Peter Akwaboah: Ghanaian set to lead America's biggest company, Fannie Mae

All over the world, Ghanaians continue to shatter glass ceilings, making significant strides in their respective fields of work, as well as leading in top positions in the world.

In the last few years, many Ghanaians, such as Afua Kyei of the Bank of England, Edward Enniful of Vogue Magazine, and many others, have all lifted the flag of Ghana high through their various achievements.

Joining this growing list is Peter Akwaboah, who has been appointed by the US Federal National Mortgage Association, commonly known as Fannie Mae, to serve as Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer (COO) of the company effective May 20, 2024.

Akwaboah comes to the position with nearly three decades of experience across the financial services industry.

According to the company's website, he will take charge of Fannie Mae's Chief Information Office, Enterprise Operations, Business Resiliency, and Enterprise Workplace and Security functions.

His position is further cemented as he will become a member of Fannie Mae's Management Committee and report to Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Priscilla Almodovar.

"Peter's many years of experience and unique combination of technology and operations expertise will add to our deep leadership bench, and his wealth of experience and industry knowledge will bring great value to the company.

"We look forward to the talent and experience he'll bring to our technology and operations as we continue to respond to the needs of the market, carefully balancing innovation, risk management, and our commitment to our housing mission," CEO of Fannie Mae, Priscilla Almodovar, said on the company website.

Prior to this role at Fannie Mae, Peter Akwaboah has been serving as Managing Director and the Chief Operating Officer for Technology and the Head of Innovation at Morgan Stanley, a leading global financial services firm.

In this role at Morgan Stanley, Akwaboah takes responsibility for driving the technology strategy with a focus on fuelling the firm's innovation, effectiveness, and resilience.

He has also helped Morgan Stanley's businesses build on the firm's technology investments and delivery opportunities to enable profitability.

Akwaboah serves on the Board of the Morgan Stanley Foundation and is a member of the Federal Reserve Bank's Payments Risk Committee.

Before joining Morgan Stanley in 2015, Akwaboah spent a decade at the Royal Bank of Scotland, including as Asia Pacific Chief Operating Officer for Operations, Technology, and Corporate Services.

Prior to that, he held leadership roles in operations and technology at Deutsche Bank, KPMG, and IBM.

Akwaboah serves on the Boards of the Foundation of Orthopedics and Complex Spine and the Museum of American Finance.

He has a Bachelor of Engineering in Civil Engineering from the University of Birmingham, England.

With additional files from Fannie Mae

The Ghanaian who will be managing all operations for America's biggest company (& the world's 4th largest) was a top student athlete in Ghana. On arriving in the UK, he found others were way superior. So he changed his game. When last were you brutally honest with yourself? pic.twitter.com/1opRmeYAz9

— Bright Simons (@BBSimons) February 27, 2024