The first female country manager of IBM in Africa, Angela Kyerematen-Jimoh is set to be awarded the prestigious Corporate Personality of the Year award at Glitz Africa’s annual Ghana Women of the Year Honours 2018.
The awards which come in recognition of Angela’s exceptional leadership as Country Manager of IBM in Ghana and her distinguished role as a pioneer female leader in Africa’s technology industry will be presented at a glamorous award ceremony slated for April 21st at the Labadi Beach Hotel in Accra.
Speaking about the awards, Angela noted “I am particularly thrilled with this award as its one of the few awards that your achievements are intensively debated by a panel of very seasoned board members. You don’t just get this award by virtue of your position but your hard work, and this is really encouraging. I intend to continue being an exemplary leader for the younger generation especially the women and give them hope to dream and work hard!”
Erica Nkrumah, a law student of the University of Ghana who is also a mentee of Ms Angela also noted she was inspired to start a project aimed at helping young entrepreneurs with her legal knowledge to ensure the survival of their nascent businesses through Angela’s mentorship.
With over 17 years’ experience in sales and marketing, Angela has worked in various top positions in Banking including UBS, ABN Amro and GTBank before she made a dramatic switch from banking to technology.
Through her leadership at IBM Ghana, a special weekly coding class was instituted for elementary school kids from the Nima Community in Accra. The program which currently gives the opportunity to young girls to develop various skills in technology has earned participants contracts to develop websites for top brands in Ghana including Christie Brown fashion house.
At IBM, she has been responsible for brokering some of the largest deals in both West and East Africa and was awarded the Information Technology Service CEO of the year for 2017 by the Entrepreneurs Foundation of Ghana and was ranked among the top fifty women corporate leaders in Ghana in both 2016 and 2017 by The African Network of Entrepreneurs (TANOE).
Under her management, IBM Ghana signed an MOU with the Ministry of Education to roll out IBM’s Digital Nation Africa program across public Senior High Schools in Ghana. This program seeks to provide IBM education in software coding, cloud & cognitive computing, data science and cybersecurity free of charge to thousands of Ghanaian youth, building their IT skills and making them competitive participants in the job market and effective contributors to the nation’s development.
As a philanthropist, Angela is noted to have a big heart for deprived communities, using her influence and personal resources to provide support in terms of installing solar lights and constructing boreholes for communities, notably the Siti Village in the Eastern Region of Ghana.
As a graduate of Harvard Business School in Leadership Development, she holds an MSc in International Business, BA in Marketing and French and is a product of Achimota College and Wesley Girls High School in Ghana.
The Glitz Africa Women of the Year Honours celebrates women who use their expertise, position and influence to inspire others to make a difference in driving other women forward. The awards also support maternal health development in Ghana by creating awareness of its importance to the society.
Source: Prince Akpah
