The African Development Bank (AfDB), has announced the appointment of Directors Generals and their deputies for the East, Central, Western and Southern Africa regions.
Dr. Akinwumi A. Adesina, President of AfDB announced the appointments while expressing his confidence in the new appointees to achieve greater milestones in their new capacities.
The new appointments are as follows:
1. Serge N’Guessan, Director General, Central Africa Region
Serge will act in his capacity to drive and ensure the operational efficiency, effectiveness and overall health of the Bank’s portfolio across the Central Africa Region.
Serge, a Canadian citizen, is a professional with over 30 years of experience in international development and portfolio management, who has held important representation roles within the Bank for almost 10 years.
Serge joined the Bank in 2000 as Senior Architect/Implementation Specialist, in the Human Development Department. He was subsequently assigned to the Governance and Financial Management Department, where he held the positions of Principal Procurement Specialist prior to his appointment as Chief Governance Specialist in 2008.
2. Nnenna Lily Nwabufo, Director General, East Africa Region
Nnenna, a Nigerian citizen, will be responsible for leading in the Bank Group’s strategic objective of achieving significant and transformational developmental impact in thirteen countries in East Africa.
She will lead high-level dialogues at country and regional levels and across Bank sector complexes as well as oversee the full implementation and integration of all aspects of the Bank’s work in the region.
She has been viewed as versatile and seasoned executive, with over 30 years’ professional experience in treasury and financial management, budget programming, planning and performance management, human resource and corporate services management, and country/regional operations.
Nnenna joined the Bank’s Treasury Department in 1991 where she worked at different professional levels for over a decade.
3. Leïla Farah Mokadem, Director General, Southern Africa Region
Leila, a Tunisian national, is a seasoned professional in International Finance. She has over 25 years of experience with multilateral development banks and international institutions.
She first joined the Bank in September 2002 and was appointed as Country Manager for Morocco in 2017. She has also previously held the position of Manager, Financial Institutions Division in the Bank’s Private Sector Department at Headquarters, where she designed innovative financial solutions for Africa, including the African SME Guarantee Fund, AfDB Trade Finance Initiative and the Women in Business Initiative.
Before Joining the Bank, Leila was long-term fiscal advisor to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) from August 1996 to December 1999. She started her career at the Ministry of Economy in Tunisia.
4. Dr. Solomane Koné, Deputy Director General, Central Africa Region
Solomane, Côte d’Ivoire national, has been Acting Director General for the Central Africa Region since January 2020, as well as Country Manager for the African Development Bank’s Office in Cameroon.
He joined the Bank in January 2003 as a Country Economist in the Central Africa Region, before moving to the West Africa Region and the Governance Department, and later on held several senior and managerial positions.
Prior to joining the Bank, Solomane had accumulated more than 10 years of relevant research, strategic and policy analysis experience as a lead consultant, researcher and policy analyst in various academic, national and international institutions.
5. Dr. Abdul B. Kamara, Deputy Director General, East Africa Region
Abdul, a citizen of Sierra Leone, is currently the African Development Bank Group’s Country Manager for the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia.
Abdul is a development economist with over two decades of experience in development policy research, development financing and policy work on Africa’s economic transformation and development.
He joined the Bank in 2004 and has served as Senior Agricultural Economist (2004–2007); as Manager of the Research Division (2007–2010), and for seven years as Resident Representative for Sudan, where he was also responsible for South Sudan until 2013.
6. Malinne Blomberg, Deputy Director General, North Africa Region
Malinne, a Swedish citizen, is a seasoned finance professional with solid experience in developing strategies, providing advisory services, and executing operations for results in both the public and private sectors.
Malinne has over 15 years of hands-on experience in development finance, gained largely from serving the Bank since 2008 when she joined the Water and Sanitation Department as Financial Management Specialist and later was in charge of its Division covering West and Central Africa.
Malinne is currently the Bank’s Country Manager for Egypt, where she has been leading the Bank’s operations since 2017.
Before joining the Bank, she worked for Arthur Andersen Business Consulting in the UK and on assignments in other financial hubs of the world as Manager in the Financial Services Industry up to 2001. From 2003 to 2007, Malinne served as Financial and Institutional Advisor in the Government of Uganda, in the Ministry of Water and Environment, supporting national efforts to strengthen institutional effectiveness and fund utilization, and managing the ministry’s multi-donor trust funds.
7. Kennedy K. Mbekeani, Deputy Director General, Southern Africa Region
Kennedy, a Malawian citizen, is a seasoned development economist with over 20 years of senior level country and regional experience in development finance, project management, policy advisory services, and knowledge generation.
Kennedy joined the Bank in 2009 as Chief Trade and Regional Integration Officer. He provided leadership in formulating the Bank’s trade assistance strategy to regional economic communities and on policy research on international trade, economic integration and development.
Before joining the Bank, Kennedy worked for the UNDP as a Trade, Debt and Globalisation Advisor for East and Southern Africa. Prior to that he worked as a Senior Research Fellow at the Botswana Institute for Development Policy Analysis, and as Senior Economist at the National Institute for Economic Policy in South Africa.
He holds a Bachelor of Social Science degree from the University of Malawi, MPhil (Monetary Economics) from the University of Glasgow, MA and a PhD in International Economics from the University of California. He has published on trade, regional integration, and infrastructure development in Africa.
8. Dr. Joseph Martial Ribeiro, Deputy Director General, West Africa Region
A Cape Verdean national, Dr Joseph Martial Ribeiro is currently Manager of the African Development Bank Group for the Angola Country Office, which also covers Sao Tome and Principe.
He is an experienced international development practitioner with in-depth knowledge of the key issues of decentralization, privatization and public-private partnerships. He is a seasoned professional in the evaluation and management of development projects.
Prior to joining the AfDB, Joseph worked as a consulting engineer, particularly in the areas of water and sanitation, and has extensive experience in university education in Canada and Senegal. He joined the Bank in 2000 and has served as in multiple senior capacities.