The Board Chairman of Rwanda Finance Limited Tidjane Thiam, 62, will run for president in Côte d'Ivoire’s October election, his party has confirmed. Reports indicate that Thiam was the only candidate vying to represent the country's main opposition party, the PDCI. The former planning minister (1998) has held senior positions in leading international businesses like Aviva, Prudential and Credit Suisse. Following his return to the country’s politics, he assumed the leadership of the PDCI in December 2023. Thiam, the great-nephew of the country's first President Félix Houphouët-Boigny, was also the Chairman of the Audit Committee of the Kering Group, a member of the International Olympic Committee and a Special Envoy on Covid 19 for the African Union. Before this, Thiam was Chief Executive of Credit Suisse from 2015 to 2020 and Group Chief Executive of Prudential plc from 2009 to 2015, after one year as Chief Financial Officer. Between 2002 and 2008, Thiam held various leadership roles at Aviva after being a partner at the consulting firm McKinsey & Company. From 1994 to 1999, he was Chief Executive of the National Bureau for Technical Studies and Development and subsequently Secretary of Development and Planning for Côte d’Ivoire. Thiam co-chaired the World Economic Forum 2016 in Davos and joined the Group of Thirty (G30), a select group of leaders in international finance, in 2015. He was on the Board of Directors of 21st Century Fox from 2014 until 2019. Named Chairman of the Board of the Association of British Insurers from 2012 to 2014, Thiam, a graduate of France's prestigious École Polytechnique and the École Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Paris, received the Euromoney Award for Excellence ‘Banker of the Year’ in 2018. The ruling RHDP party has indicated it will soon nominate President Alassane Ouattara, 83, for re-election for a fourth term.
