Banker and lawyer, Elsie Addo Awadzi has been reappointed by Ghanaian President Akufo-Addo for a second term, effective Monday, February 14, 2022. Elsie Addo Awadzi was first appointed as the second deputy governor of the Bank of Ghana in February 2018, the second woman to be appointed to the position in the bank’s 65-year history.
Elsie Addo Awadzi has over 25 years of professional experience in Ghana and abroad, including in the areas of law, finance, policy and regulatory reforms, financial sector regulation, sustainable development and public financial management.
As Second Deputy Governor of the Bank of Ghana, she oversees the Bank of Ghana’s regulation and supervision of banks and other financial institutions, the macro-prudential function and other key operational functions. She is a member of the Board of Directors of the Bank, a member of the Statutory Monetary Policy Committee and a member of the Ghana Financial Stability Board, where Ghana’s financial regulators and the Ministry of Finance are represented. In addition, Elsie Addo Awadzi chairs the Inclusive Finance Committee of the Alliance for Financial Inclusion (AFI), which provides leadership and advice to the 100-member AFI network on the design and implementation of measures to close the gender gap in access to finance in developing countries. She is also a member of the expert group on women’s financial inclusion in the digital economy established by the Graça Machel Trust.
Elsie Addo Awadzi holds a Master of Laws (International Trade and Economic Law) with distinction from Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, D.C., and a Certificate of Qualification in Law from the Ghana School of Law. She also holds an M.B.A. (Finance) from the University of Ghana and a Bachelor of Laws from the same university.
She was called to the Ghana Bar in April 1996 and subsequently worked with major law firms in Ghana, designed several legal and regulatory reforms of the financial sector in Ghana and other African countries, and briefly worked as a Senior Treasury Dealer at Barclays Bank Ghana.
Career at the IMF
Prior to her appointment as Second Deputy Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Elsie Addo Awadzi served for six years, from 2012 to 2018, as Senior Advisor in the Financial and Tax Law Unit of the Legal Department of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), based in Washington, DC. In this position, she helped design reforms to strengthen financial systems and manage financial crises in various IMF member countries, and advised on legal and institutional aspects of public financial management.
Prior to joining the IMF in 2012, Elsie Addo Awadzi served two terms as a Commissioner of the Securities and Exchange Commission of Ghana. In this capacity, she worked on key financial sector legal reforms in Ghana and other African countries. Elsie Addo Awadzi also worked briefly as a Senior Treasury Broker at Barclays Bank Ghana Limited, after working in a private law firm.
Trustee of the COVID-19 National Trust Fund
To complement government’s efforts in supporting those at the forefront of the fight against COVID-19, Elsie Addo Awadzi was appointed by the President of Ghana as one of the seven trustees of the COVID-19 National Trust Fund, established by the country’s Parliament. Since then, she has played a key role in the design of the central bank’s COVID-19 policy and regulatory response measures aimed at providing more liquidity in the financial system and relief to customers of banks and other financial institutions, and advancing financial inclusion and sustainable banking initiatives.
Elsie Addo Awadzi received the Glitz Africa Corporate Personality of the Year award at the 2020 Ghana Women of the Year Honors event in Accra. Earlier in the year, she was the recipient of the Ghana Women of Excellence Award, presented by Tap Brass Ghana under the auspices of the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection.
