Twenty-five leaders from 23 countries have been selected for the prestigious 2022 Eisenhower Global Fellowship Program, which consists of six weeks of intensive mid-career development in the United States. Now in its 69th year, the program is named after the 34th President of the United States, Dwight Eisenhower, and brings together innovative leaders from all walks of life and sectors to tackle great challenges and improve the world.
Since 1953, more than 2,400 mid-career leaders from 115 countries have benefited from the unique experience of an Eisenhower Fellowship. Each fellow travels on a customized itinerary designed to serve the goals of their project. Typically, they visit eight to ten cities in the United States and meet with dozens of experts in their field
25 outstanding leaders
The 25 leaders selected in 2022 from international business, finance, academia, industry, government, music, media, medicine and law, it is explained, will travel across the United States from early October to mid-November to expand their professional horizons and forge new collaborations to improve their societies.
“In these difficult times of war and fear in the world, the connections and friendships across borders and cultures that the Eisenhower Fellowship offers will advance the cause of peace,” said FE chairman, former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates. Drawn from Asia, Africa, Europe, Latin America and Australia, he said, the 2022 Global Fellows are private and public sector leaders committed to solving some of the most pressing problems of our time. They are providing health care to the suffering, protecting the environment and fighting climate change, working to limit the emissions generated by large cities and reduce the carbon footprint of hospitals. They apply behavioral genetics to personalized learning for children. They are using cultural and artistic immersion therapies to help people with mental health issues. They’re putting women on corporate boards, incubating high-tech start-ups, and looking for new ways for the private sector to help governments provide security, well-being, and stability. They are working to reduce sectarian violence, serve immigrant communities through music, and forge new partnerships to strengthen transatlantic ties between the United States and Europe.
Phyllis Wakiaga (Kenya), Senior Advisor on Private Sector Development at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change
Since July 2022, Phyllis Wakiaga is the Senior Advisor on Private Sector Development at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, where she works to design and implement strategies for 17 African countries to advance industrialization and economic transformation. Her goal is to create a revolving fund – a self-replenishing pool of money – for women that uses interest and principal payments on old loans to underwrite new ones.
Prior to joining the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, Phyllis Wakiaga was the CEO of the Kenya Association of Manufacturers (KAM), one of the leading business associations in Kenya with over 800 members. She was appointed to the position in 2015 at the age of 33. She has represented KAM on the Kenya Electricity Generating Company, Kenya Industrial Property Institute , Anti-Counterfeiting Agency and COMESA Business Council. She was also a member of the Kenya Consumer Protection Advisory Committee (KECOPAC) and chaired the Kenya Water Industrial Alliance.
Prior to heading KAM, Phyllis Wakiaga was the head of KAM’s Policy Research and Advocacy Unit. This unit provides overall direction for the association’s policy and advocacy work. In this position, she successfully led the partnership with the National Council for the Administration of Justice to develop the Kenya Anti-Illegal Trade Enforcement Manual and worked with the project’s revenue allocation committee.
Expert in various fields
An Advocate of the High Court of Kenya, Phyllis Wakiaga holds a Master’s degree in International Trade and Investment Law from the University of Nairobi, a Master’s degree in Business Administration from Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology; a Bachelor’s degree in Law from the University of Nairobi; a Diploma in Law from the Kenya School of Law, and a Post Graduate Diploma in Human Resources Management from the Institute of Human Resources Management of Kenya.
Phyllis Wakiaga started her career as a lawyer with Otieno Omuga and Ouma Advocates, before joining Kenya airways as Customer Relations Manager and later as Manager of Government and Industry Affairs. In this position, she was a key member of the Kenya government delegations that negotiated bilateral air services agreements. She was also part of the East African Community Facilitation Team that brought about improvements in all East African airports.
Married with four children, Phyllis Wakiaga is an alumna of the Swedish Institute’s Management Program on Sustainable Business Leadership and Corporate Social Responsibility. She participated in the inaugural Africa program in 2014. She has also completed training on the role of the private sector in government policy from Strathmore Business School (Kenya) and John Hopkins University (USA) on investment treaty law and arbitration.
Phyllis Wakiaga was also the UN Global Compact Network representative in Kenya and served on the Board of Directors of the Kenya Electricity Generating Company (KENGEN).
Marcia Ashong (Ghana), founder and CEO of TheBoardroom Africa (TBR Africa) and Brace Energy
Marcia Ashong is the founder and CEO of TheBoardroom Africa (TBR Africa) and Brace Energy. TBR Africa is an initiative that advocates for women in leadership positions in Africa by working with venture capital and private equity investors, development finance institutions, companies and organizations to improve the representation of women on boards and investment committees. Under her leadership, TBR Africa has successfully created the largest network of board-ready women in Africa and has placed several women on boards. The company’s unique market positioning has enabled it to secure a long-term partnership and $2 million in funding from the CDC Group (the UK’s development finance company and the largest private investor in Africa).
Brace Energy is a nascent pan-African oil and gas services company with operating licenses in Ghana and Uganda. Brace Energy is an oil and gas services company dedicated to providing outsourced support and a range of specialized services and tool rentals to clients across the oil and gas industry value chain.
Marcia Ashong also serves on the advisory board of the Mastercard Foundation in Ghana.
Marcia Ashong has a diverse background in international energy, petroleum law and extensive professional experience in the upstream oil and gas services industry in the areas of law, consulting, project management and business development. She has held senior positions on four continents(Africa, Europe, North America and the Middle East). From April 2015, to May 2016, at the age of 35, she was Country Manager in Côte d’Ivoire for the multinational oil and gas company Baker Hughes, after having been, for the same company, Sales Manager (Special Projects) for the Africa region of the same company, based in the United Arab Emirates; Head of Business Development and Global Client Account Management, based in London as well as Director of Business Development and Government Relations for Baker Hughes, based in Accra, Ghana. At the age of 32, she was the youngest director of a major oil and gas services company in Ghana.
In 2010, Marcia Ashong co-founded the Ghana Oil Club (GOC), a professional organization aimed at providing a forum for oil and energy professionals, as well as a means for active dialogue on the oil and energy sectors in Ghana. She is also a member of the GOC Board of Directors. She was part of the implementation team for the World Bank’s Extractive Industries Technical Advisory Facility (EI Sourcebook) initiative, a project to provide best practice policy frameworks for governments and stakeholders in the extractive industries, with a focus on resource-rich developing countries. Shortly thereafter, she served as an advisor on a project to evaluate the effectiveness of the Norwegian Oil for Development program in Ghana.
Marcia Ashong has published articles in the Oxford Journal of World Energy Law, where she has made contributions on global trends in local content regulation in oil and gas.
Marcia Ashong holds a Bachelor of Arts in International Relations and Political Science from the University of Minnesota, USA; a Bachelor of Laws from the University of Exeter, UK; and a Master of Laws in Energy Policy from the University of Dundee, UK.
Shahira Diab (Egypt), General Manager of La Poire Group
Shahira Diab is the General Manager of La Poire Group. Founded as a family business in 1975, La Poire has grown its pastry shop into a popular chain of 170 stores. From the age of 12, Diab spent her summers helping her mother and grandmother run the store.Shahira Diab earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from the American University in Cairo in 1998. She then joined The Pear for Tourism Enterprises as a board coordinator and assistant to the general manager. In 2003, Shahira took on the role of General Manager and led the turnaround of La Poire from a 20-store bakery chain to a well-rounded group of food service and retail companies. The group’s operations include food production, catering, as well as convenience stores and fuel retailing under a long-standing agreement with ExxonMobil Egypt. La Poire Group currently operates 174 retail outlets throughout Egypt, as well as 2 production facilities, all supported by over 3,600 employees.
Shahira Diab successfully completed the EFG-Hermes Finance and Investment Appraisal course in 1998 and graduated from the IMD MBA program in 2008 in Lausanne. She has also taken annual management courses at Harvard Business School and London Business School.
Since 2007, she has been a member of the Young Presidents’ Organization, a U.S.-based community of business leaders with approximately 30,000 members from 142 countries. She served as president of the Cairo chapter in 2019.
On August 8, 2022, Shahira Diab was elected to the Board of Trustees of Cairo University, the university where she attended.
As part of her fellowship, Shahira Diab hopes to create an “incubator-accelerator” for food businesses in Egypt, offering supply chain support, mentorship, training, start-up funding, and kitchen space to give innovative start-ups the ability to succeed “in a fierce market” and place her business at the forefront of innovation.
