Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala (born 13 June 1954) is a globally renowned Nigerian economist best known for her two terms as Finance Minister of Nigeria and for her work at the World Bank , including several years as one of its Managing
Directors (October 2007 – July 2011). She briefly held the position of Foreign Minister of Nigeria in 2006.
In 2007, Okonjo-Iweala was considered as a possible replacement for former World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz . Subsequently, in 2012, she became one of three candidates in the race to replace World Bank President Robert Zoellick at the end of his term of office
in June 2012. On 16 April 2012 it was
announced that she had been unsuccessful in her bid for the World Bank presidency, having lost to the US nominee, Jim Yong Kim . This
outcome had been widely anticipated.
However, this was the first contested election for World Bank president after the demise in 2010 of the Gentlemen's agreement that the.US would appoint the World Bank president and Europe would appoint the managing director of the International Monetary Fund.
Education and personal life
Okonjo-Iweala is an Igbo from Ogwashi-
Uku , Delta State , where her father Professor Chukuka Okonjo is the Obi (King) from the Umu Obi Obahai Royal Family of Ogwashi-Uku. Okonjo-Iweala was educated at the International School Ibadan and Harvard University, graduating magna cum laude with
an AB in 1977, and earned her PhD in regional economic development from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1981. She received an International Fellowship from the American Association of University Women (AAUW) that supported her
doctoral studies. She is married to Ikemba Iweala from Umuahia , Abia State , and they have four children. The eldest, Onyinye Iweala received her PhD in Experimental Pathologynfrom Harvard University in 2008 and graduated Harvard Medical School in 2010. Her son, Uzodinma Iweala , is the author of the critically acclaimed novel Beasts of No Nation (2005) and the newly released thoughts on the HIV/ AIDS epidemic in Africa [Our Kind of People] (2012).
