ANALYSIS: Thiam's race to the Pru hotseat |
| News created: 22. september 2007 08:42 |
David Jetuah, Accountancy Age, 21 Sep 2007
ADVERTISEMENTPrudential announced today that Tidjane Thiam would be taking over as FD from Philip Broadley in April next year.
"Tidjane who?", might be the obvious question, but be under no illusions, Thiam is one of the golden boys of finance and hotly tipped to graduate to the ultimate appointment of blue-chip CEO in the future.
In November 2002, the Ivory Coast-born executive joined Aviva as group strategy and development director, being given responsibility for Aviva's European operations by 2006 before taking executive control of the division in May 2007.
But this meteoric rise pales into relative insignifance when you delve deeper into his background.
He managed to ride out a coup in the late 90's to further his career after excelling in various disciplines.
Born on 29 July, 1962 Thiam holds engineering degrees from the Ecole Polytechnique in Paris and the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Paris, from which he graduated top of his class, and an MBA from INSEAD, one of the world’s leading and largest graduate business schools.
He began his professional career in 1986 in Paris as an international consultant with McKinsey. From 1986 to 1994 he worked successively in Paris, New York and several European Union countries. In 1989 he took a one-year sabbatical from McKinsey with the World Bank in Washington, D.C. to participate in the Young Professionals Program.
In 1994 Thiam was called back to his country to become the first Ivorian CEO of the National Bureau for Technical Studies and Development, reporting directly to the President and the Prime Minister.
In 1998 Tidjane Thiam was selected to be one of the annual 100 Global Leaders for Tomorrow by the World Economic Forum in Davos. |
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