African Business Women in Leadership 2026: Part One

This African Business Women in Leadership 2026 special profiles 20 women leaders - among them founders, CEOs, innovators, entrepreneurs and change-makers - who have risen to senior roles in business and governance.

In doing so, they have reshaped the narrative around women's leadership across the continent and the wider African diaspora. Make sure to read our series introductio , and Parts Two, Three and Four.

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala
Director-General, World Trade Organizatio

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala heads the World Trade Organization at arguably the most fraught time for global trade in decades.

With Donald Trump using tariffs as a blunt-force instrument to force submission from enemies and allies alike, and China using its enormous industrial and manufacturing might to dominate global production and the trade in goods, the pillars of global cooperation are under unprecedented strain.

But if anyone is up to the task of carrying out the WTO's mandate of "ensuring that trade flows as smoothly, predictably and freely as possible", it is surely the Nigerian former finance minister, the first African and the first woman to head the body.

In September Okonjo-Iweala began her second term as director general, and she has laid out an ambitious four-year vision: in the short-to-medium term, she will push for landmark agreements on fisheries and agriculture while improving dispute mechanisms between members.

In the longer term, industrialisation, value addition and supply chains will be prioritised, and work will commence on a global environmental goods and services agreement. Reform of the WTO itself is also on the agenda. Much of this will be up for discussion at the WTO Ministerial Conference in Yaoundé, Cameroon, in late March - the first ministerial in Africa in a decade.

The ambition is huge, even for one of the most able African policymakers on the global stage, but Okonjo-Iweala is nothing if not realistic. "So much more is at stake now. The multilateral trading system, and the WTO within it, has never been under as much intense questioning and scrutiny as it is now. There is absolutely no room for complacency. We need to deliver results!"

Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah
President of Namibia

Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah joined the select group of African female heads of state - and became her country's first woman leader - when she was elected president of Namibia in December 2024.

It's been a long road to the top for "NNN", who at 72 has been a fixture of the political scene for decades. Her membership of ruling party SWAPO dates back to the 1970s, when it was a liberation movement fighting against white minority rule. She represented the movement in exile in both Zambia and Tanzania, where she helped to build support for SWAPO in the newly independent states.

In the post-independence era Nandi-Ndaitwah has held a string of senior cabinet positions, including serving as deputy prime minister from 2015 to 2026.

The death of President Hage Geingob in early 2024 opened the door to a presidential run of her own, and her decades of service to the movement propelled her to the party nomination - and an electoral win with 58% of the vote (opposition parties criticised the conduct of the poll).

During the campaign, she promised "radical shifts" to tackle entrenched poverty and unemployment. Investment in the agricultural sector - including potential land reforms to tackle absent landlordism and racial inequalities - has been mentioned. And a diversification of the resource-focused economy has been mooted.

Nandi-Ndaitwah said the economy, which relies significantly on mineral exports, should add value to what it extracts from the ground rather than exporting raw materials. After decades of serving in the ranks, now is her chance to prove she can lead from the front.

Nadia Fettah Alaoui
Minister of Economy and Finance, Morocco

Since economy and finance minister Nadia Fettah Alaoui took to the helm of the Moroccan economy in 2021, numbers alone have painted an encouraging picture.

After the inevitable post-Covid spike and dip of 2021 and 2022 respectively, the economy recorded growth of 3.7% in 2024 and 3.8% in 2025. This year, the IMF predicts, the country will achieve growth of 4.4%.

Supporters say those figures are a testament to Alaoui's stewardship of an increasingly sophisticated and diverse economy embracing technology, agriculture, automotives and tourism. But while the fundamentals look strong, 2025 was far from plain sailing. The country was rocked by its biggest protests in years when young people took to the streets to protest against poor service delivery and joblessness.

Many railed against lavish spending on the 2030 FIFA World Cup, a potential driver of economic activity which has nevertheless become a lightning rod for protests against entrenched inequality. Alaoui was quick to grasp the significance of the protests, describing them as a "wake up call" and insisting that the pace of reforms and job creation must be stepped up. "We can't just be waiting for economic theories to work and jobs to come... Jobs have to come now," she said in October 2025.

She subsequently budgeted 140bn dirhams ($15bn) to health care and education in 2026, about 18% more than was budgeted in 2025. The government plans 27,000 jobs in the two sectors, and upgrades to 90 hospitals, as well as more spending on social welfare for children.

Meanwhile preparations to co-host the World Cup with Spain and Portugal continue apace. The country intends to spend around $35bn on infrastructure improvements. It recently successfully hosted the Africa Cup of Nations, demonstrating its organisational credentials.

Making an economic success of the World Cup will be a legacy-defining challenge for Alaoui.

Judith Tuluka Suminwa
Prime Minister, Democratic Republic of Congo

The world of Congolese politics is not for the faint-hearted, but Judith Tuluka Suminwa has shown herself up for the challenge.

In a historic first for a woman, she was appointed as her country's prime minister in June 2024, serving under President Félix Tshisekedi and heading a 54-strong cabinet. Her appointment capped an accelerated political rise; she had previously served as minister of state for planning from 2023 to 2024.

Yet Suminwa is no neophyte. Trained as an economist, she served the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) for two decades as an expert in governance and development.

That job helped her build a network in Congolese politics. Between 2012 and 2014, she joined the cabinet of then-budget minister Daniel Mukoko Samba, a former UNDP colleague, to work on public finance reform.

The job will hold plenty of challenges. Perhaps trickiest is trying to solve the ongoing conflict in the Eastern Congo, where Rwanda-backed M23 rebels continue to fight with government forces. That renewal of hostilities comes after a Washington-brokered peace deal signed in June 2025, which was supposed to establish a permanent ceasefire and the withdrawal of Rwandan troops, as well as mandating the neutralisation of the FDLR militia by the DRC. Suminwa has been clear about who she sees to blame for the conflict. "The fact remains that the aggressor of the territorial integrity and of the sovereignty of the Democratic Republic of Congo is Rwanda," she said in March 2025.

Having worked in Eastern Congo with the UNDP, Suminwa's legacy could be decided by the extent to which she can help to broker a more enduring peace in the region.

Odunayo Eweniyi
Co-founder and COO, PiggyVest

Odunayo Eweniyi's leadership of Nigeria's largest digital savings company is helping to reshape national financial inclusion. PiggyVest claims over 5m users: she says it empowers Nigerians to develop an understanding of investing and take control of their financial futures. It has unveiled new tools including business finance solutions and family-focused savings products ahead of its tenth anniversary this year.

Eweniyi also co-founded FirstCheck Africa, a fund dedicated to backing early-stage startups with at least one female co-founder, with the aim of closing the gender funding gap in tech. She believes that economic empowerment - whether through access to financial tools, investment know-how or growing self-confidence in financial decisions - should be available to all.

"It's about building systems that let people participate meaningfully in the economy," she told Connecting Africa. Eweniyi also co-founded the Feminist Coalition, an organisation that plays a pivotal role in youth-led civic engagement and gender equality advocacy in Nigeria.

Eweniyi's work continues to reinforce her reputation as a socially conscious innovator driving financial inclusion and broader systemic change across the African continent.

Profiles by Emily Allen, Lennox Yieke, Dianna Games and David Thomas.