Yale School of Management - Ken Ofori-Atta '88

"Yale SOM has been a mantra for me — of excellence, dare-to-do, can-do, and a restlessness to change my world. It gave me the courage to return to Ghana after a career on Wall Street to participate in national rebuilding. My classmates and alumni were most encouraging as I contemplated this contrarian decision to leverage my skills at home - instead of settling for a job in New York. Yale SOM has been life changing in my search to move from success to significance in my society with a values-based orientation."

Ken is the executive chairman and co-founder of Databank Financial Services Limited (Ghana), a full service non-bank financial institution established in 1990, in Ghana. Databank Brokerage, a subsidiary, is the leading stockbrokerage firm in Ghana, with the most successful mutual fund product. Databank's services include corporate finance, asset management and equity research. The company has since acquired substantial interest in an insurance company in Ghana and a commercial bank in The Gambia. Ken is a director of a number of public listed companies including Enterprise Insurance Company Limited, and he is the chairman of The Trust Bank of The Gambia.

He is the first African fellow of the Aspen Institute's Henry Crown Leadership programme and has been honored as a Global Leader of Tomorrow by the World Economic Forum of Davos. He is a member of the president of Ghana's Investor's Advisory Council and also a member of Technoserve International.

Ken was the first African to testify in the U.S. Congress to support the Africa Growth & Opportunities Act (AGOA).

Ken went to Achimota School in Ghana, he has a BA in economics from Columbia University ('84) and an MBA from the Yale School of Management ('88). Prior to founding Databank, Ken had worked at Morgan Stanley and Salomon Brothers in New York.

Ken is married to Dr. Angela Lamensdorf Ofori-Atta, a clinical psychologist and deputy minister of Manpower Development and Employment in Ghana. They have three children.