More facts have emerged on why US President-Elect, Donald Trump named Makun, Ogun State-born economic tactician, Mr. Bayo Ogunlesi in his presidential economic team.
A source from the US Presidential transition committee said Sunday evening that the appointment was based on his wealth of economic management experience, education and exposure in public private participation (PPP) deal across the world. His company Global Infrastructure Partners manages Gatwick Airport in the UK.
Check by our correspondent at the Presidency showed there was no time the current administration lead by President Muhammadu Buhari had wanted his services before Trump went for him.
Business Hilights recall that Ogunlesi on 15 October was named as an independent director of Goldman Sachs Group, Inc.
Apart from being managing partner of Global Infrastructure Partners, he also serves on the boards of Callaway Golf Co. and Kosmos Energy Ltd. At the same time he’s the chairman of Africa Finance Corp. and serves on the boards of various not-for-profits ranging from New York Presbyterian Hospital to the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc.
Ogunlesi, whose father came from Makun, Sagamu in Ogun state was born in 1953.
His father, Theophilus Ogunlesi was Nigeria’s first professor of medicine. After attending Kings College, Lagos for his secondary education, he received his B.A. with first class honours in Philosophy, Politics and Economics, from Oxford University. He graduated from Harvard Law School in 1979 and later got an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Ogunlesi had a banking career with Credit Suisse First Boston from 1983 and rose to become its executive vice chairman.
Before joining Credit Suisse, Ogunlesi was an attorney in the corporate practice group of the New York law firm of Cravath, Swaine & Moore. From 1980-81 he served as a law clerk to Associate Justice Thurgood Marshall of the United States Supreme Court. He was a lecturer at Harvard Law School and the Yale School of Organization and Management, where he taught a course on transnational investment projects in emerging countries, according to Wikipedia.
He is married to an optometrist, Dr. Amelia Quist-Ogunlesi.
