Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala was born June 13, 1954. Her father was a brigadier in the Biafran army. When civil war broke out in her country in 1967, her family was thrown into deep poverty, and often there wasn’t enough food to eat. Despite experiencing that kind of chaos and poverty, Ngozi was able to attend college in the United States. She graduated magna cum laude from Harvard in 1981, and earned a PhD in regional economics and development from MIT.

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is married to Ikemba Iweala, also from Nigeria, who is a surgeon in the United States. They have four children, one daughter, Onyi, and three sons, Uzodinma, Okechukwu and Uchechi.

After graduating from MIT, Okonjo-Iweala worked for the World Bank until 2003, eventually becoming a Vice President of the bank. In 2003, she was asked to return to Nigeria as Finance Minister under a UN program to bring back to Africa some of its brightest people. Her youngest child was still in high school, and her husband’s work was in the United States, so she made her acceptance of the job a family decision. Since moving to Nigeria, although she talks to them by phone every day, she is only able to see her family three days a month, or when they can visit her.

Okonjo-Iweala served as Nigeria’s Finance Minister from July, 2003 until June, 2006, when she was transferred to the position of Foreign Minister. In August, 2006, after she was removed as head of the Economic Intelligence team, she resigned, citing “pressing family matters” as the reason.

While she served as Finance Minister, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala modeled simplicity in her personal life. She wore simple clothing, did not maintain a fleet of cars, and did her own shopping cooking when time allowed.

She is known as a tenacious fighter of corruption, and made significant progress against corrupt business and government practices in a short period of time. When Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala arrived in Nigeria in 2003, it was listed as the most corrupt country in the world. In 2005, it was one of the 21 most improved countries in the world.

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala started to fight governmental corruption immediately upon taking office. She trimmed the budget and published an accounting of all government spending. Both Okonjo-Iweala and her husband received death threats because of her stance against governmental corruption.

Perhaps Okonjo-Iweala’s most significant accomplishment was to get the Paris Club to forgive $18 billion of Nigeria’s international debt. Nigeria was not considered qualified for debt relief because of her oil reserves. Okonjo-Iweala demonstrated how poor Nigeria’s people are despite oil production.

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala has been attacked by her opponents. When she first came to Nigeria, the UN paid her a salary equal to what she had been making in the US, $240,000. Other governmental ministers were making only $6000/year, and the average Nigerian was making only $500/year. Ngozi’s opponents protested that her salary was too high. She disagreed, but decided to accept a salary decrease to $6000/year.