Ms. Clare Akamanzi

Ms. Clare Akamanzi is the CEO of the Rwanda Development Board (RDB) and serves as a Member of the Cabinet of Rwanda. She is an International Trade and Investment Lawyer, who has lived, schooled and worked in 7 countries in 3 continents and has served the Government of Rwanda for over 15 years.

Recently, she was appointed as a Founding Board Member of the World Health Organization Foundation (WHO-F).

Prior to her role as the CEO of the RDB, she served as Head of Strategy and Policy for H.E President Paul Kagame and for over 7 years as COO of the RDB. Ms. Akamanzi has also previously served as a Commercial Diplomat in London and a Trade Negotiator in Geneva at the World Trade Organization.

Clare holds a Masters degree in Public Administration from Harvard University – Kennedy School of Government where she was the recipient of the Lucius N. Littaeur Fellows Award; the Raymond & Josephine Vernon Award, both for academic excellence and distinguished contribution to HKS community, as well as the Robert F. Kennedy Award for Excellence in Public Service. She also holds an LLM (International Trade and Investment) with distinction from the University of Pretoria, South Africa, and LLM (Hons) from Makerere University, Uganda.

She is a 2012 Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum and was named one of Africa’s Top 50 Powerful Women by Forbes in 2020.