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 Ofori-Atta is the non executive chairman of Databank and its co-founder. He was the executive chairman from 1990 until his retirement on February 14, 2012. Databank has been awarded numerous professional, social and leadership awards during his incumbency including being awarded the 2007 Most Respected Company in Ghana.

Ken is a director of two publicly listed companies – Enterprise Group Ltd and Trust Bank Ltd of The Gambia of which he is chairman. He is a director at the International Bank of Liberia and is also a board member of the Acumen Fund, a global Private Equity Social Investment Fund and a director of AAF SME Fund LLC, a target US$ 100m private equity for SME agribusiness in Africa.

Ken has keen interest in education. He is on the boards of New York University in Ghana, Central University College, University College of Agriculture and Environmental Studies. He is also chairman of the College of Agriculture and Consumer Science of the University of Ghana; and a member of the President's Council on International Activities of Yale University. He is co-founder of the Africa Leadership Initiative of the Aspen Global Leadership Network and a Henry Crown Fellow of the Aspen Institute.

Prior to co-founding Databank, Ken worked at Morgan Stanley and Salomon Brothers on Wall Street in New York. Ken went to Achimota School in Accra, Ghana; he has a BA in Economics from Columbia University in New York and an MBA from the Yale School of Management. Ken was honoured as a Donaldson Fellow at Yale University and a John Jay Fellow at Columbia University. He was twice honoured by PWC Ghana as one of the Most Respected CEOs in Ghana.

He is married to Dr. Angela Ofori-Atta (a Clinical Psychologist at the University of Ghana Medical School). They have three children and live in Accra.