A Professor of Strategy, Head of the Delivery Unit and Senior Advisor, Vice President’s Secretariat, Office of the President – Professor Kwaku Appiah-Adu, has been inducted as a Fellow into the coveted Learned Society of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences (GAAS) for his scholarly prowess in the sciences and humanities of Strategy.
He was inducted on 17th November 2020 by the President of GAAS, Supreme Court Judge Justice Henrietta Joy Abena Nyarko Mensa-Bonsu, during the society’s 61st Founder’s Week celebrations held in Accra on the theme ‘This COVID-19 Pandemic’.
The Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences was founded in 1959 on the initiative of Ghana’s first President, Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, and aimed to promote the pursuit, advancement and dissemination of knowledge in all branches of the sciences and humanities. During the ceremony, he was duly introduced and his impressive profile was read before he was sworn-in to be accepted into the society.
Kwaku studied architecture at KNUST and chartered as an architect with the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1992. He subsequently obtained a Master of Business Administration Degree (Finance & Marketing) at the University of Wales, Cardiff, and a PhD in Strategy at Middlesex University, London.
He currently plays a lead role in the development of government’s Integrated Digital Transformation Blueprint, and serves on the Working Committee constituted to develop Ghana’s Digital Economy Policy – having earlier led the organisation of Ghana’s digital roadmap conference, which was aimed at making Ghana the preferred ICT innovation hub in Africa by 2023.
He coordinates Ghana’s Energy Sector Recovery Programme, chairs the AfCFTA’s Infrastructure-related Technical Working Group, and has played a key role in Ghana’s Land Reform Project. In 2018/19, Kwaku led through Parliament the processes of birthing Ghana’s Integrated Aluminium Development Project, as well as the Integrated Iron and Steel Development Project.
Previously, Kwaku worked at the Office of the President-Ghana, where he was Head of Policy Coordination, Monitoring and Evaluation; Chairman of the Oil and Gas Technical Committee; Director of Ghana’s Central Governance Project; member of the President’s Investors’ Advisory Council; and Advisory Board member of the UN Initiative on Continental Shelf Delineation. Prior to that, he worked as a manager at PwC’s policy, strategy and management division, and as an architect/ project manager of multimillion-dollar residential, retail, office and industrial projects in the UK.
In academia, Kwaku has served as Dean of Central University Business School and lectured at the Universities of Cardiff and Portsmouth. An author of several books, his recently co-edited titles are: Contemporary Business Imperatives in a Developing Economy (2020); Context: Executing Strategy in a Developing Economy (2017); Key Determinants of National Development (2015); and, Governance of the Petroleum Sector in an Emerging Developing Economy (2013). With over 100 publications, he has facilitated workshops and presented papers at numerous local and international fora.
Kwaku is Board Chairman, Glico Pensions Trustee Ltd.; Director, Vivo Energy Ghana Ltd.; Independent Director of the Shell Pension Fund; and Director, Switchback Developers Ltd. He has received several honours, including the President’s Crystal Award for exceptional contribution to business environment reforms and national development; and has been elected to the ANBAR Hall of Excellence for Outstanding Contribution to the Literature and Body of Knowledge. Kwaku is married to Nana Kegya Appiah-Adu with 3 children – Afua, Kwaku and Akua.
The Academy – currently with a membership of 98 living Fellows – has its members carefully selected on recommendation basis by a small working party. GAAS has evolved over the years to become a major independent think-tank that uses its platform to raise critical issues of contemporary relevance to all sectors of Ghanaian life.
