Thiam: from business to politics - and back again?

Tidjane Thiam is a man who defied the odds to become a celebrated chief executive at the helm of a raft of corporate giants - but who this year was barred from running for president in his home country of Côte d'Ivoire. The son of parents Amadou and Mariétou, Thiam had an upbringing featuring both privilege and deprivation.

He experienced privilege as his mother was born into an aristocratic Akoué family whose chief, her uncle, was President Félix Houphouët-Boigny - who led Côte d'Ivoire from independence in October 1960 until his death in December 1993.

But, as he writes in his intriguing new memoir, Without Prejudice, Thiam's childhood was also marked by emotional deprivation at a young age, when his father was imprisoned on politically motivated charges - denying infant Tidjane a crucial anchor in his life and leading him, he says, to become uncommonly close to his mother.

His father was eventually acquitted of all charges and released from jail in time to see his youngest son, Thiam, begin his education.

Restored to Houphouët-Boigny's favour, Thiam's father was made the Ivorian ambassador to Morocco. Thiam notes that Morocco and Côte d'Ivoire were the only two countries in West Africa to take a largely pro-Western, pro-American stance during the Cold War period, when much of West Africa leaned towards sympathy with the Soviet bloc.

An educatio

It was in Rabat that Thiam was to discover a world of "bias and judgement - the idea that the colour of my skin could be a handicap". On his first day at an elite French school in Rabat, where he was the only black student, he was set upon by a gang of racist students. He recalls being spat at while riding in the family car.

Nevertheless, he persevered with his studies and graduated, passing his exams with distinction, becoming the first Ivorian to win a place at the prestigious École Polytechnique in France.

After two years of science and theoretical mathematics Thiam progressed to the École des Mines in Paris, studying subjects as diverse as the mechanics of turbines, accounting, law, finance and chemical engineering.

He also experienced the emotional turmoil of losing his beloved mother, who died of a rare blood disease - "someone who had taught me so much about our African heritage, about self-respect, about the importance of personal integrity - a devastating blow".

Finding a role

When it came time to find an internship, unlike his peers, his letters of application to the HR departments of major corporations went unanswered. But, leveraging his father's now substantial influence, he found a large French corporation which took him on: "for me this represented a complete breakdown of the supposedly meritocratic French model."

He next took on a position with the US consultancy firm McKinsey. From there he moved on to the Washington-based World Bank, which he hated: "Too many bureaucrats taking tax-free salaries, peddling badly designed loans and lecturing poor countries on how to run their affairs," he writes. A return to McKinsey was quickly arranged.

It was the death of Houphouët-Boigny that took him back to Côte d'Ivoire. Houphouët-Boigny's successor, Henri Konan Bédié, offered Thiam a post leading the Direction et contrôle des grands travaux (DCGTX) which oversaw major state companies. He describes the offer as both "flattering and terrifying".

A coup d'état

Thiam had sensed tensions in the country and had sent his wife to the US for the safety of her and the two children. While Thiam was flying to join them for Christmas, President Henri Konan Bédié was overthrown in the country's first coup d'état.

But Thiam initially decided to remain in Abidjan. Thiam's record at the DCGTX was examined closely and he was cleared of any improprieties by the new administration, and even offered a new post as chief aide to General Robert Guéï, who had led the coup; an offer he declined. He also had a meeting with Alassane Outtarra - who would one day become a key rival.

Sensing the political winds shifting again, he ultimately left the country for Europe - and did not return for years. A year later elections returned Laurent Gbagbo as president, and nearly three years later the country was plunged into the First Ivorian Civil War when an insurgency against Gbagbo was launched.

Thiam's life now turned to the rarefied world of European corporate giants, starting with a spell at the British insurer Aviva, where he reviewed the business and advised the CEO that the company should buy its biggest and oldest rival, Prudential, and tried to turn its attention to the Asian markets - a move which was not followed up. He later became managing director of Aviva International.

With boardroom success, Thiam's star also rose on the global stage. In 2004 he was invited to join the Africa Commission set up by UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, which focused on debt relief. Thiam writes that he pressed for a workstream on peace and security.

The Pru comes calling

Thiam turned down an approach from Lloyds to become its CEO before Prudential ("the Pru") offered him the post of chief financial officer. Almost immediately he was confronted by the global financial crisis stemming from the 2008 sub-prime mortgage-backed securities imbroglio.

Despite fierce internal competition, he was named as CEO and soon faced another crisis; over a failed $35bn takeover of US insurance giant AIG's Asian subsidiary, AIA. Thiam received a rap on the knuckles from the UK's City regulator for failing to tell the watchdog it planned to launch a $35.5bn bid for its Asian rival. Tracey McDermott, the Financial Conduct Authority's director of enforcement and financial crime, said at the time that this was "a serious error of judgment for which Prudential is paying the price".

Despite that debacle, Thiam was headhunted by Credit Suisse. Within four years, says Thiam, the bank had attracted $200bn in new funds - Thiam also recalls that in 2020 he reported nearly $4bn in pre-tax profits, raised $11bn in fresh capital and reduced costs by 20%.

However, Thiam resigned in 2020 after losing a boardroom battle that erupted when the bank admitted to having hired private detectives to spy on former staff in a corporate espionage case that shook the Swiss banking world.

Presidential bid

That resignation led him to decide in 2023 to "enter frontline politics and stand for election as the head of my great-uncle Houphouët's party," the Parti Démocratique de la Côte d'Ivoire, with a platform focused on "education, sharing prosperity, upholding the rule of law, embracing technology and encouraging sustainable development".

He cautions that entering African politics "is not for the faint hearted". So it proved. Thiam was successful in his bid to lead his party, but faced a legal challenge when it came to running against long-term President Alassane Ouatarra of the Rassemblement des Républicains (RDR), who was seeking his fourth term.

But a court ruled in April that Thiam should be removed from the electoral roll because he was a French national when he registered his candidacy. Côte d'Ivoire law states that candidates must be Ivorian citizens. It was confirmed in March that he had renounced his French citizenship, but to no avail. He would not be allowed to stand, and Ouatarra eased to re-election.

Having been dramatically thwarted in his daring bid for power, the next chapter in Thiam's rollercoaster career remains tantalisingly unwritten.

Tidjane Thiam's Without Prejudice is published by William Collins