About the project

The Ɔpemsoɔ Lecture was also an opportunity to continue APC’s tradition of honouring deserving Asantes.

This year, three prestigious awards were given; The Ɔpemsoɔ Lifetime Achievement award to Mr Kwame Pianim and the Asanteman Merit Award to Prof. Mrs Rita Akosua Dickson, Vice Chancellor of KNUST and Dr Charles Badu Yeboah, Co-founder of the International Community Schools.

Awardees Profile

PROFILE OF DR Charles Badu Yeboah

Dr. Charles Badu Yeboah is a respected visionary leader of education in Ghana, having contributed immensely to educational development in Ghana through the school he founded with his wife more than 20 years ago, as well as other roles he has played in the educational space. Dr. Yeboah has raised, managed, and invested more than $20,000,000 US dollars ($20million) in the schools he founded for various expansion projects in Kumasi and Accra. He has led the school’s growth and expansion from 7 children in their living room in the year to over 2100 students spread between 4 campuses in Kumasi and Accra. He has during the years learned and developed the art of managing complex relationship between investor/financiers and investee companies. Dr. Yeboah has, since 2016, been the chairman of and convener of Educators boot camps, annual conference for teachers and leaders School Leaders Summit[1]Ghana. Dr. Yeboah’s instrumentality brought ASCD to Ghana in 2017 as the first international affiliate of ASCD, USA in Africa, and have since served as its founding Executive Director. He is a passionate advocate for public-private partnership and an avid supporter for best practices in education. Dr. Yeboah is currently the key lead for the Ministry of Education’s National Educational Leadership Institute (NELI) project. Working with consultants from ASCD USA and some local consultants on the NELI project, Dr. Yeboah has played a key role in developing the Strategy documents, educational leadership curriculum for NELI, engaged faculty members from the 5 key Universities in Ghana to co-create educational leadership curriculum and standards for existing and aspiring school leaders, as well as agency, regional and district leaders of education that is has received wider support and recognition. Dr. Yeboah has served on the Board of the National School Inspectorate Authority NaSIA since 2017 and is currently the Board Chair. , He is also a member of the advisory board of the Ministry for Education. 2 Dr. Yeboah has been serving on the board of ASCD (www.ascd.org) since July 2020, being the first African educator to be appointed on the ASCD, USA board in its 75- year history. Dr. Yeboah has worked in a number of roles over the past 30 years. Before founding International Community Schools, he was a teaching and research fellow at Loyola University Chicago (1994–98); a visiting and adjunct lecturer at Spurgeon’s College, London, UK (2001–04); and lecturer at the Ghana Baptist University College as well as head pastor of New Tafo Baptist Church, Kumasi (1998–2004). Yeboah holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Abidjan (Ivory Coast, 1988), a master’s degree from Trinity International University (formerly Trinity Divinity School, Deerfield, Illinois, 1994); and a Doctor of Philosophy degree from Loyola University Chicago (1998). FOR SERVICES RENDERED TO MOTHER GHANA AS A WHOLE AND TO ASANTEMAN IN PARTICULAR, THE ASANTE PROFESSIONALS CLUB IS DELIGHTED TO RECOGNISE AND CELEBRATE YOU, A TRUE SON OF ASANTE. WE HEREBY CONFER UPON YOU THE ASANTEMAN MERIT AWARD

PROFILE OF VICE-CHANCELLOR PROFESSOR (MRS) RITA AKOSUA DICKSON.

Professor Mrs. Rita Akosua Dickson (PhD, MPharm, GCAP, BPharm, FPSGH, FGCPh, MCPA), is the current Vice-Chancellor of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Kumasi, and also an alumna of the same University. She is a Full Professor of Pharmacognosy with distinguished achievements in research and training of postgraduate students up to the PhD level. She served as the 21st Pro Vice-Chancellor of KNUST prior to her appointment as Vice-Chancellor on 1st 3 August 2020, and in both cases, as the first female in the history of the University to occupy these high administrative positions. She is a Pharmacist by profession having obtained her Bachelor of Pharmacy and Master of Pharmacy (Pharmacognosy) degrees from KNUST in 1994 and 1999, respectively. Thereafter, she was appointed a lecturer at the Department of Pharmacognosy (2000), and later in 2003, pursued a research degree leading to the award of a PhD at Kings’ College London, University of London. She also holds a Graduate Certificate in Academic Practice (GCAP) from the University of London and holds a Commonwealth Jubilee Fellowship from CSC, UK. Professor Mrs. Rita Akosua Dickson’s professional expertise as a pharmacist and pharmacy educationist have been useful to the pharmacy fraternity in Ghana and beyond. She served as a Board member of the Ghana Pharmacy Council and is currently a member of the Examiners Board of the Pharmacy Council of Ghana. She was also a Board member of the Pharmaceutical Society of Ghana and is a fellow of the Ghana College of Pharmacists and the Pharmaceutical Society of Ghana. She has served on several committees locally and internationally in the area of Pharmacy Education and Training and was a member of the Steering Committee of the Ghana National Medicines Policy Programme and International Pharmaceutical Federation (FIP)-UNESCO UNITWIN Centre for Excellence in Africa (CfEA) platform. Prof. Dickson again served as the National Coordinator of the West African Network of Natural Products Research Scientists (WANNPRES) and a Norvatis Fellow in collaboration with Seeding Labs, Boston/Massachusetts, USA, in 2011. Professor Rita Akosua Dickson is an accomplished Phytochemist whose scientific knowledge and research expertise have impacted the international scientific community through training, mentorship and scientific appraisals. She has attended several conferences to present research papers and published over 80 scientific articles in peer reviewed journals. In addition, she has authored/co-authored five books and book chapters within the domain of her expertise. She is very visible on renowned academic platforms such as Research Gate, Google Scholar and Scopus with research impact of over 24,000 article reads and more than 700 citations in various scientific disciplines. 4 As an active civic leader, Professor (Mrs.) Dickson served as the President and Council Chair of the Governing Board of the Planned Parenthood Association of Ghana (PPAG, 2016-2019), as well as a Council member (Ghana Representative) of the International Planned Parenthood Federation, Africa Region (IPPFARO, 2017- 2019). She worked as an active member of the PPAG’s Programmes and Resource Mobilization Committee of Council. She is also very passionate about demystifying Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) for girls, and relishes encouraging ladies to take up careers in science and training the youth into global transformational leaders through talks and other engagements. In consequence, she has been serving since 2013 as the Country-Co-ordinator for the Working to Advance STEM Education for African Women Foundation (WAAW). Her exceptional contributions towards education have earned her several awards and her career continues to blossom so there are more pages to be filled. FOR SERVICES RENDERED TO MOTHER GHANA AS A WHOLE AND TO ASANTEMAN IN PARTICULAR, THE ASANTE PROFESSIONALS CLUB IS DELIGHTED TO RECOGNISE AND CELEBRATE YOU, A TRUE DAUGHTER OF ASANTE. WE HEREBY CONFER UPON YOU THE ASANTEMAN MERIT AWARD.

PROFILE MR KWAME PIANIM – RECIPIENT OF ƆPEMSOƆ LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD

Mr. Kwame Pianim is a well-respected investment and development economics consultant. In a truly remarkable life, Mr Pianim has risen the height of his career both in Ghana and internationally. He is a product of Achimota School and University of New Brunswick, Canada from where he obtained a B.A. Double Honors in Economics and Political Science in 1963 followed by an M.A. in Economics from Yale University in 1964 . His sterling academic pedigree ushered him into a diversified work experience in the international arena and in the private and public sectors of the Ghana economy. 5 Between 1964 and 1980, He served as an Economic Research Officer of United Nations, New York Acting Principal Secretary of Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, Deputy Managing Director of Ghana Aluminum Products Limited, Tema and Chief Executive of Ghana Cocoa Marketing Board. Mr. Pianim has been politically active nationally and is a notable defender of constitutional rule, a stance which cost him 10 years in prison as a political prisoner. Mr. Kwame Pianim’s light was however not dimmed. He bounced back and became a founding member of the New Patriotic Party, on whose ticket he considered running for President in 1996. Mr. Pianim reentered work life as a man of business in the 2000s. He became the Chief Executive Officer of New World Renaissance Securities Ltd until April 2008 where he specialized as private economic and investment consultant specializing in packaging investments for private placement. His experience has seen him sought after as a governance and business leadership expert. He served as board chairman of UBA Ghana from the bank’s inception in 2004 till 2014. He also served as the Chairman of Bayport Financial Services Ltd and was Chairman of Public Utilities and Regulatory Commission (PURC). He has also chaired the boards of Airtel Communications Ghana and e-Tranzact and was school board chair at Ghana International School. In 2001, he co-authored the book “Some Crucial Development Issues facing Ghana by the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences. As an economist, his philosophy is multi-dimensional, but a consistent theme has been the essential incompatibility between the economic agenda of poor nations and the priorities of the Bretton Woods system with which he is so familiar. Mr. Kwame Pianim continues to be a resilient, well-respected voice in our body politic today, noted for his honest, if sometimes unpopular opinions on our economy, He is still relevant today and widely consulted and invited to speak on issues of the economy , over 60 years after he began career. FOR SERVICES RENDERED TO MOTHER GHANA AS A WHOLE AND TO ASANTEMAN IN PARTICULAR, THE ASANTE PROFESSIONALS CLUB IS DELIGHTED TO RECOGNISE 6 AND CELEBRATE YOU, MR KWAME PIANIM, A TRUE SON OF ASANTE. WE HEREBY CONFER UPON YOU THE OPEMSUO LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD