Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala GCON (/əŋˈɡoʊzi əˈkoʊndʒoʊ ɪˈweɪlə/ ⓘ; born 13 June 1954[2]) is a Nigerian economist,[3][4][5][6] who has been serving as the Director-General of the World Trade Organization since March 2021.

[7][8][9] She was previously on the boards of Danone, Standard Chartered Bank, MINDS: Mandela Institute for Development Studies, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security, One Campaign, GAVI: Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization, Rockefeller Foundation, R4D: Results for Development, ARC: African Risk Capacity and Earthshot Prize plus others.

[10][11][12][13][14] She also previously sat on the Twitter Board of Directors, and stepped down in February 2021 in connection with her appointment as Director-General of the World Trade Organization.

[15] Okonjo-Iweala serves Brookings Institution as a non-resident distinguished fellow with the Africa Growth Initiative in their Global Economy and Development Program.

[28] During her time at the World Bank, she was also a member of the Commission on Effective Development Cooperation with Africa, which was set up by Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen and held meetings between April and October 2008.

In her second term as Finance Minister, Dr Okonjo-Iweala was responsible for leading reform that enhanced transparency of government accounts and strengthened institutions against corruption, including the implementation of the GIFMS (Government Integrated Financial Management System), the IPPMS (Integrated Personnel and Payroll Management System), and the TSA (Treasury Single Accounts).

[35][36] Her legacy includes strengthening the country's public financial systems and stimulating the housing sector with the establishment of the Nigerian Mortgage Refinance Corporation (NMRC) in 2013.

[37] Under her leadership, the National Bureau of Statistics carried out a re-basing exercise of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the first in 24 years, which saw Nigeria emerge as the largest economy in Africa.

[40][41] As part of Goodluck Jonathan's administration, she received death threats and endured the kidnapping of her mother when she tried to sanitise Nigeria’s fuel subsidy payments to some marketers in 2012.

[42] In addition to her role in government, Okonjo-Iweala served on the Commission on Growth and Development (2006–2009), led by Nobel Prize winner Professor Michael Spence.

She was a member of the International Monetary and Finance Committee of the IMF (2003-2006 and 2011-2015) and the United Nations’ Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel on the Post-2015 Development Agenda (2012–2013).

[51] In 2020, the International Monetary Fund's Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva appointed her to an external advisory group to provide input on policy challenges.

[53] In June 2020, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari nominated Okonjo-Iweala as the country’s candidate to be director-general of the World Trade Organization (WTO).

[61] In early 2021, Okonjo-Iweala was appointed as co-chair, alongside Tharman Shanmugaratnam and Lawrence Summers, of the G20 High Level Independent Panel (HLIP) on financing the global commons for pandemic preparedness and response and was one of the founders of the COVAX Facility, designed to get affordable vaccines to Low and Middle-Income Countries.

[62] In July 2021, she joined the Multilateral Leaders Task Force on COVID-19 Vaccines, Therapeutics, and Diagnostics for Developing Countries, co-chaired by Tedros Adhanom and David Malpass.