The United States President-elect, Donald Trump has, against expectations, appointed the 63 year-old Nigerian, Bayi Ogunlesi as a member of his 16-man economic advisory team, with Steve Schwarzman, CEO of private-equity giant Blackstone as chairman.
The Nigerian who is the only African to be so appointed as Trump prepares to take over the government from President Barak Obama this month, is managing partner of Global Infrastructure Partners.
A press statement from said: “President-elect Donald J. Trump today announced that he is establishing the President’s Strategic and Policy Forum.
“The Forum, which is composed of some of America’s most highly respected and successful business leaders, will be called upon to meet with the president frequently to share their specific experience and knowledge as the president implements his plan to bring back jobs and Make America Great Again.”
The members of the forum are:
- Stephen Schwarzman (forum chairman), chairman, CEO, and cofounder of Blackstone
- Paul Atkins, CEO of Patomak Global Partners, former commissioner of the Securities and Exchange Commission
- Mary Barra, chairwoman and CEO, General Motors
- Toby Cosgrove, CEO, Cleveland Clinic
- Jamie Dimon, chairman and CEO, JPMorgan Chase & Co.
- Larry Fink, chairman and CEO, BlackRock
- Bob Iger, chairman and CEO, The Walt Disney Company
- Rich Lesser, president and CEO, Boston Consulting Group
- Doug McMillon, president and CEO, Wal-Mart Stores Inc.
- Jim McNerney, former chairman, president, and CEO of Boeing
- Adebayo “Bayo” Ogunlesi, chairman and managing partner, Global Infrastructure Partners
- Ginni Rometty, chairwoman, president, and CEO of IBM
- Kevin Warsh, Shepard Family Distinguished Visiting Fellow in economics at the Hoover Institute, former member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
- Mark Weinberger, global chairman and CEO, EY
- Jack Welch, former chairman and CEO, General Electric
- Daniel Yergin, Pulitzer Prize winner, vice chairman of IHS Markit
Meanwhile, Ogunlesi was on 15 October, named as an independent director of Goldman Sachs Group, Inc.
Apart from being managing partner of Global Infrastructure Partners, he also serves on the boards of Callaway Golf Co. and Kosmos Energy Ltd.
At the same time, he’s the chairman of Africa Finance Corp. and serves on the boards of various not-for-profits ranging from New York Presbyterian Hospital to the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc.
Ogunlesi, whose father came from Makun, Sagamu in Ogun state, was born in 1953. His father, Theophilus Ogunlesi was Nigeria’s first professor of medicine.
After attending Kings College, Lagos for his secondary education, he received his B.A. with first class honours in Philosophy, Politics and Economics, from Oxford University.
He graduated from Harvard Law School in 1979 and later got an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Ogunlesi had a banking career with Credit Suisse First Boston from 1983 and rose to become its executive vice chairman.
Before joining Credit Suisse, Ogunlesi was an attorney in the corporate practice group of the New York law firm of Cravath, Swaine & Moore.
From 1980-81 he served as a law clerk to Associate Justice Thurgood Marshall of the United States Supreme Court.
He was a lecturer at Harvard Law School and the Yale School of Organization and Management, where he taught a course on transnational investment projects in emerging countries, according to Wikipedia
He is married to an optometrist, Dr. Amelia Quist-Ogunlesi.
His company, Global Infrastructure Partners manages Gatwick Airport in the UK
Source: NAN. [myad]
