AfDB Appoints Simon Mizrahi As Acting Vice President, Technology & Corporate Services Complex

The African Development Bank has appointed Mr. Simon Mizrahi as Acting Vice President, Technology and Corporate Services Complex, effective 20 June 2022.

Mizrahi, a British national, is currently the Director for Delivery, Performance Management and Results at the African Development Bank Group and Acting Director for the Operations Committee Secretariat and Quality Assurance. In these capacities, he oversees results delivery on the Bank’s multi-billion annual investments across the African continent and engages with the Board of Directors and donors on the full complexity of the Bank’s development challenges.

Mizrahi is a seasoned senior executive with more than 25 years of experience in delivering strategic leadership on development and development policies. He has extensive experience in leading policy work and has published on issues central to the development agenda with a strong emphasis on development impact, climate change and development effectiveness. Mizrahi has demonstrated a strong capacity for thought leadership, strategic decision-making and delivering bottom-line results.

As the Head of the Operations Committee Secretariat, he reviews and assesses all Bank operations, operating rules, and policies. His department also sets and monitors operational standards for lending, supervision and project completion. In 2019, he elaborated the Bank’s Quality Assurance Plan and established its first programme to train operational staff toward improving the quality and impact of Bank operations.

Before joining the Bank, Mizrahi was Deputy Head at the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), in charge of aid effectiveness. He authored the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness and the Accra Agenda for Action, two landmark agreements adopted by 110 countries and organisations across the world. From 1994 to 1996, Simon also worked as a country director for Médecins du Monde in Kigali, Rwanda and Managua, Nicaragua.

Mizrahi has operated in eight African countries and, in 1994, was Head of Operations for Urgence Rwanda, a coalition of NGOs in charge of delivering humanitarian assistance to Rwanda and Goma in the Democratic Republic of Congo, in the immediate aftermath of the genocide.

Mizrahi holds a Master of Philosophy degree in Political Sciences and International Relations from the University of Cambridge, UK (1991) and a Master’s degree in Political Sciences from the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris, France (1990).

Commenting on his appointment, he said: “I am humbled and deeply honoured that Dr. Adesina has appointed me to this new and very exciting position. Innovation and technology have the potential to revolutionise the way the Bank operates and does business in Africa. The Bank has an amazing and highly skilled staff and I look forward to working with them to harness the transformative energy of technology to better support the Bank’s corporate services and realise its development goals”.

Commenting on the appointment, president of the African Development Bank Group, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina said: “I am pleased to appoint Simon Mizrahi into this new role of Acting Vice President for Technology and Corporate Services to lead the drive for full digitalisation of the Bank, deployment of big data analytics, robotics, machine learning and other IT tools and systems to revamp how we do business, including cybersecurity to protect ourselves.

“Simon is a highly skilled and experienced member of my senior leadership team. He is results-oriented, a quality that shows in the successful manner he delivers complex operations in challenging settings across the continent. He will help provide the leadership needed to orient this new vice presidency until the substantive vice president for the new Technology and Corporate Services Complex is appointed.”