a recipient of the Edward S. Mason Fellowship in Public Policy and Management from Harvard.

Mrs. Awani has garnered extensive banking experience with Citigroup in Nigeria, serving for nearly 17 years and leaving as the Vice President and Head of Industrial & Commercial Corporates before joining Afreximbank in 2009. As the Executive Vice President, she provides strategic and operational leadership in implementing the Bank’s Intra-African trade and industrialization objectives, in support of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA).

Under her leadership, the Bank’s support for the AfCFTA negotiations led to the historic signing of the Agreement in Kigali in March 2018. Committed to the industrialization of Africa, Mrs. Awani has championed various initiatives, including the development and expansion of Industrial Parks and Export Processing Zones across the continent. Her efforts were also instrumental in the harmonization of standards in pharmaceuticals and medical consumables during the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, she led the development of the African Collaborative Transit Guarantee Scheme to facilitate cross-border trade and championed innovative programmes such as the Creative Africa Nexus (CANEX), which has allocated a $1 billion facility to finance and support several sectors. Mrs. Awani has actively promoted Africa-Caribbean trade and investment flows by directing the Bank’s Diaspora Strategy in accordance with the African Union (AU) agenda for the 6th Region. Since Mrs. Awani joined Afreximbank in 2009, she has supported the growth of the Bank from total assets of US$1.4bn to approximately $30 billion in 2022.

One of her noteworthy initiatives, the “Intra-Africa Trade Fair,” also known as the “AfCFTA Marketplace,” has attracted over 40,000 attendees and facilitated deals worth more than US$75 billion. Recognizing her outstanding leadership and dedication to African trade, Mrs. Awani has been honored with numerous accolades by various organizations, including:

• Named as a Top 100 Most Influential Person of African Descent by MIPAD, 2020.
• Recognized as one of the 100 Leading Nigerian Women in the 2022 edition of “Nigeria Women Annual: 100 Leading Women.”
• Conferred the Africa Financial Industry Summit (AFIS) Woman Leader Award, 2022.
• Featured among Forbes Afrique’s list of “The 50 Most Influential African Women,” 2023.
• Received the African Economic Integration Champion Award at the 13th Africa.
• Received the Economy Builders Forum & Awards, 2023.
• Recently proclaimed Africa Inspirational Personality of the Year by the Africa Women Impact Summit (AWIS).
• Received the Empowering Women Award at the 2023 Rebranding Africa Forum 2023.

Mrs. Awani is a Fellow of the Nigerian Institute of Management and currently serves as the Chairperson of the Africa Chapter of FCI, a global factoring association.

Mr. Simon Tiemtore is the Founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Lilium Capital, an Africa strategic investment company with targeted sectors of investment in Financial Services, Energy, Hospitality, Agro-processing and FCMG. He has over 18 years’ experience in Legal, Tax, Banking and Financial Services.

Until 2015, Mr. Tiemtore was the Group Head of Corporate Finance and Advisory Services at the African Export Import Bank (Afreximbank) and a member of the Executive Management Committee. He successfully led several African investment bank and debt capital markets transactions.

Prior to that role, Mr. Tiemtore worked at Morgan Stanley in New York where he successfully led several M&A, asset management and divestiture in the US, Europe and Asia. Prior to that role, he worked at PwC, New York and Skadden Arps, New York.

Mr. Tiemtore is currently involved in several initiatives in Africa. He is a member of the Board of the US Chamber of Commerce- Africa where he co-chairs the Banking and Financial Institutions Task Force and member of the Board of US Chamber of Commerce-ECOWAS Initiative.

He is a member of the New-York Bar Association, member of the American Bar Association-Section of International Law, Business and Practice, member of the NYU School of Laws Weinfeld Fellows. He is also a board member of the TEN Children Foundation, which is supporting orphanages across Africa.

Mr. Tiemtore holds an LLM in Laws from New-York University School of Laws and LL.M. in International studies from the American University – Washington College of Law in Washington, DC and a LLB in Laws from the University of Ouagadougou School of Laws.

Ambassador Jean-Paul Carteron is a distinguished diplomat and respected figure in international relations, known for his tireless efforts in fostering dialogue, promoting peace, and advancing global cooperation. Currently serving as the Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Ambassador of the Solomon Islands and Permanent Representative to the FAO in Rome, Ambassador Carteron brings decades of diplomatic experience to his role.

With a rich background in diplomacy and international affairs, Ambassador Carteron has held key positions such as President of the Circle of Ambassadors in Paris and the World Diplomatic Academy. He is also the founder and president of several prestigious organizations, including the Crans Montana Forum and the IUHEI Crans Montana Institute, which have played pivotal roles in promoting dialogue and understanding among nations.

Ambassador Carteron’s contributions extend beyond diplomacy to humanitarian endeavors, evidenced by his leadership in organizations like the Monaco Ambassadors Club and his involvement in initiatives promoting peace, security, and human dignity globally. Recognized with numerous awards and distinctions for his outstanding service, Ambassador Carteron continues to be a beacon of diplomacy and a champion for international cooperation.

Shri P. Kumaran belongs to the 1992 batch of the Indian Foreign Service. His first assignment was as Third Secretary in the Embassy of India, Cairo, from January 1994 to June 1997. During this period, he also learnt Arabic language at the American University in Cairo. His next posting was as Second Secretary in the Embassy of India, Tripoli, from July 1997 to December 2000. He then moved to Belgium as First Secretary in the Embassy of India, Brussels, from December 2000 to September 2003. Following this, he returned to India and served as Deputy Secretary [Europe West] in the Ministry of External Affairs from September 2003 to March 2005.

After his stint in Delhi, Shri Kumaran moved to Bangalore to serve as the Regional Passport Officer, from April 2005 to June 2007. He was then posted to Pakistan, where he served as Counsellor in the High Commission of India, Islamabad, from June 2007 to October 2009. He then moved to the USA and served as Counsellor in the Embassy of India, Washington, from October 2009 to August 2011. Following this, he was posted to Sri Lanka as Deputy High Commissioner at the High Commission of India in Colombo, from September 2011 to June 2014. His next assignment was at the Ministry of External Affairs, New Delhi, as Joint Secretary (Consular, Passport & Visa Division) from July 2014 to September 2016. He then moved to Qatar for his first Ambassadorial assignment to serve as Ambassador of India, Doha from October 2016 to July 2020. From Doha, he moved to Singapore in July 2020 and served as the High Commissioner of India to Singapore till July 2023. In July 2023, he assumed charge as Additional Secretary, Economic Relations & Development Partnership Administration (ER & DPA) in the Ministry of External Affairs. He is currently serving as Special Secretary (ER & DPA) in the Ministry of External Affairs, New Delhi.

Shri Kumaran has a B.Tech in Electronics and Communication, from IIT Madras (Chennai).