Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

From September 2006 to November 2007, she was Distinguished Visiting Fellow at Brookings Institution. Prior to that, she was Minister of Foreign Affairs of Nigeria, after serving as Nigeria’s Minister of Finance and Economy and Head of Nigeria's much acclaimed Presidential Economic team responsible for implementing a comprehensive home grown economic reform program that stabilized the macro-economy and tripled the growth rate to an average 6 percent per annum over 3 years. Her achievements as Finance Minister garnered international recognition for improving Nigeria’s financial stability and fostering greater fiscal transparency to combat corruption. Previously she pursued a 21 year career as a development economist at the World Bank, which included six years working in the East Asia region. Dr. Okonjo-Iweala was educated at Harvard and has a PhD in Regional Economics and Development from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.