Ekwow Spio-Garbrah


Ekwow Spio-Garbrah is a Ghanaian diplomat, banker, entrepreneur and marketing and corporate communications professional. He is a former Ghanaian Minister for Trade and Industry, Former Minister of Communications, Former Minister of Education and a former Acting Minister of Mines & Energy. He also previously served as Ghana's ambassador to the United States and Mexico . He is a former CEO of the Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation based in London.
He is one of Africa's pre-eminent public servants, and an authority on mass communications who has held several high-profile positions. He is a former member of UNESCO’s Executive Board in Paris and Chairman of the Ghana National Commission on UNESCO. Spio-Garbrah was a member of the board of directors of South Africa Telekom, AngloGold Ashanti and Vodacom SA. He was a member of the International Advisory Board of the African Press Organization.
Spio-Garbrah’s career reflects more than 40 years of top leadership and senior management experience, International Communications and Knowledge Management within the spheres of International Organisations, Government, Banking and Finance, Non-Governmental Organisations, and private business and enterprise with a focus on Africa.

Life

Born in Kumasi, Ghana to former Ghanaian ambassador Britton Spio-Garbrah and nurse/midwife and poet Elizabeth Spio-Garbrah, Ekwow was a top student at Ghana's premier Achimota School, and received a B.A in English from the University of Ghana with the top of his class. He completed coursework for a Master's degree in communications from the same university topping his class and obtained a MA in International Affairs from Ohio University in Athens. Subsequently Ekwow received a graduate certificate for International Banking and Finance from New York University in the USA in 1984. In 2001 one of America's leading liberal arts schools of higher learning, Middlebury College honored Ekow with a LLD, honoris causa in Laws for his contributions to International Relations and Africa. Ekow Spio-Garbrah's early business experience included working as a mortgage banker in New Jersey, as a sales executive with Southwestern Bell, and as chairman of the Middle East Africa Group within the international public relations firm of Hill and Knowlton in New York. In that capacity, from 1979 to 1985, he provided investment, export and tourism promotion counsel to the governments of Indonesia, Turkey, the Netherlands and Austria; financial relations advice to the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank, Crédit Agricole of France, UBAF-Arab American Bank, and energy sector intelligence to OPEC.
From 1988 to 1991, Mr Spio-Garbrah was a Corporate Relations Officer at the International Finance Corporation, the World Bank affiliate, in Washington, DC. From 1991 to 1994 he was Head of Communication at the African Development Bank, directing the bank’s global corporate and marketing communications and acting as institutional spokesman.
As Ambassador to the United States from 1994 to 1997, Spio-Garbrah was noted for his success in rebuilding Ghana’s image across the USA, including organising an unprecedented eight-city investment promotion programme for Ghana’s then President H.E Flt Lt. Jerry John Rawlings in the USA. As a result, partly of the successful bilateral programmes he executed,Ghana became the first country to be visited by U.S. President Bill Clinton during his famous five-country Africa visit in 1998 and is now a recipient of the Millennium Challenge Account. President Clinton’s visit to Ghana was also followed by visits from President George Bush and Barack Obama, making it the only sub-Saharan African country to receive all three Presidents.
As a Minister of Communication of Ghana, from 1997 to 1998, Mr Spio-Garbrah initiated, developed and implemented policies and programmes that supported the increasing convergence of telecommunications, broadcasting, the Internet, publishing, news media and postal services, all of which were under his supervision. Concurrently, as chairman of the National Communication Authority, he had responsibility for regulating all aspects of the telecom, Internet and broadcasting sectors. Ekwow Spio-Garbrah was also in charge of the Public Education Committee which successfully re-introduced the VAT to Ghana after a disastrous first attempt in the early 1990s had left several protesters dead. The VAT has since mobilized USD billions for Ghana's socio-economic and infrastructure development in Ghana.
While Education minister from 1998 to 2002, Spio-Garbrah was credited with the creation of the Ghana Education Trust Fund, which has since mobilized over USD Billions for educational sector infrastructure, transportation, equipment and scholarships. The GETFund law has been widely praised as one of the most transformative pieces of legislation in Africa relating to the education sector.
In December 2006 Mr Ekwow Spio-Garbrah contested the leadership of Ghana's main opposition party, the National Democratic Congress. Managing 8.7% of the vote, he came second to John Atta Mills, who subsequently won Ghana's 2008 presidential election. Mr Spio-Garbrah remains a leading member of Ghana's current largest opposition party, the National Democratic Congress NDC. On 15 January 2010, Mr Ekwow Spio-Garbrah was elected a vice chairman of the NDC. He was named Director of the Communications of the party from 2001-2003.
In 2011, Ekwow Spio-Garbrah was appointed Chief Executive Officer of the Christian Action Faith Ministries International. This is a global charismatic movement with millions of members across the world. This appointment made Spio-Garbrah the first person to occupy the position of CEO of a Christian denomination in Ghana. The Church's founder, Nicholas Duncan-Williams is married to the famed US trade expert Rosa Whitaker of the Whitaker Group, once US Under Secretary to Africa.
From 2014 to January 2017 Ekwow Spio-Grabrah served as Minister for Trade and Industry for the Republic of Ghana. In this position, he led in all aspects of national policy making and initiation of legislation for various aspects of domestic and international trade as well as promoting industry and private sector/business dialogue, and collaboration for Ghana’s competitiveness. He supervised agencies such as the Ghana Free Zones Board, the Ghana Export Promotion Authority, the National Standards Authority, the National Board for Small Scale Industries and the Rural Enterprises Programme.

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