Didier Acouetey is a nonresident senior fellow with the Africa Center and is the president and founder of the AfricSearch Group, the first international recruitment and human resources consulting firm specializing in Africa. With partner Alexander Hughes, an international executive search firm, the AFRICSEARCH-ALEXANDER HUGHES Group is present in more than fifty countries.

As business advisor to several major corporations on business growth challenges in Africa, and to African governments on economic transformation and job creation issues, Acouetey has built an extensive network of contacts in the African business and political community. He has operated in more than forty countries in Africa.

He sits on the boards of several financial institutions and universities in order to keep building African corporate champions and academic best practices. He is also an active member in several think tanks and is one of the founders of the “Youth Excellency Program” whose objective is to promote Young African Leaders.

Acouetey also co-founded in 2012 the first Africa South East Asia Chamber of Commerce in Singapore. Its objective is to promote business partnerships and best practices between African and South East Asian private sectors. In this capacity, he contributes to fund mobilization for African businesses and governments.

In 2014, he launched the Africa SME Champions Forum, in partnership with institutions such as the African Guarantee Fund, the International Finance Corporation, the African Development Bank, and the African Export-Import Bank. The forum is held on an annual basis to support the growth of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Africa, and it brings together a selection of five hundred business leaders, public sector decision makers, development finance institutions, and financial stakeholders.

Acouetey speaks and writes regularly on African business and political issues in various media and has been running a monthly show on Radio France International (RFI) for the last fifteen years on entrepreneurship and capacity building.

He has published a range of articles on business in Africa and contributed to a book on globalization, as well as a recent publication on management practices in Africa.

Didier Acouetey is a graduate from the Arts et Métiers school in Paris, and holds an MBA degree from “ESCP EAP,” one of the top French business schools. He attended high-level programs on strategy and management, including at Harvard Business School.