The Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC) is pleased to announce the appointment of Nana Dufie Addo as its new Chief Operating Officer (COO). She replaces Carl Nelson who served a six-year term as COO of the Center.
Nana Dufie Addo is an award-winning business and change leader with executive level experience transforming and building global organizations. She can be described as well versed with investment and financial operations and started her career as an Investment Banker and Investment Analyst with Lehman Brothers-USA (now Barclays) and the International Finance Corporation (IFC)-Johannesburg respectively. Here she handled transactions across energy, gas, healthcare and financial services industries.
In 2015, she became an Investment Officer with the Washington State Investment Board ($100+ billion AUM) where she developed investment thesis and engaged with investment managers and strategic partners to assess and allocate investments across Private Equity, Real Estate, Public Equity, Tangible Assets and Fixed Income asset classes as well as worked on a framework to develop WSIB’s approach to investing in Africa.
Ms. Addo is also a recognized business consultant and spent 3 years as a Strategic Planning Consultant with Virtual Consulting International working in the areas of telecom, oil & gas and mining industries with some of her key clients being AngloGold Ashanti and Vodacom Congo.
Prior to her appointment at the GIPC, Nana Dufie Addo worked with mPharma Data Inc., a venture-backed emerging market healthcare technology company. There she served in various capacities as the company’s Global Business Development Lead, Country Group Head for Ivory Coast and Zambia and the Global Chief Financial Officer for the company. Here she spearheaded transaction structuring, due diligence, and investor relations for the acquisition of one of Kenya’s biggest pharmacy chains; and led debt and equity capital raising rounds of more than $50 million across the US and EMEA regions for the company. She oversaw the company’s operations and growth in countries including Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Netherlands, USA, and Israel; and client drug acquisition cost was improved by 40-50% under her watch.
Leadership and entrepreneurship also feature highly in Ms. Addo’s career. She is a co-founder of the Stanford University Africa Entrepreneurship Network, a platform that uses the design thinking framework to help companies in Africa and other frontier markets overcome financial, operational, and marketing bottlenecks. She sits on the boards of Stratcomm Africa and the Minerals Income Investment Fund (MIIF) and has played advisory roles for Golden Palm Investments and Foro Energy.
Nana Dufie Addo currently holds a Master of Science in Chemical Engineering from Stanford University and a Bachelor of Arts in Chemistry and Mathematics from Mount Holyoke College, USA. She’s also a member of the USA’s oldest most prestigious academic honor society Phi Beta Kappa and was designated a ‘Next Generation Leader’ by the African Leadership Network.
The Board and Management of the GIPC welcome Nana Dufie Addo to her new role and greatly look forward to working with her.