Nana Dufie Addo
Ghanain British
Occupational Information
Job Title: Chief Operating Officer of Ghana Investment Promotion Centre
Professional History
Nana Dufie Addo is the COO of the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC). In this role, she is spearheading the Ghanaian government's efforts to raise $10 billion of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) across productive sectors to support the CARES program, Ghana’s post-Covid economic recovery program. To accomplish this, she is also guiding the transformation of the organization and Ghana’s investment landscape to integrate private sector efficiency and improve the country’s ease of doing business. She says her goal is to implement a sustainable investment framework through policy advocacy and tailored aftercare services that attract investors. To make this possible, she is working with government ministries to reduce the friction companies encounter; and also with local companies to help enhance their investment readiness via a program that brings sector experts, banks, development financial institutions and regional stakeholders together. During her tenure, the GIPC attracted more than $2.6 billion in FDI in 2020, which created more than 100,000 jobs in Ghana, more than 50% of which were allocated to youth. She is now leading the Ghanaian government's role in taking equity positions in companies across key Ghanaian industries to transform their operations and position them to become regional market leaders, a model championed by post-independence Singapore.
Prior to GIPC, Nana was the Chief Financial Officer of mPharma Data, a healthcare technology startup that offered a proprietary e-prescription platform tracking drug availability and pricing in pharmacies. She transformed it into one that managed pharmacy inventory purchases, spreading it to nine countries. In 2018, Fast Company named mPharma the #1 Most Innovative Company in Africa.
She also was the Investment Officer at Washington State Investment Board in the United States, where she was responsible for portfolio strategy. She evaluated asset portfolios and recommended asset allocation strategies to an investment committee. Stakeholders included university endowments, insurance programs and retirement funds. She was also engaged in African markets in due diligence. Additionally, her work experience includes consulting and strategic planning for Virtual Consulting International; as an investment analyst for the International Finance Corporation (IFC), and Lehman Brothers.
Nana has been an Investment Advisory Committee Member for Golden Palm Investments since 2020; a board member at Ghana Minerals Income Investment Fund and at Stratcomm Africa. She was a co-Founder of Stanford Africa Entrepreneurship Network and has additional roles at other investment companies. She has won the American Chemistry Society Award for Organic Chemistry and has been selected as a Next Generation Leader 2012 by the African Leadership Network.
Qualifications
Bachelor of Arts in Chemistry and Mathematics from Mount Holyoke College in Massachussetts, USA
Master of Science in Chemical Engineering from Stanford University
Programs
2022 Archbishop Desmond Tutu Leadership Fellow
