TRADE VISIONARY

AFREXIMBANK'S NEW CHIEF IS BETTING THAT AFRICA'S FUTURE LIES IN AN INDUSTRIAL RENAISSANCE THAT PROMISES JOBS, EXPORT DIVERSIFICATION, AND A MORE RESILIENT MARKET.

- Words: Oluwatomisin Amokeoja

On a recent afternoon at African Export-Import Bank’s (Afreximbank) glass-fronted headquarters, Dr George Elombi sits in the same office he has attended meetings in for more than a decade as Vice President.

The view outside, stretching over the sprawl of Cairo’s Heliopolis district, is familiar. So are the stacks of reports and the screen where he has fielded hundreds of calls during the same period.

“There hasn't been much of a change,” Elombi says to FORBES AFRICA with a gentle laugh. “I have used everything inside here... So, nothing, nothing really is new.”

Yet, something has changed. About two weeks before this virtual conversation, Elombi, 59, from Cameroon, assumed the presidency of the Afreximbank, succeeding his longtime colleague, Professor Benedict Oramah. After nearly three decades inside the institution, his appointment marks both continuity and transition for one of Africa’s most influential financial engines. Elombi's challenge is to guide the Cairo-based multilateral lender through its next decade: a period he believes must define Africa's industrial rebirth. “We now have to move to export processing,” he says. “And what is very comforting to me is the fact that everyone agrees with that view. There’s consensus.”

A Bank Built For A Different Kind Of Growth

Founded in 1993, Afreximbank was conceived as an African response to global trade imbalances—a lender that could finance trade, stabilize markets and reduce the continent’s dependency on external creditors.

Three decades on, it has grown into an approximately $44 billion institution with shareholders ranging from African governments to the African Development Bank (AfDB) and several non-African investors.