Mary Akuokor Chinery-Hesse, FAAS, OSG, née Blay (born 29 October 1938)[1] is an international civil servant and diplomat, serving as the first woman Chancellor of the University of Ghana, inducted on 1 August 2018.

Her maternal great-grandfather was John van der Puije, the Gold Coast merchant, newspaper publisher, traditional ruler and politician.

[17] In the 1990s, she chaired the High-Level Panel of Eminent Persons on Review of Progress in the Implementation of the Programme for the Least Developed Countries.

[15] In 1989, she was appointed as the first woman Deputy Director-General of the International Labour Organization in Geneva, Switzerland.

[15] She has served on several boards, including those at the Centre for Policy Analysis and the Voluntary Fund for Technical Cooperation of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

[21] She was commissioned by the erstwhile Government of former President John Kufour to determine the end-of-service benefits and emoluments of Article 71 officer holders.

[25] From 2010 to 2013, she was a member of the Panel of the Wise, a consultative body of the African Union for West Africa and the board chairman for Zenith Bank, Ghana.

[32] The creation of the Fund satisfies one of the Council's primary goals, which was to support and encourage retired diplomats and other professionals to write books.