Mthuli Ncube Chief Economist and Vice President of the African Development Bank

Mthuli, Ncube

                                                                                Professor Mthuli Ncube is the Chief Economist and Vice President of the African Development Bank, and holds a PhD in Mathematical Finance from Cambridge University, UK, on “Pricing Options under Stochastic Volatility”.  As Chief Economist, he oversees the Economics Complex, which is focused on the process of knowledge management within the bank and with its partners, and general economic strategic direction of the bank. In this regard, he looks after the Development Research Division, Statistics Division and African Development Institute, all of which are headed by Directors who report to him. That is, knowledge generation, knowledge acquisition, knowledge dissemination, and knowledge sharing, and capacity-building. As a Vice President, he is a member of the senior management of the Bank and contributes to its general strategic direction.

Before joining the Bank, he held the post of Dean of the Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), Johannesburg, South Africa, and before that was Dean and Professor of Finance at Wits Business School.  He led Wits Business School to a point where it was rated at 45 globally by the UK Financial Times in 2007.He has extensive experience as an Investment Banker, and was founding Chairman of Barbican and Selwyn Capital, which are involved investment banking.

Prof Ncube was also a regulator, and served as a Board member of the South African Financial Services Board (FSB), which regulates non-bank financial institutions in South Africa.

He is also Chairman of the Board of the African Economic Research Consortium, a network that develops economists in Africa, with which he has been associated for the last 20 years.

He is also Chairman of the Global Agenda Council on “Poverty and Economic Development” (World Economic Forum).

Prof Ncube is also a Governor of the African Capacity Building Foundation.

Previously, Professor Ncube worked for INVESTEC Asset Management as a Portfolio Manager and Head of Asset Allocation Strategy.  He also managed Investec’s Global Managed Fund, an offshore umbrella-fund registered in Ireland.  The fund had five other funds under it with investments in US, Japanese and European Equities, bonds and money markets.

Prior to joining the corporate sector, Professor Ncube was a Lecturer in Finance at the London School of Economics, UK, where he taught and supervised undergraduate and graduate students in finance and investments, and general theory of asset pricing.

He has published widely in the area of finance and economics, and some of his papers have won awards.  Some of the papers have been published in international journals such as the Journal of Econometrics, Journal of Banking and Finance, Mathematical Finance, Applied Financial Economics, Journal of African Economies, among others.  He has also published 4 books, namely: Mathematical Finance; South African Dictionary of Finance; Financial Systems and Monetary Policy in Africa; and Development Dynamics: Theories and Lessons from Zimbabwe; and a book manuscript on Finance and investments in South Africa.

His interests are in golf, reading and painting. He is married to an Engineer with whom they have 4 children.