(Business in Cameroon) - Do you know Lions on the Move? It’s a famous report by the McKensey firm published in 2010. The report analyses the most dynamic economies in Africa. Among the writers of this report is the Cameroonian Acha Leke, a native of Fontem, in the North-West region.

A new arrival at McKensey’s Sub-Saharan African based in Johannesburg in 1998 for an internship, Acha Leke is now one of the firm’s 350 consultants in Africa. The recipient of a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Standford in the USA, this son of a medical doctor quickly made a name for himself in Africa’s finance community. “His business sense and bilingualism enabled him to breakthrough barriers that had stopped many others before him,” stated his compatriot, Cyrille Nkontchou, who directs the stock market intermediation company, Liquid Africa and founded the Enko Capital investment fund based in Johannesburg and London. 

In his position at McKensey in Johannesburg, 42-year-old Acha Leke has worked a lot on the Nigerian economy. He even lived in that country from 2010 to 2013 to do work which enabled the Nigerian government to increase its tax revenue by 700 million dollars (around 420 billion FCFA). But the Cameroonian finance expert is presented in the pan-African magazine Jeune Afrique as one of the “architects of the Emergence plans for Togo, Senegal, Gabon within French-speaking Africa and the English-speaking Kenya Vision 2030.” 

In addition to his activities in the areas of finance and economy, Acha Leke also looks at education “with his Ghanaian friend, Fred Swaniker, one of the founders of the African Leadership Academy of Johannesburg which offers two years of preparation for 100 young people from 43 countries to enter the best international universities.”

He also created a network of entrepreneurs, the African Leadership Network, which he hopes will produce Africa’s future builders. “There have been three generations of African leaders before us: Nyerere and Nkrumah, who won our independence and built our nations, General Abacha who destroyed them and the current Kagamé and Johnson Sirleaf who brought growth. It’s now up to my generation. We will have to bring prosperity, particularly via intracontinental trade,” he declared.