The Most Famous

ECONOMISTS from Nigeria

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This page contains a list of the greatest Nigerian Economists. The pantheon dataset contains 414 Economists, 1 of which were born in Nigeria. This makes Nigeria the birth place of the 47th most number of Economists behind Estonia, and New Zealand.

Top 1

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the most legendary Nigerian Economists of all time. This list of famous Nigerian Economists is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity.

Photo of Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

1. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala (b. 1954)

With an HPI of 49.83, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is the most famous Nigerian Economist.  Her biography has been translated into 50 different languages on wikipedia.

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala ( ; born 13 June 1954) is a Nigerian-American economist, who has been serving as the Director-General of the World Trade Organization since March 2021. Notably, she is the first woman and first African to lead the World Trade Organization as Director-General. She was previously on the boards of Danone, Standard Chartered Bank, MINDS: Mandela Institute for Development Studies, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security, One Campaign, GAVI: Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization, Rockefeller Foundation, R4D: Results for Development, ARC: African Risk Capacity and Earthshot Prize plus others. She also previously sat on the Twitter Board of Directors, and stepped down in February 2021 in connection with her appointment as Director-General of the World Trade Organization. Okonjo-Iweala serves Brookings Institution as a non-resident distinguished fellow with the Africa Growth Initiative in their Global Economy and Development Program. She is a Commissioner Emeritus and Co-Chair of Global Commission on the Economy and Climate. At The World Bank, she had a 25-year career as a development economist; rising to become Managing Director for Operations from 2007 to 2011. Okonjo-Iweala was the first Nigerian woman to serve two terms as Finance Minister of Nigeria; initially, under President Olusegun Obasanjo from 2003 to 2006; and secondly, under President Goodluck Jonathan from 2011 to 2015. Subsequently, from June to August 2006, she served as Minister for Foreign Affairs of Nigeria. In 2005, Euromoney named her Global Finance Minister of the Year.

People

Pantheon has 1 people classified as Nigerian economists born between 1954 and 1954. Of these 1, 1 (100.00%) of them are still alive today. The most famous living Nigerian economists include Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.

Living Nigerian Economists

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