Adaeze Okonkwo

Adaeze Okonkwo became Executive Director in 2022, having joined the Institute the year before to build its global-governance programme. She read political science at the University of Ibadan and completed a doctorate at the Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford, where her thesis examined how mid-sized states sustain administrative institutions under fiscal stress — fieldwork that took her to finance ministries in Ghana, Kenya and Rwanda.

Before moving into research she spent eight years advising public bodies on regulatory design, including a secondment to the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa in Addis Ababa and advisory work for the African Development Bank on public-financial-management reform. That grounding shapes the Institute's insistence that findings survive contact with the officials expected to act on them.

As Executive Director she owns the Institute's editorial standards, chairs the committee that signs off funding-independence statements, and continues to publish on state capacity and administrative reform. She gives evidence to legislative committees and multilateral bodies and takes on-the-record briefings for policy audiences.