Former Managing Director, World Bank, Minister of Finance
Date of Birth: 13/06/1954
Place of Birth: Ogwashi Uku, Delta State
Married to Dr Ikemba Iweala, 4 children

Education: Harvard University, 1977; PhD, Regional Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), United States.

Career: Special Assistant to the Senior Vice-President, Operations, World Bank, 1989-91; Director of Institutional Change and Strategy, World Bank, 1995-97; Country Director, Malaysia, Mongolia, Laos and Cambodia, World Bank, 1997-2000; Deputy Vice-President, Middle East Region, World Bank, 2000-03; Minister of Finance and Economy, 2003-06; Minister of Foreign Affairs, June-August 2006; Managing Director, World Bank, 2007 to date.
Commentary: Born in 1954, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala studied economics at Harvard University, then earned a PhD in regional economics and development from MIT in 1981. She joined the World Bank, where she spent 21 years as a development economist. She became intimately familiar with the economies of East Asia, putting in two tours in the region, and acting as country director for Malaysia, Mongolia, Laos and Cambodia.

She is remembered in Nigeria for the new fiscal discipline she brought to the nation's finances. She returned to Nigeria in 2003, at the invitation of President Olesegun Obasanjo. As his Finance Minister, she arranged the cancellation of US$18 billion of Nigeria's debt to the Paris Club, a group of creditor nations, in 2005. The remaining $12 bn. of debt was paid the following year with money saved in budget reforms she enacted.

At the same time, she attacked corruption and accelerated privatisation and liberalisation. She signed Nigeria up to the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, a voluntary standard for petroleum and mining industries. On her watch, Nigeria's inflation more than halved. In June 2006, Obasanjo shook up his cabinet, giving Okonjo-Iweala the Foreign Ministry but allowing her to keep an eye on external debt. When this responsibility was taken from her a few months later, she resigned from the government.

Despite rumours that she would run in the 2007 presidential election, she took a job with Moscow-based Renaissance Capital before Robert Zoellick, World Bank President, lured her back to the organisation. From December 2007 to July 2011, she was Managing Director for Africa, South Asia, Europe and Central Asia.

She oversaw a diverse mix of infrastructure and regional integration projects. As financial and food supply concerns grip the globe, the World Bank is preparing aid packages to vulnerable nations. On a recent trip to Delhi, she became Bangladesh's advocate against India's tightening of rice exports.
In July 2011, Okonjo-Iweala resumed her role in Nigeria's cabinet as Finance Minister, leaving her post at World Bank.
More On Ngozi
Dr. Okonjo-Iweala is the Managing Director of the World Bank, responsible for Africa, South Asia, Europe and Central Asia. Until she resumed duties at the Bank in December 2007, she was a Distinguished Fellow of the Brookings Institution, a leading think-tank based Washington DC, USA, She previously held the posts of Minister of Finance and of Foreign Affairs in the Nigerian Government. Prior to her appointment in government, Dr. Okonjo-Iweala pursued a 21-year career as a development economist at the World Bank, where she held the post of Vice President and Corporate Secretary.Dr Okonjo-Iweala was educated at Harvard and has a PhD in Regional Economics and Development from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dr. Okonjo-Iweala has received numerous awards, including an Honorary Doctorate of Laws from Brown University in 2006, European Time Magazine Hero of the Year award in 2004 for her work on economic reform in Nigeria and Euromoney Magazine Global Finance Minister of the year 2005. Dr Okonjo-Iweala is a member of numerous boards and advisory groups, including the Clinton Global Initiative, DATA and the World Resources Institute .She serves as financial adviser to several international investment groups working in emerging markets

Intimidating profile.

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