Tewodros Ashenafi’s biography, net worth, fact, career, awards and life story

Intro Ethiopian businessman
Is Businessperson 
From Ethiopia 
Type Business 
Gender male
Birth 26 August 1969
Age: 50 years

Tewodros Ashenafi (born 26 August 1969) is an Ethiopian entrepreneur. He currently serves as CEO of SouthWest Energy.

Education

Ashenafi holds a degree in Economics from Columbia College of Columbia University, where he studied under the guidance of Nobel Prize winner in Economics, Professor Edmund Phelps.

Ashenafi is an alumnus of Harvard Business School and attended the Owner/President Management Programme (OPM).

Career

Ashenafi is Chairman of SouthWest Energy, Ethiopia’s first and only indigenous oil and gas company. He also serves as Chairman of SouthWest Development, which provides various services to oil and gas companies in Ethiopia, and Chairman of Ambo Mineral Water, a beverage brand in Ethiopia.

Ashenafi started his career at Merrill Lynch & Co in New York. Prior to founding SouthWest Energy in 2005, Mr. Ashenafi carried out international political and economic consulting work advising large international companies and pension funds about investment conditions in emerging markets, mainly in Latin America and the Commonwealth of Independent States.

In July 2016 Ashenafi played a key role in Ethiopia’s largest ever privatisation deal, where Japan Tobacco International (with Ashenafi acting as the local partner) acquired 40% of Ethiopia’s National Tobacco Enterprise. The enterprise value of the deal was $1.4 billion, which is also one of largest private transactions in Africa.

Board memberships

Ashenafi is on the Board of Directors of East West Institute, a New York-based security think tank. He also sits on the advisory board of Atlantic Council International, an organisation that promotes constructive leadership and engagement in international affairs. He is a member of the Advisory Board for Columbia University’s Africa Centre, an organisation that promotes academic excellence and works to enable the highest levels of knowledge and learning in and for Africa.

Awards and affiliations

Ashenafi was nominated as a Young Global Leader (YGL) in 2009 by the World Economic Forum, which recognizes the 200 most distinguished young leaders under the age of 40. He is also a member of Initiative for Global Development’s Frontier 100.

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