Cameroonian lawyer George Elombi shares transformative vision after being sworn in as new head of Afreximbank

Now is the time to reaffirm the unwavering commitment to deepen impact, strengthen partnerships, and continue the mission of building an Africa that trades with itself and thrives on its own terms, said Dr George Elombi on Saturday, as he took the baton from Professor Benedict Okey Oramah as the new President and Chairman of the Board of Directors of African Export–Import Bank (Afreximbank). 

The mandate of Afreximbank is, as set out in its Charter, to promote and facilitate Africa’s trade, noted Elombi. But the structure of that trade is unfavourable to Africa.

“It has to change,” said Elombi. “It is too dependent on the export of commodities. Our mission is therefore to transform the structure of that trade. To change the structure, we must process. We must produce… At Afreximbank we believe that the future of Africa lies in value addition, in producing and trading intermediate and finished goods that generate wealth and create jobs within our own borders.”

Dr Elombi is only the fourth person to lead Afreximbank since its creation in 1993 as a pan-African supranational multilateral financial institution, under the auspices of the African Development Bank. He joined the bank as a Legal Officer in 1996, after earning an LLM degree and PhD in Law (International Commercial Arbitration) from the University of London, and working as a lecturer with the University of Hull. 

He has risen through the ranks of Afreximbank, from Legal Officer to Deputy Director, Legal Services, then Executive Secretary and Head of Legal Services during the 2000s. In 2015 Elombi became Executive Vice President (Corporate Governance and Legal Services), leading the establishment of Afreximbank Group subsidiaries, guiding institutional governance, and overseeing legal and board operations. 

On Saturday, Elombi praised what Afreximbank had achieved over the past 32 years, and honoured outgoing President Oramah and his decade-long tenure filled with many “extraordinary” achievements, including growing total assets and guarantees more than eight-fold to $43.5 billion, and shareholders’ funds from around £1 billion in 2015 to $7.5 billion in April 2025, along with COVID interventions, investments in export processing and other economic zones, refineries and medical centres, the AfCFTA and youth-central creative agenda, and the Intra-African Trade Fair.

Elombi then addressed seven key areas that Afreximbank would prioritise over the next five to ten years, under his leadership: 

1. Promoting and accelerating value addition and strategic minerals processing, including the establishment of a Strategic Minerals Development Programme to finance entire value chains, from extraction and refining to manufacturing finished components. 
2. Deepening intra-African trade and regional integration, including intensifying efforts to break down trade barriers, strengthen cross-border infrastructure, and foster seamless movement of goods, services, people, and capital across our continent. Afreximbank will also through a dedicated Africa Trade Gateway (ATG)-AfCFTA Accelerator Programme provide direct technical support, market intelligence, and tailored financing to help African SMEs.
3. Catalysing and building critical trade-enabling infrastructure, including a proactive, partnership-driven approach to financing and facilitating both hard infrastructure (transport, energy, logistics) and soft infrastructure (digital platforms, streamlined regulatory systems). A key initiative will be the creation of a Shared Integrated Infrastructure Ecosystem for Trade, aimed at leveraging existing trade-enabling infrastructure capacity cost-effectively.
4. Leveraging innovation and digital technology, including elevating AI as a priority to leverage its transformative potential in intra-African trade and regional integration, promote value addition, industrial parks, and smart manufacturing, create economic opportunities and growth, and enhance internal operations and efficiency. 
5. Mobilising global African capital, and moving towards a long-aspired integration of ‘One Global Africa’ where not only those on the continent but brothers and sisters of African heritage living elsewhere can share in common economic opportunities. Afreximbank will create innovative financial instruments, trusted co-investment platforms, and a pipeline of bankable African projects that allow African capital to flow into African opportunities.
6. Financial strength as an important focus area, including an ambitious goal to grow Afreximbank’s balance sheet to US$350 billion within ten years.
7. Growing strategic and innovative partnerships, with the recognition that Africa’s progress depends not only on the strength of individual institutions, but also on the power of collaboration among them.

Dr Elombi closed his speech by expressing deep gratitude to all those who have played a part in his journey with Afreximbank, including all shareholders; the people and government of Egypt, where Afreximbank is headquartered; outgoing President Benedict Okey Oramah; the Executive Management and all the members of the Board, Afreximbank colleagues; his wife and children; and many dear friends. 

“The road ahead is ambitious, and it cannot be walked alone,” he concluded. “I will continue to count on your unwavering support, your insights, and the collective wisdom we bring together as a team, as we move forward with purpose and unity.”

You can read a full 5,000 word transcript of Dr Elombi's inaugural address, with further details of Afreximbank's achievements and his key future priorities, here.