Acha Leke

Acha is the chairman of McKinsey’s Africa region. He began his career at McKinsey as a summer associate in South Africa. He rejoined the firm in Atlanta in 1999 and transferred back to Johannesburg in 2002 to help expand the firm’s activities across Sub-Saharan Africa. Acha relocated to Lagos in 2010 to open the newly established office in Nigeria and returned to South Africa in 2014. He leads the firm’s Private Equity & Principal Investors Practice in Africa and is a member of the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) Council. Until December 2018, he led the firm’s Public Sector and Social Sector Practices in Africa and was also in charge of global recruiting for McKinsey worldwide.

Acha serves governments, multinational organizations, and private-sector institutions across Africa on issues of economic development, tax administration, growth strategies, holistic transformations, and investment decisions. He has worked across more than 20 African countries to date.

Prior to McKinsey, Acha worked as a part-time consultant on novel techniques to linearize high power amplifiers for wireless applications. He graduated undergrad from Georgia Institute of Technology as the first black valedictorian in the school’s history.

Acha is a cofounder and member of the Global Advisory Council of the African Leadership Academy, a coeducational boarding school that aims to develop the next generation of African leaders. He is also a cofounder of the African Leadership Network, an invitation-only network of young African leaders who aspire to bring prosperity to the continent. Acha is an alumnus (2008) of the World Economic Forum (WEF) Young Global Leaders program and has received numerous recognitions, including Africa’s Young Investment Professional of the year (Africa Investor, 2008), Top 40 Men under 40 in South Africa (DESTINY MAN, 2010), Top 10 Youngest Power Men in Africa (Forbes, 2011), 50 Most Influential Africans (Africa Report, 2012), Top 20 Next Generation Francophone Africans (Forbes, 2013), Top 40 under 40 in Nigeria (Business Day, 2013), Top 20 Rising Stars in Africa (Euromoney, 2014), and 100 Most Influential Africans (New African, 2012, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019).

Acha served on the WEF’s Global Future Council on Economic Growth and Social Inclusion for two years, after having served for eight years on the Global Agenda Council for Africa. He is a member of ONE’s Africa policy advisory board, the Lagos Business School advisory board, and President Kagame’s African Union (AU) reform steering committee. Acha coauthored McKinsey’s highly acclaimed series of Lions on the Move reports and the recent book, Africa’s Business Revolution: How to Succeed in the World’s Next Big Growth Market. He is regularly featured in various media (such as CNN, CNBC, Bloomberg, Economist, Financial Times, and Wall Street Journal).

Acha is from Cameroon and is fluent in both English and French.