Obiageli “Oby” Ezekwesili

Founder-chairperson, School of Politics, Policy, and Governance, Abuja, Nigeria

Obiageli “Oby” Ezekwesili served in the government of Nigeria between 2000 and 2007, first as minister of minerals and later of education. She was a presidential aide heading the Budget Monitoring and Price Intelligence Unit, and was concurrently the chairperson of the Nigerian Extractive Industry and Transparency Initiative. Ezekwesili was vice president of the World Bank Africa Region in Washington, DC, between 2007 and 2012, and worked as the director of the Harvard-Nigeria Economic Strategy Project at the Center for International Development at the Kennedy School of Government.

Ezekwesili is the founder-chairperson of the Board of the School of Politics, Policy, and Governance in Abuja, Nigeria. She was a candidate for office of the president of Nigeria in the 2019 election and became the founder-chairperson of #FixPolitics Initiative, a research-based citizens-led initiative. Ezekwesili holds an MA in international law and diplomacy and an MA in Public Policy and Administration from the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. She received an honorary doctor of science degree from the Federal University of Agriculture in Abeokuta, Nigeria, and in 2016 the University of Essex Business School awarded her an honorary doctorate degree in business in recognition of her role in promoting economic and social justice in African countries.

Ezekwesili was recognized as one of Time‘s 100 Most Influential People and by the The New York Times as one of 25 Women of Impact in 2015. The Albert Einstein Foundation named her one of 100 visionaries featured in the 3D book Genius: 100 Visions of the Future. Ezekwesili was a Richard von Weizsäcker Fellow at the Robert Bosch Academy in Berlin between 2019 and 2020.