40 Most Inspirational Female Leaders In Ghana
The 2020 40 Most Inspirational Female Leaders in Ghana list celebrates 40 inspirational women who are future leaders, business leaders or leaders in an organization or political leaders and are making a tremendous contribution to gender diversity, women, and youth empowerment in Ghana. These individuals serve as role models to the youth.
40 Most Inspirational Female Leaders in Ghana, initiative of Young Global Leaders Network, organizers of Young African Leaders Summit and Young Ghanaian Leaders Summit 2020, is an international youth leadership development organization with active presence in over 16 countries.
This is a network of young social and business entrepreneurs, young politicians, young diplomats, young business leaders, innovators, educators, policy makers, young professionals, future leaders and talented young men and women changing the world with their talents.
The network seeks to be the world’s leading organization that trains, mentors, and prepares young leaders for diplomacy, politics, business leadership and entrepreneurship.
Young Global Leaders Network is a registered company and operates in the United Kingdom (Company number 11775356) and Ghana (Registration number CG072582020).
The committee responsible for this initiative set for themselves criteria and received in-house nominations from members and management of the organization. Nominees were scrutinized and the below list made it to the final 40.
- Nana Aba Anamoah: Nana is a TV host and journalist from Ghana. She studied banking and finance in the Ghana institute of management and public administration. Nana is one of the hottest TV personalities to ever grace the Ghanaian screens. She is currently at GH One TV. Her success in this industry speaks for itself as she has won several awards including TV personality of the year, TV news anchor of the year and Ghana journalist association of the year.
- Beryl Agyekum: Beryl Agyekum has a degree in civil engineering, but she channeled her passion to have a career as a creative marketer. After seeing a gap for a single go-to offering for students to connect and collate their memories and experiences, she and some pals put their creative heads together… and Echo the magazine was born. Mrs. Beryl Agyekum Ayaaba has been awarded Young Achiever (Female) Award at the just ended 5th EMY Africa Awards.
- Claudia Lumor: She worked at Santander Bank UK and later moved to Ghana to work with Stanbic Bank in 2010. Lumor was named amongst the speakers of Woman Rising, a network for women entrepreneurs. She is the founder of Glitz Africa Magazine and the glitz class awards. She is also the Executive Producer of Glitz Africa Fashion Week Ghana.
- Afia Pokua: She studied law at Gimpa (2010-2014). She is a philanthropist and founded the vim foundation to help the less privileged. Also, she is the CEO of high-speed media institute. she won the excellence in media at multimedia group limited. Currently she is the programs director of United television.
- Dr. Caryn Agyeman Prempeh: Dr. Caryn is a medical practitioner. She is the founder of a nonprofit organization called CERVIVA focused on creating awareness and educating women on cervical cancer. She is also host on GH ONE known as “Late afternoon show”.
- Anita Griffiths Buako: she is the former president of rotary, Secondi Takoradi. During that time, she organized breast screening for market women in Takoradi. She disclosed its intention to expand the treatment room at the Kwesimintsim Hospital in the Effia-Kwesimintsim Municipality when handing over.
- Dr. Naomi Adjepong: Naomi Adjepong is the Director of Operations at Alpha Beta Education Centers, a family owned business. she has designed and implemented a full-time leadership track called the Adinkrahene Leadership Program. She also co-directs a social enterprise - Emerge Leadership Ghana Ltd, which designs and runs leadership development programs for teenagers.
- Shirley Frimpong Manso: She is the founder and CEO of Sparrow Productions, a film, television, and advertising production company. She won Best Director at the 6th Africa Movie Academy Awards. Frimpong-Manso is also a principal of Sparrow Station, a video streaming service for African entertainment from Sparrow and other African film producers. In 2013, she was ranked the 48th most influential person in Ghana according to E.tv Ghana.
- Elizabeth Patterson: Elizabeth is the founder and director of the Girls Education Initiative of Ghana which provides academic and financial support for girls, with a special focus on students with special needs.
- Kafui Adzah: Kafui Adzah has received many recognitions from the Ghanaian business sector, recently listed as the 27th most influential young Ghanaian, the 31-year-old has revolutionized the way people eat. Her company, Cookhouse GH has been involved in a lot of corporate and diplomatic catering, including 5 branches of The Bank of Africa, where Kafui used be an internal auditor.
- Sarah Femi Adetola: Femi is the Founder and Executive Director of the Fair Justice Initiative. She is a graduate of Wesleyan College (2006) and University of Ghana (2009) and qualified as a lawyer at Ghana School of Law in 2011. She is now a Senior Associate at Ampem Chambers, a member of Ghana's Prisons Board, and a successful restauranteur.
- Anita Erskine: She is a keynote speaker, a master of ceremonies (MC), a TV host and a radio presenter. In the course of her work, she has won awards for radio and TV personality and female presenter of the year in 2017.Currently, Anita is the owner of Reverbgy, a strategic development company.
- Jane Awindor: Popularly known as Efya is a female songstress in Ghana and has won for herself many awards. She is an official ambassador for the Awal Children of the Future Foundation (ACOTF), a non-profit organization aimed at helping victims of physical and emotional trauma, particularly orphans and street kids.
- Jessica Opare Saforo: she is a Ghanaian media personality, TV and radio broadcaster and entrepreneur. Also, she is the host for Transformation with Jess, Ghana's first ever weight loss reality TV show. She is the owner of The Voice Ova Company, a business that specializes in managing voice talent.
- Farida Bedwei: She is a Ghanaian software engineer and cofounder of Logiciel, a fin-tech company in Ghana. Farida Bedwei has built mobile and enterprise applications and is also known for her knowledge of software architecture and deploying mobile services. 2013 – Winner of Most Influential Women in Business and Government Award Financial Sector.
- Yvonne Nelson: She is a Ghanaian actress, model, film producer and entrepreneur. Nelson founded the Yvonne Nelson Glaucoma Foundation in 2010 to help create awareness about the disease. With support from other Ghanaian celebrities, she recorded an all-star charity single and shot a video to help educate people.
- Yawa Hanson Quao: She is a Ghanaian founder , social entrepreneur and a feminist . She sits on the board of Ashesi University College , serves on the Advisory Board, Women's Institute for Global Leadership. She is founder of the Leading Ladies Network (LLN), and a member of the African Leadership Network and the World Economic Forum’s Global Shapers Community .
- Deloris Frimpong: Popularly known as "Delay", is an entrepreneur, television and radio show host, producer, public speaker and Women's Advocate in Ghana . In 2018, Delay received the Women Empowerment Award at the 3G Awards in New York , in recognition of her feminism and championing the course of women in society. She was also first on Pulse Gh list of five most industrious celebrities in the country in 2017.
- Dr. Zanetor Rawlings: She is the member of parliament for klottey-korley constituency. In March 2014, she was a special quest of the exceptional meeting of African women framework of the crans- Montana forum. In June 2015, she led a team to donate relief items to victims of the Goil oil fire and flood disaster which took the lives of about 150 Ghanaians.
- Francisca Oteng Mensah: She happens to be the youngest parliamentarian under Ghana’s fourth republic, member of parliament for kwabre east constituency. In December 2017, she was appointed as the chairperson of the national youth authority. Also, she was part of the management of national youth authority to donate PPE’s to ministry of health to combat the deadly corona virus.
- Hon Sarah Adwoa Safo: She is the member of parliament for Dome - Kwabenya and, she is the newly appointed minister for procurement and currently the deputy majority leader of parliament. she was a nominee for the noble’s forum award in 2012. She has set up the Adwoa Safo foundation (ASF), an NGO, primarily dedicated to providing livelihood support to vulnerable groups.
- Abena Osei Asare: She is the member of parliament for Atiwa East. Prior to entering parliament, she worked as the assistant director for the New York university of Ghana between the period of 2004 and 2007. She currently serves as a board member in parliament. Also, she runs an NGO, the Waterbrooke Foundation which supports brilliant but needy students with their education.
- Nana Dokua Asiamah Adjei: She is currently the member of parliament for Akuapem north constituency and deputy minister of information. she opened a two-day photo exhibition organized by graphic communications group limited (GCGL).
- Joycelyn Tetteh: She is a member of parliament for North Dayi. She is an anti-human trafficking ambassador for Ghana by the international organization on migration and, an ambassador at the regional launch of the standard operating procedures (SOPs) to combat human trafficking. She has plans of sensitizing people on human trafficking.
- Samira Bawumia: Hajia Samira Bawumia is the Second Lady of the Republic of Ghana. She is the Founder and CEO of Samira Empowerment and Humanitarian Projects, a non-profit organization that focuses on Health, Education, Gender Parity and Women Empowerment, as well as Entrepreneurial Development. She shot to prominence in the 2016 Ghanaian Parliamentary and Presidential electioneering period. She boldly campaigned against corruption and inefficient management of state resources. She quickly became a role model for many Ghanaian young women.
- Gloria Boye-Doku: Gloria is a Partner with Deloitte’s Tax and Regulatory practice based in Ghana. She has over 12 years of professional experience spanning the areas of Indirect Tax, International Tax, Business Tax, Tax due diligence, Personal Taxes and the management of payroll and Immigration Services.
Gloria had a brief stint with the Deloitte UK office where she trained in the provision of Immigrations services. She has assisted several multinational and large local companies in resolving compliance issues with a number of regulatory authorities in Ghana including the Ghana Revenue Authority, the Ghana Immigration Service, Ghana Free Zones Authority, and the Social Security and National Insurance Trust.
She is married to Mr. Jonathan Boye-Doku and blessed with three wonderful children.
Recognition and awards earned by Gloria include, outstanding Tax Professional Award - Deloitte West & Central Africa – FY12, “Dare to be Epic Award” - Deloitte Africa - FY 16, In tune with Deloitte award “Proud and Passionate Deloittian” Deloitte Ghana - FY17, Most knowledgeable at working capital management - Deloitte Ghana CEO’s Award – FY19.
She is a member of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountant (ACCA) and a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants, Ghana (ICAG).
She holds a master’s in business administration. Gloria spends time mentoring less privileged girls.
She previously served as Managing Director of Barclays Bank Ghana for 5 years where she built a high performing and more diverse leadership team. Prior to that, she was the Finance Director of Barclays Bank Ghana. Under her strong leadership, the performance of the bank consistently exceeded expectations, culminating in its position as the most profitable bank in Ghana.
She holds an MBA (Finance) and a BSc in Business Administration (Accounting Option, First Class Honours), both from the University of Ghana Business School. She is a certified professional accountant and a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants, Ghana. Patience is also an honorary member of the Ghana Institute of Directors.
She sits on other boards, namely, the Apex board of the Jospong Group of Companies and is also on the Advisory Committee of the Ghana Infrastructure and Investment Fund.
She is a founding member of both the Executive Women Network and the International Women’s Forum, Ghana.
Patience Akyianu was named among the 100 Most Reputable Africans 2018, by the Reputation Poll, together with renowned leaders like Rwanda’s Paul Kagame, South Africa’s Cyril Ramaphosa, Ghana’s Pastor Mensah-Otabil and Strive Masiyiwa. Her other many awards and accolades include: Nobles International Award for integrity (2013), Africa Female Economic Champion-Banking (Centre for Economic & Leadership Development (CELD)-2014), Second Most Reputable Banking sector CEO in Ghana – 2017, Best Female CEO in Ghana 2018.
She is currently the Chief Executive Officer of Baobab Advisors, a financial advisory services company she founded in 2011. Prior to that, she headed the Ghana office of Renaissance Capital; a leading investment bank in Moscow.
Abena holds a First-Class Honours in BSc Administration from the University of Ghana Business School and attended the University of Colorado’s Daniel College of Business.
She is the recently appointed Deputy Managing Director of the Ghana Stock exchange.
She assumed her current role as General Manager for MGTV in 2017 and doubled as the Head of MG Digital for well over a year as well as GM for MG Radio for a period. An ardent learner, she has toured almost all major news makers in the US and United Kingdo ― BBC, CNN, VOA, Sky TV, Citizen TV and Kiss TV in Kenya, in her quest to bring on board unmatched experience to outclass her competitors.
Beatrice is Deutsche Welle trained and has a bachelor’s and master’s Degrees from the GIMPA Business School.