Vera Songwe serves as The World Bank’s Country Director for Senegal, Cape Verde, Gambia, Mauritania and Guinea-Bissau. She is also a non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Institute with the Global Economy and Development and Africa Growth Initiative. Dr. Songwe holds a Ph.D. in Mathematical Economics from the Center for Operations Research and Econometrics from the Catholic University of Louvain (CORE-UCL) in Belgium. She was previously a visiting scholar at the University of Southern California and at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. In 1997, she joined the World Bank Group as an economist on the Middle East and North Africa. She is also a member of the Mo Ibrahim Governance Advisory Board.
Vera Songwe
My Definition Of Success | Success means achieving everything you strive for and then more. Yes my definition has changed, from considering success as my personal achievements to my actions that have a positive influence on others.
I Am Driven By | The pursuit of excellence, collective excellence. Today this means moving the dial in Africa. Working in Africa for Africa and being part of this moment of hope and change. The desire to want to be part of those who contribute in earnest to making Africa a better place. A place we can be and should be proud of.
A Key Talent | Hard work, persistence and the courage of my convictions. Nothing comes easy and you have to work hard at everything. Success is never ready made or given. With persistence you have the strength to keep fighting for what you believe in, what you think is correct. Hard work prepares you for the challenges, persistence allows you to keep going even when it all seems futile and the courage of your convictions gives you a reason to keep working hard and persisting. It is the result you are looking to achieve, but you must work hard for it. Nothing worth celebrating is ever handed to you freely.
The Principles I Live By | You must do onto others what you expect them to do to you. This is a very simple rule but it is one of the most difficult I find. One does not always succeed but the important thing is to keep trying to live up to it and at the end of every day to ask if you met the goal and how you can do better the next day. This process of self-assessment reminds us we are not perfect but also helps you to keep on trying to improve. It is a positive and constructive affirmation of who I am and want to be.
How I Use My Mind | I am always and constantly asking myself why I do what I do? What are the results I am looking to achieve. The discipline of having a clear result is sobering but also helps you to focus. For every action I take I have an expected result I hope to achieve. Having daily, monthly, yearly targets and working against these targets has been a very good disciplining tool for me. But it only becomes binding if you are honest with yourself.
Kristina Dryža is an international trend forecaster, writer and author of the allegorical novel, Grace and the Wind. Of Lithuanian origin she was raised in Adelaide, Australia and moved overseas in 1999. For the past 13 years Kristina has been based between London, New York, Tokyo and Hawaii while travelling the world gaining insight into […]
Edward Mogano is a vibrant and talented young South African, that we’ve recently discovered, who seems to have his head firmly entrenched in helping prepare the youth of today for the solutions of tomorrow, as he blogs about creating awareness around the current paradigm-shift trends taking place throughout the world right now. About my Life […]
Garth Walker is the founder of design studio, Mr Walker. His interests lie in developing and encouraging a design language “rooted in the African experience” and it is this that he is best known for. Since 1995 and some 24 issues later, Walker has published Africa’s only experimental graphics magazine, i-jusi. He has been widely […]
Having a passion for inspiring people to believe in themselves and become everything they are capable of becoming, Mark is charged with transforming Luck Companies into a global Values Based Leadership (VBL) organization. In his role as Chief Leadership Officer, he serves as a thought leader for the ongoing development of the VBL ideology and […]
Mark graduated with a BCompt degree from UNISA in 1993. After some years as a commodities trader, he decided to pursue a goal of becoming an entrepreneur, which skill and strength he has applied over the past several years in spearheading Blue Label’s impressive organic and acquisitive growth and international expansion. Together with his brother […]
Jerome Touze is the Co-founder & Co-CEO of WAYN.com, the largest traveling social community with over 22 million members worldwide across 193 countries. Not only an Entrepreneur, he also sits on the boards and is an investor in numerous other tech-based businesses. The Essence of WAYN | I think the beauty about this is that […]
David Grier – TLP is a speaker, chef and dedicated athlete and adventurist. He´s was born on the 16th of January 1960 into a Cape wine farming family in South Africa, here his love of the outdoors, food, wine and adventure began. He set out to take all his passions to the extreme and explore […]
Nadine has been known as a key success element in major projects she has worked on. She is a senior executive with 24 year professional experience in the advertising, branding and design industries. Representing her companies at an international level she has managing high caliber national and international clients, projects and brands. Nadine a brand […]
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