Minister of Finance
Federal Republic of Nigeria

Dr. Okonjo-Iweala, a Nigerian national is the Minister of Finance for the Federal Republic of Nigeria, a job she assumed on July 18th 2003. Prior to this appointment, Dr. Okonjo-Iweala was Vice President and Corporate Secretary of the World Bank Group. She joined the World Bank in 1982 through the prestigious Young Professionals Program, and made a career of over 20 years there working on various operational regions from the Middle East and North Africa, to East Asia and Africa. She rose through the ranks from an Economist to Vice President and Corporate Secretary. In 2000, she took a leave of absence from the World Bank to serve as an Economic Adviser to President Obasanjo of Nigeria.

Dr. Okonjo-Iweala graduated with a A.B. magna cum laude in Economics from Harvard University and holds a Ph.D. in Regional Economics and Development from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She has published several papers in development journals, the most recent of which she co-authored with some Bank colleagues on “The Impact of the East Asian Financial Crisis on Laos and Cambodia”, published in Finance and Development. Dr. Okonjo-Iweala is also co-editor of a recent book entitled “The Debt Trap in Nigeria: Towards a Sustainable Debt Strategy” and co-author of March 2003 biography of the famous Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe entitled “Teacher of Light”. She is on the Board of several NGOs and Foundations in Nigeria and abroad and has participated in numerous international conferences where she has also represented Nigeria and during her time in Washington, the World Bank. She is the recipient of numerous awards and honours, the latest being the Euromarket Forum award for vision and courage on the design and implementation of Nigeria’s Economic reform program.