Cheikh Oumar Seydi is the new Africa Director for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The Senegalese national is joining the Gates Foundation from the World Bank Group’s International Finance Corporation (IFC), where he was the regional director for sub-Saharan Africa.
Seydi joins Gates Foundation less than two years after he was appointed IFC Regional Director for Sub Saharan Africa
“Oumar brings extensive experience working across Africa, leading high-performing teams through extensive growth and partnerships across both the public and private sector,” said Chris Elias, president, Global Development at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. “He will play a central role in the foundation’s work across the world’s second largest continent.”
“I am looking forward to working with our partners and exploring new strategies that will help increase the foundation’s impact on the continent,” added Seydi “This is a critical time in Africa’s development and I am excited to join an organization that is committed to supporting African countries in meeting their development goals.”
Seydi served as IFC’s director for eastern and southern Africa and as its global director of human resources covering IFC offices worldwide. He originally joined the IFC in 1997 as an investment officer. In his role as Sub-Saharan regional director for IFC, Seydi managed the corporation’s investment and advisory operations covering the region’s 49 countries. In 2018, the Africa region became IFC’s largest annual investment program, reaching $6.2 billion in long-term investments, including more than $4 billion leveraged from other institutions for the private sector.
Prior to the IFC, Seydi was a manager at Ernst & Young in New York, where he advised corporate clients on restructuring, reorganization, corporate finance and business valuation. He also spent five years with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and began his career working for a variety of private banks and a commercial auditing firm in Senegal and Belgium. Seydi holds an MBA from Harvard Business School.
