Profile: Allan Kyeremateng

ALAN John Kwadwo Kyerematen, was born in October, 1955 to the late Dr A.A.Y. Kyerematen from Patasse, Kumasi and Mrs Victoria Kyerematen (nee Welsing)from Elmina and Ejisu.

As a result of his mixed ancestry, he speaks Twi fluently. In addition, he is fluent in Ga and French. He is married to Patricia Christabel Kyerematen (nee Kingsley Nyinah). Mr Kyerematen is a graduate in Economics from the University of Ghana, and is also a qualified Barrister-at-law from the Ghana Law School addition, he was a Hubert Humphrey Fellow at the School of Management of the University of Minnesota, under the United States Fulbright Fellowship Programme. He entered Adisadel College at the record age of nine years, and thereafter attended Achimota School for his sixth form education

52-year-old Alan Kyerematen has had a distinguished and successful professional career in both the private and public sectors in Ghana and abroad, spanning a period of 30 years. He was listed by Times International Magazine in 1994, as one of the top hundred (100) Global Leaders of the New Millennium, alongside world renowned personalities such as Bill Gates of Microsoft and John F. Kennedy Jnr.

Hon Kyerematen was a senior corporate executive with UAC Ghana Ltd, a subsidiary of Unilever International, and worked for a number of years as a Principal Consultant and Head of Public Systems Management at the Management Development and Productivity Institute (MDPI). In 1990, he was responsible for establishing the EMPRETEC Programme in Ghana, sponsored by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and Barclays Bank Ghana Ltd. It is conservatively estimated that 70 per cent of Ghana’s high flying entrepreneurs are products of Mr Kyerematen’s successful EMPRETEC programme in Ghana.

His impressive track record, as the founding Chief Executive of EMPRETEC Ghana, includes leading the transformation of the institute from a small UNDP project with as staff of three into an independent Foundation with a staff strength of 70, supported by over 100 private consultants in Ghana. Within three years of establishing the EMPRETEC Programme, he had turned it into an internationally recognised model for sustainable private sector development in Africa.

Whilst managing the EMPRETEC Programme, Hon. Kyerematen implemented projects funded by the UK Department for International Development (DFID),UNDP, World Bank and the European Union. During the period, he brought 180 senior British executives to Ghana as volunteers to advise and support small and medium enterprises. This is the largest ever deployment of British volunteer executives to assist private sector development in a single country. He was also responsible for the establishment of the Ghana Executive Service Organisation (GESO), which became the first senior volunteer expert service organisation in Africa to be granted membership of the International Association of Senior Executive Service Organisations.

Before his appointment in 2001 by the Kufuor Administration, as its first Ambassador to the United States to shape and lead the NPP Government’s strategic and economic relations with the Bush Administration, he was the founding Regional Director of UNDP flagship programme in Africa (Enterprise Africa) for private sector and entrepreneurship development in Africa, a programme which he designed, established and managed, initially from New York, working closely with Ms Ellen Johnson Sirieaf, then Assistant Administrator and Director of UNDP Africa and now President of the Republic of Liberia.

Under his leadership as Regional Director, Enterprise Africa, he established enterprise support programmes and service organizations in 13 Sub-Saharan countries, and developed a strong Pan-African network of Business Development Services providers and client entrepreneurs in Ghana, Zimbabwe, Bot6swana, Benin, Cameroun, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, and Mauritius.