Co-Chairman & Managing Director Admassu Tadesse
Mr. Tadesse has over 20 years of executive and board experience in specialist and corporate banking, and other financial sectors, and served as CEO of TDB from 1 April 2012 until 1 April 2022. He was appointed as President Emeritus & TDB Group MD by the Board of Governors in September 2020 and has since assumed his new group level role, following the appointment of a CEO to assume leadership of the banking operations of TDB Group. In his current role at TDB Group, Mr. Tadesse is responsible for capital and asset management at TDB Group level, as well as governance and functional support to TDB Group subsidiaries and strategic business units. He also serves as Chairman of the TDB Group Executive Management Board.
Prior to TDB, he worked at the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA), where he served for ten years, responsible for international finance and investment, as well as corporate strategy, among others. Much earlier in his career, he served in management and technical capacities with international funds and development agencies, mainly out of New York and Johannesburg.
He currently serves on various industry bodies, including the International Development Finance Club, the Finance in Common Summit, and the United Nations (UNDP) Africa Influencers for Development Group, as well as the boards of directors of the US Corporate Council on Africa and the Financial Sector Deepening Ethiopia. Previously, he served on the executive committees of the Association of African Development Finance Institutions and the Southern Africa Development Community DFRC. He has also been a member of several business professional bodies, such as the institute of bankers in South Africa, Kenya and Mauritius, among others. He has also served on other boards of directors of various financial institutions in Africa and Europe, including Proparco and FISEA in France, the Commonwealth Fund for Infrastructure and Gulf Africa Bank among other investment funds, insurance companies and reinsurance companies.
Mr. Tadesse holds an MSc from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and an MBA from Wits Business School, in addition to a BA degree from Western University in Canada, and advanced executive and leadership training in advanced management, banking and private equity from Harvard Business School, Euromoney and INSEAD.