Ghanaian Graduate With Pharmacy Degree Becomes First-Ever Female CEO Of Standard Chartered Bank, Meet Mansa Netty

Standard Chartered Bank of Ghana had its first-ever female Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Mansa Netty.

On March 1, 2017 Mansa graduated from KNUST with a degree in Pharmacy but pivoted to the banking space upon realising the science field she chose was not challenging enough for her.

The CEO attributes her success to the focus and resilience she built after battling leukaemia and surviving as well as her tendency to take on responsibility, passion, and natural curiosity.

Many a time, it takes people around us to see the potentials we carry as individuals to excel at something even before we realise them ourselves. Like many, Mansa Netty had no idea she possessed the perfect qualities and attributes to become a CEO someday until her boss at work pointed it out to her. She could have chosen to let it slide or pay little to no attention to it, but rather, she performed a self-assessment and began working towards becoming an impactful leader soon.

For little Mansa, the goal was to become a Pharmacist someday, and with that, she set out to study Science in secondary school, after which she continued to Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology and bagged a bachelor’s degree in Pharmacy.

After school, she practised Pharmacy for a while but soon realized that Pharmacy in Ghana was not challenging enough for her, so she thought about what she really wanted and ended up pursuing a master’s degree in Business Administration from Manchester Business School.

At that moment, her intention was to take up a leadership position in the pharmaceutical space. However, she graduated only to find out that there are not many opportunities for pharmacists in corporate Ghana.

“You either had to work at the hospital pharmacy or the community pharmacy. There are very few big international pharmaceutical firms in Ghana and that made it really difficult to get a shot”, Mansa told Business World Ghana.

As fate would have it, she was ushered into the banking sector, where she would meet the CEO of Standard Chartered Africa, who drew her attention to the leadership qualities she possessed. “I got the opportunity to work with the CEO for Africa, and she told me that I had what it took to become a CEO myself one day.

That was when I really started evaluating my leadership potential and what I needed to do to become the leader she saw in me”, Mansa revealed in an interview. Mansa Netty becoming CEO of Standard Chartered Bank of Ghana With the help of mentors, some colleagues and her own commitment, she was able to receive all the nurturing and guidance to rise through the ranks and ultimately reach her goal, become a CEO. She became Head of Financial Institution Sales, West Africa, Regional Head of Financial Markets Sales, West Africa, Head Global Markets and Co-Head, Whole Banking and Managing Director and Head of Financial Market, Standard Chartered Bank Ghana until she finally made it to the CEO level, the position she worked years for.

Mansa’s official appointment as Standard Chartered Bank of Ghana CEO took effect on March 1, 2017 and that made her the first ever female to hold that position. “I am delighted to welcome Mansa as the first female CEO for Standard Chartered Bank in Ghana. Her breadth of knowledge and deep insights of the market will further drive the growth of the Ghana business”, Bola Adesola, CEO, StanChart Nigeria and West Africa.

Getting diagnosed with Leukemia Mansa Netty’s ultimate career goal came to pass, but the journey to getting that was definitely not the smoothest. Getting diagnosed with cancer of the blood was something she never saw coming, and just like that, everything changed for the young career woman. The fighter in her, however, would not allow her to give up; instead, she stayed optimistic and believed she would survive.

“Even though my condition was life-threatening, I sort of just told myself that this was not going to put me down. At a point when the doctors didn’t think I had much time to live, I just told myself that I wasn’t going to die; that I was going to survive it”, Mansa revealed in an interview with Business World Ghana.

Thankfully, Mansa beat leukaemia, and through that, her foundation, Leukaemia Project Foundation, was birthed. For Mansa, establishing something outside her profession gave her a sense of purpose beyond her day-to-day work. “The Leukaemia Project Foundation aims to improve the survival rates of people living with blood cancers and other blood-related conditions, by allowing them to receive treatment at lower costs. Our goal is to establish a blood transplant centre in Ghana” The CEO believes that overall, she can confidently attribute her career success to her tendency to take on responsibility, her passion, natural curiosity and the focus and resilience she built through a near-fatal illness.

Source: Yen.gh

Email: elora.akpotosevbe@yahoo.com