Amadou Mahtar Ba is the Co-Founder and Executive Chairman of AllAfrica Global Media Inc, - owner and operator of AllAfrica.com - an international multi-media content service provider, systems technology developer and the largest distributor of African news and information worldwide. From 2009 until May 2014, he was Chief Executive of the African Media Initiative, a pan-African effort he established to provide the continent's media owners and practitioners with tools they need to play a stronger leadership role in their communities, countries and the region. [1]
Prior to starting AllAfrica, Ba served from 1996 to 2000 as Director of Communications and Marketing for BICIS Bank, a subsidiary of the French banking group BNP Paribas. From 1993 to 1996, Ba helped lead the successful restructuring and privatization of the Panafrican News Agency (PANA). [2] [3]
Amadou Mahtar Ba sits on several boards and participates in a number of international working groups including the UN Secretary General's High-Level Panel on Women's Economic Empowerment, the World Economic Forum Network of Global Agenda Councils, the Africa Democratic Institute, the Africa Policy Advisory Board of ONE and serves as a member of the Panel of Judges for the annual CNN African Journalist Award. Ba was educated in Senegal, France and Spain, and is fluent in French, English, Spanish, Fulani and Wolof. He holds a master's degree from the Ecole Française des Professionnels de la Communication in Paris and Paris 7 University (Jussieu). [1]
Ba has received many distinguished awards and recognitions in Africa, Europe, and the United States. Since the inception of its list, New African magazine selected Ba as one of the "100 Most Influential Africans" of 2011, 2012 and 2013. [4] Forbes listed him as one of "The Top 10 Most Powerful Men in Africa" in February 2014. The Millennium Africa Foundation presented him in 2014 with its Lifetime Achievement Award alongside laureates Goodluck Jonathan, President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, and Dr. Donald Kaberuka, President of the African Development Bank. Ba is also included as one of the top 500 Africans contributing to the rise of the continent by Africa24 magazine. EXPO 2015 and Afronline awarded Ba the 2012 African Media Prize for his "outstanding contribution to African Media and his skills on promoting innovation among African Media." [1]
Patrice Tlhopane Motsepe is a South African billionaire businessman and football administrator. Since March 2021, he has been president of the Confederation of African Football. He is the founder and executive chairman of African Rainbow Minerals, which has interests in gold, ferrous metals, base metals, and platinum. He sits on several company boards, including being the non-executive chairman of Harmony Gold, the world's 12th largest gold mining company, and the deputy chairman of Sanlam. He serves on the Board of Trustees of the World Economic Forum.
Strive Masiyiwa is a London-based Zimbabwean billionaire businessman and philanthropist. He is the founder and executive chairman of international technology groups Econet Global and Cassava Technologies.
AllAfrica is a website that aggregates and produces news primarily on the African continent about all areas of African life, politics, issues and culture. It is owned by AllAfrica Global Media, a multi-media content service provider and the largest distributor of African news worldwide. The website operates from offices in Cape Town, Dakar, Abuja, Monrovia, Nairobi and Washington, D.C.. AllAfrica is the successor to Africa News Service.
Amadou-Mahtar M'Bow GCIH is a Senegalese retired civil servant and former Director-General of UNESCO. Born in Dakar, M'bow served in France and North Africa during World War II after volunteering for the French Army, also serving with the Free French, and finally in the French Air Force. After the end of the war, he studied geography at the Sorbonne University in Paris. He served at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris from 1953 to 1987.
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Marieme Jamme is a Senegalese-born French-British businesswoman and technology activist. In 2016 she founded the iamtheCODE initiative and is on the board of the World Wide Web Foundation. In 2017, Quartz Africa included Jamme in their "Quartz Africa Innovators 2017" list. In 2013 she was nominated as a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum. In 2017, she won the "Innovation Award" in The Goalkeepers Global Goal Awards, curated by UNICEF and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, for globally supporting girls and young women and advancing the UN's Sustainable Development Goals. That same year, she was listed as one of BBC's 100 Women.
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Vera Songwe is an economist and banking executive from Cameroon who worked for the World Bank from 1998 to 2015, and in 2015–2017 served as Western and Central Africa's regional director for the International Finance Corporation. She was the first woman to head the UN's Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) at the level of Under-Secretary-General. Songwe currently serves as a non-resident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution's Africa Growth Initiative.
Amadou Ba is a Senegalese politician who served as Prime Minister of Senegal from 17 September 2022 to 6 March 2024. He also served as the Foreign Minister of Senegal from 2019 to 2020. He was Minister of Finance and Economy from 2013–2019.
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