Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

Managing Director, World Bank

Date of Birth: 13/06/1954
Place of Birth: Ogwashi Uku, Delta State

Married to Dr. Ikemba Iweala with 4 children

Education: Harvard, 1977; Ph.D. Regional economics, MIT, USA

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-Jun 2006; Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jun-Aug 2006; Managing Director, World Bank, 2007 to date

Commentary: Born in 1954, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala studied economics at Harvard University, then earned a Ph.D in regional economics and development from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1981. She joined the World Bank, where she was to spend 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. Since December 2007, she has been Managing Director for Africa, South Asia, Europe and Central Asia.

She oversees a diverse mix of infrastructure and regional integration projects. As financial and food supply worries 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.