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Mimi Alemayehou: Top African Female Executive At The Overseas Private Investment Corporation [OPIC] - Part One

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Mimi Alemayehou is the second most powerful person at the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, [OPIC], the US government's development finance institution headquartered in the nation's capital, Washington D.C. Nominated as the Executive Vice President of the organization by President Barack Obama on March 10th, 2010 and confirmed unanimously by the full US Senate, Alemayehou co-manages OPIC which has a portfolio of more than USD $16 billion invested in over 100 countries around the world.

The mother of two is as much a modern woman as she is an African woman. A global power player with a tres chic sense of fashion, Alemayehou is a naturalized US citizen who was born in Ethiopia and spent her early years in Kenya before immigrating to the United States.

In her present role as second-in-command, Alemayehou explained that she “helps to lead a dedicated and talented team of professionals who work to provide the expertise and creative solutions to foster investment in these challenging places, and to address major world challenges from poverty and hunger to access to electricity and financial services.”

I spoke with Alemayehou to learn more about her career journey that took her from Africa to top position in Washington D.C., her current role as one of the most powerful African female executives in the United States and lessons she learned along the way.

Farai Gundan: Back on March 10th, 2010, you were nominated as the Executive Vice President of Overseas Private Investment Corporation, [OPIC] by President Barack Obama and confirmed unanimously by the full US Senate.  Belated congratulations given that we are in 2013. How did that make you feel especially being nominated by a US President, in your case President Barack Obama and unanimous confirmation by US Senate?

Mimi Alemayehou: It was a huge honor.  I feel privileged to help lead an agency that is making a real difference around the world every day. OPIC’s work supporting American businesses and mobilizing investment in emerging markets is particularly relevant today at a time when the private sector is playing such a key role in development.

Farai Gundan: You are the second highest ranking Executive within OPIC, can you give us an insight to your specific role and responsibilities with OPIC?

Mimi Alemayehou: I co-manage the US government’s development finance institution which has a portfolio of more than $16 billion invested in over 100 countries.  I help lead an amazingly dedicated and talented team of professionals who work to provide the expertise and creative solutions to foster investment in these challenging places, and to address major world challenges from poverty and hunger to access to electricity and financial services. While OPIC’s focus is on development, we apply financial rigor to our work and consistently generate a net profit.

Farai Gundan: You are a naturalized US citizen, an African woman born in Ethiopia and spent your early years in Kenya before immigrating to the United States. Tell me about more about your formative years, college life, and early career path and how you got where you are?

Mimi Alemayehou: I was definitely impacted by my early years in Ethiopia, as was every Ethiopian of my generation that lived through the Red Terror years. Seeing family members and friends imprisoned and killed for political reasons gave me a very early life lesson in the pursuit of freedom, not just political but economic freedom.  My parent’s and grandparent’s properties were expropriated and overnight they and many other families lost everything they had worked hard for.  That’s a lesson that’s hard to forget.

My most impressionable years were spent in Kenya, where for the first time I met people that were not Ethiopians.  I still have more friends in Kenya than I do in my country of birth.  I was fortunate enough to have had parents who valued education and particularly to have had a mother and grandmother who were progressive, loving, and had the same expectations of me as they did for my brothers.  In fact my brothers would argue that our parents expected more from me than them.  The first successful entrepreneur I knew well and looked up to was my grandmother. She could not read or write but she was one of the smartest women I have ever known.  I often wonder how far she would have gone if she had been allowed to go to school by her parents, who chose only to send the boys to school.

I got to where I am today partly because I did not always listen to the advice I got.  For example, earlier in my career I was always interested in working on Capitol Hill but a lot of people including some of my own family members told me that there was no way a member of Congress would hire someone who was not an American citizen. I pursued this dream anyway and was ultimately hired as legislative staffer on Capitol Hill. I have found it invaluable to question things and not necessarily take “no” for an answer.

Farai Gundan: You have been very smart with your career decisions, hence a stellar/outstanding career, how did you know you were on the right path as far as your career is concerned? What is your ultimate role? President of Ethiopia, World Bank?

Mimi Alemayehou: I don’t believe there is such a thing as a perfect position or a dead-end job. At every step, you learn. Life is a journey of learning.

I have no desire to run for political office but I care deeply about development in Africa and around the world, and that has driven my professional decisions I see tremendous opportunity to improve people’s lives and I want to be a part of that.  I just returned from a trip to South Africa and Tanzania, where I was fortunate to be part of President Obama’s dialogue with business leaders from across the continent. Africa remains a place of great challenges as well as great opportunities.

Farai Gundan: As an African woman in a high profile position, can you describe the current landscape for women in general and African women in particular as far as career opportunities available to them?

Mimi Alemayehou: When I was on the Board of the African Development Bank, I was the only woman and I served with 17 men. While some things have changed for women, many things have not.   When I returned to Washington in 2010, President Obama also nominated me to be on the Board of the African Development Foundation, where I was once again the only woman on that Board.   Today there are still very few women serving on the boards of Fortune 100, Fortune 500 companies. What that means is that we are not making the best use of 50% of our talent. One of my favorite quotes is from Christine Lagarde who said if Lehman Brothers behaved more like Lehman Sisters, things might have turned out differently for the bank.  We have a way to go on this issue.

Farai Gundan: You previously served as the United States Executive Director at the African Development Bank and in that role you were the most senior US Treasury official in Africa. What are some of the highlights of the time you spent at the African Development Bank? What were some of the challenges?

Mimi Alemayehou: The highlights were the projects we approved that created thousands of jobs and improved lives in Africa. We approved a modern highway construction project in Senegal and multiple power projects and port projects.  I have tremendous respect for my friend Donald Kaberuka who has been a great leader of the institution.

The challenge was making sure that the African people were involved at every level in their own development agenda. It often surprised me that NGOs in the Western world had more to say than local groups about projects taking place in Africa. Too often, the African voice is lost or discounted.  We have to build stronger civil society in Africa that can speak adequately on behalf of their people.

Farai Gundan: Your organization, OPIC, the US Government’s Development Finance Institution, manages over $16 billion in financing and insurance in support of private sector investment in emerging markets. What are the specific emerging markets that your organization targets and which sectors? How are the regions and sectors determined for investment by OPIC?

Mimi Alemayehou: OPIC provides loans, guarantees, and risk mitigation products like political risk insurance to companies, entrepreneurs and NGOs that pioneer investment in developing nations.

We work in countries across the globe, from Afghanistan to Kenya, the Far East and Latin America, and in a variety of sectors including power, agriculture, small & medium enterprise (SME) lending, housing, infrastructure, and manufacturing. Our criteria for investment are shaped by our own internal investment policies, and most importantly, where our clients see investment opportunities. Currently, Africa is our largest portfolio region and our fastest growing.

We pride ourselves in being nimble, flexible, and ready to take risks that commercial banks will not as well as developing with our clients the kind of creative and accommodating structures that investing in frontier market requires.

At the same time, we believe in taking prudent risks. That’s why our portfolio continues to be profitable, and we return funds to the U.S. Treasury every year.

Farai Gundan: I read on your blog that OPIC, the U.S. Government’s development finance institution is advancing President Barack Obama’s “Presidential Policy Directive” on U.S. strategy toward sub-Saharan Africa by supporting investments that create sustainable growth and prosperity throughout the region. Can you shed light on President Obama’s “Presidential Policy Directive” on U.S. strategy toward sub-Saharan Africa? And what specifically is OPIC doing to “create sustainable growth and prosperity” in the region?

Mimi Alemayehou: In June of 2012, President Obama unveiled a new Presidential Policy Directive on Sub-Saharan Africa, which further codified the United States’ long-standing commitment to the nations and peoples of the region. The document reflected our commitment to Africa through improvement of democratic institutions; supporting peace and security, promoting opportunity and development, and driving economic growth, trade, and investment.

OPIC seeks to create opportunity across Sub-Saharan Africa by helping businesses invest in the region, creating jobs, knowledge transfer, and economic growth. In President Obama’s first term, OPIC has provided $2.9 billion dollars of investment in support of private sector projects in the region and we look forward to continuing that trend in the coming years.  Furthermore, OPIC has committed $1.5 billion towards President Obama’s Power Africa initiative, aimed at doubling access to electricity on the continent.

Farai Gundan: Last year, you went on a trip to Ethiopia, with OPIC CEO Elizabeth Littlefield and witnessed the challenges Ethiopian women experienced in preparing meals for their families. As an Ethiopian, how difficult is it to witness some of these basic challenges that Ethiopia and Africa currently faces? What role do African women play coming up with solutions for Africa?

Mimi Alemayehou: It’s obviously very difficult to see that so many people, particularly women, still face these kinds of challenges. Unfortunately, my country of birth, Ethiopia, is one of the worst places to be born a girl.  You don’t have to go far from the capital of Addis Ababa to witness the hardships faced by women. A visit to the fistula clinic where child brides get treated for obstetric fistula will do it. The positive trend is that women are fighting back; there is change taking place, but not fast enough.

Follow me on Twitter @FaraiToday