AMBASSADOR ALICE DEAR

Ambassador Alice Marie Dear, Africanist, banker, consultant, and diplomat has enjoyed and excelled in multiple careers with a global focus. In each endeavor she has proudly deployed her creative energy to empower women and girls.

In this milestone year, the Honorable Alice Dear celebrates her 50-year membership in Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated. She became a member on the very Howard University campus in Washington, DC where the international service organization was founded in 1908. She credits AKA, the first Greek-lettered organization founded by African American college-educated women, with modeling for her at an early age how to leverage the power of women through collaboration, preparation and service. AKA enabled her to develop and fine-tune critical leadership skills for success. Those early building blocks propelled her career achievements that we celebrate this evening.

Ms. Dear honed her skills in international banking, finance and marketing during an 11-year tenure on Wall Street in the Middle East and Africa Group at Irving Trust Company, now Bank of New

York Mellon. Her familiarity with the nuances of African business, economic, political and cultural affairs complemented her skills acquired at Irving as an international lending officer, trade finance specialist and marketing officer for operational services. She left banking in 1988 as a Vice President to launch an international consulting business with a focus on Africa, and to make a difference in the lives of those she encountered.

In early 1994 President Bill Clinton appointed Alice Dear, with unanimous Senate confirmation, as U.S. Executive Director of the African Development Bank Group, Africa’s premier financial institution headquartered in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire. From 1994-2000, Ambassador Dear, the first woman appointed to this position, represented the U.S. Government on the Boards of Directors of the African Development Bank Group, sharing responsibility for oversight of the Bank’s financial, operational and administrative management, including its then $3 billion annual lending portfolio, a key contributor to the economic development and social progress of the Bank’s 54 regional member countries.