Kingsley Moghalu

Kingsley Chiedu Moghalu, political economist, lawyer and former United Nations official, is Professor of Practice in International Business and Public Policy at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.(^[1]) He is the Founder of Sogato Strategies LLC, an emerging markets risk, strategy and macroeconomic advisory firm, and a Partner in the United States law firm Cooke Robotham LLP. He is also a member of the Advisory Board of the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum (OMFIF).

Central Bank of Nigeria

Professor Moghalu served as Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria from 2009 to 2014. As Deputy Governor for Financial Stability he led the implementation of far-reaching reforms in Nigeria's banking sector after a combination of the global financial crisis, corporate governance abuses and weak risk management left one third of Nigerian banks on the edge of collapse. He also served as Deputy Governor for Operations. Moghalu was a member of the Board of Directors, the Monetary Policy Committee, and the Committee of Governors of the CBN, and was also a member of Nigeria’s Economic Management Team. He also led corporate governance in a number of international and Nigerian financial institutions as a member or chair of the boards of directors of the Alliance for Financial Inclusion (AFI), International Islamic Liquidity Management Corporation (IILMC), Nigerian Export-Import Bank (NEXIM), Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Financial Institutions Training Centre (FITC), and the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON).^[2]

Moghalu’s tenure at the Nigerian central bank was not without controversy. Charged with executing frequently controversial banking sector reforms spearheaded by CBN Governor Sanusi Lamido Sanusi in a fraught political and social milieu, and seen by some observers as the heir apparent to succeed Sanusi as governor^[3] Moghalu publicly articulated and defended the reforms, including the controversial introduction of Islamic banking as part of a menu of options to diversify access to finance^[4]

But in early 2014, reacting to foreign criticism of Nigeria at the Africa CEO Forum conference in Geneva, Moghalu distanced himself from the now suspended Bank head’s methods in alleging a $20 billion fraud at the country’s publicly owned oil corporation. Moghalu expressed frustration that his erstwhile colleague had overstepped his role as the head of a central bank and crossed into “political activism”, but emphasized his support and that of other colleagues for Sanusi’s leadership in monetary policy^[5]

Publications

Professor Moghalu, an interdisciplinary scholar and public intellectual, is the author of several books: Banking on Reform: Financial Stability in a Post-Crisis World (forthcoming in 2016); Economic Man:Essays on the Nigerian Economy (forthcoming in 2016); The Convergence of Nations (co-author) (London: OMFIF Press, 2015); Bretton Woods: The Next 70 Years (co-author)(New York: Reinventing Bretton Woods Committee, 2015); Emerging Africa: How the Global Economy's 'Last' Frontier Can Prosper and Matter ^[6] (London:Penguin Books, 2014),Global Justice (Stanford University Press, 2008), Rwanda's Genocide (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), and numerous articles on law, banking regulation, economic development, political economy and public policy. His publications have appeared in journals and newspapers such as the Financial Times, Central Banking, Journal of Banking and Finance, The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs, The Washington Post, USA Today, and the International Herald Tribune^[7]

Public Speaking and Media

Dr. Moghalu is a frequent and sought-after speaker at global forums. He gave the 2014 Thomas Hodgkin Lecture at Oxford University, and has been a keynote speaker and panelist at the Federal Reserve Bank of the United States, the South African Reserve Bank, Wharton School of Management at the University of Pennsylvania, Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum (OMFIF), the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC, Institute of International Finance (IIF), the National Asset-Liability Management Conference Europe, the Africa CEO Forum, Commerzbank, the Institute for Business in the Global Context at The Fletcher School at Tufts University, and the World Affairs Councils of Washington DC and Philadelphia. He has been interviewed and featured on CNN, BBC World TV’s HardTalk, Financial Times, The New York Times and other global media.^[8]

Early life

Kingsley Moghalu was born in Lagos in 1963 to Isaac Moghalu, a Nigerian Foreign Service Officer in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Mrs. Vidah Moghalu. His father, Isaac Moghalu was posted abroad as a Nigerian diplomat in Geneva, Switzerland very shortly after his birth, and subsequently served in Washington DC as well. Kingsley spent his early childhood in Geneva and Washington where his family lived in the 1960s.^[9] He obtained the LL.B. (Honours) degree in law at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka in 1986, and the B.L. (Barrister at Law) from the Nigerian Law School, Lagos.^[10]After working as a corporate and media attorney in Lagos, and as a Special Correspondent for several international newspapers and magazines including The Christian Science Monitor, South, and Africa News Service, he left Nigeria in 1991 for graduate studies in the United States.

Higher education

Kingsley Moghalu obtained an M.A. degree at The Fletcher School of Law of Diplomacy at Tufts University, where he was the Joan Gillespie Fellow and Research Assistant in the International Political Economy (IPE) Program, in 1992. He later obtained a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) at the University of London, UK, and the International Certificate in Risk Management from the Institute of Risk Management (IRM) in London. He is also an alumnus of advanced executive education programs in macroeconomics and financial sector management, corporate governance, and global strategic leadership at the International Monetary Fund Institute, Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, Harvard Business School, and the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania^[11]

United Nations

Moghalu joined the United Nations in 1992. His first assignment was in Cambodia as a UN human rights and elections officer with the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC). A year later, he was appointed political affairs officer in the Department of Peacekeeping Operations at the UN Headquarters in New York. From 1996 to 1997, he served in the former Yugoslavia as political advisor to the special representative of the UN Secretary-General in Croatia. He was then assigned as legal adviser to the United Nations International Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha, Tanzania in 1997 and later promoted to the role of the international tribunal's spokesman. As special counsel and spokesman he was responsible for policy development, strategic planning and external relations. Moghalu was one of the notable personalities of the two international war crimes tribunals established by the United Nations Security Council, with a staff strength of 1000 men and women from 90 countries. The UNICTR delivered the first-ever judgement by an international court on genocide.^[12]

In 2002, Dr. Moghalu was appointed to the World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland as Head of Global Partnerships and Resource Mobilization at The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GFATM), a public-private international development finance organization and social investment fund with $20 billion in assets and investments in 140 developing and middle income countries. He was a member of the Global Fund's Senior Management Group that set corporate strategy, and a member of the Fund's Risk Management Committee, and was promoted to the rank of Director in 2006.^[13]

In 2006, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan appointed Kingsley Moghalu a member of the high-level Redesign Panel on the United Nations Internal Justice System, the establishment of which was requested by a resolution of the UN General Assembly. The five-member Redesign Panel comprised Mary Gaudron, a former Australian supreme court judge, Louis Otis, a Canadian appeals court judge, Ahmed El-Kosheri, an Egyptian law professor and former Judge Ad Hoc of the International Court of Justice, Diego Garcia Sayan,a former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Peru, and Dr. Moghalu. Working at the UN Headquarters in New York for six months in the first half of 2006, the Redesign Panel reviewed and completely overhauled the accountability, transparency and dispute resolution framework that governs the global workforce of the United Nations as part of wide-ranging management reforms in the Organization. This special assignment was at the nominal rank of Under-Secretary-General^[14]

Post UN

Moghalu resigned from the United Nations System in December 2008. He then founded Sogato Strategies S.A. (Societe Anonyme), a global strategy and risk consultancy, in Geneva. He was also appointed the Executive Director of the Swiss-Africa Business Roundtable. Umaru Yar'Adua, President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (2007-2010) appointed Kingsley Moghalu Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria in November 2009 following the nominee’s confirmation by the Nigerian Senate. Moghalu has also served as a member of the board of directors of Opportunities Industrialization Centers International (OICI), Inc in Philadelphia, a non-profit global entrepreneurship development organization founded by the late U.S. civil rights leader Reverend Leon Sullivan^[15]

Honours

He has received several honours including the Nigerian national honour of the Officer of the Order of the Niger (OON), Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria (FCIB) and the Rotary International Distinguished Service Award.^[16]

Personal life

Married to Maryanne Onyinyechi Moghalu, in 1994, they have four children.^[17]

References

1. fletcher.tufts.edu/News-and-Media/2015/03/23/Fletcher-School-Welcomes-Three-Distinguished-Faculty-in-Fall-2015
2. .thisdaylive.com/articles/six-under-consideration-to-replace-sanusi-as-cbn-governor
3. euromoney.com/Article/3252342/Whos-in-the-frame-to-lead-the-Central-Bank-of-Nigeria-post-Sanusi
4. thisdaylive.com/articles/cbn-fixes-n10bn-capital-for-islamic-banks
5. independent.co.uk/news/business/news/nigerias-suspended-central-banker-overstepped-the-mark-says-his-deputy
6. penguin.co.uk
7. cenbank.org/aboutcbn/TheBoard.asp?Name=Dr.+Kingsley+Moghalu
8. fletcher.tufts.edu/IBGC/Dialogue/SpeakerArchive/Kingsley-Moghalu
9. businessdayonline.com/2015/06/professor-kingsley-chiedu-moghalu
10. cenbank.org/aboutcbn/TheBoard.asp?Name=Dr.+Kingsley+Moghalu+%28OON%29&Biodata=moghalu
11. cenbank.org/aboutcbn/TheBoard.asp?Name=Dr.+Kingsley+Moghalu
12. nm.onlinenigeria.com
13. businessdayonline.com/2015/06/professor-kingsley-chiedu-moghalu
14. .un.org/press/en/2006/sga971.doc.htm
15. thisdaylive.com/articles/moghalu-exits-central-bank-of-nigeria
16. cenbank.org/aboutcbn/TheBoard.asp?Name=Dr.+Kingsley+Moghalu
17. nm.onlinenigeria.com

External links