Meet..Donald Trumps First Nigerian Appointee, Adebayo Ogunlesi, Member of Trumps Economic Team..

President-elect,  Donald J. Trump today announced that he is establishing the President’s Strategic and Policy Forum,” said the press release from Blackstone.
“The Forum, which is composed of some of America’s most highly respected and successful business leaders, will be called upon to meet with the president frequently to share their specific experience and knowledge as the president implements his plan to bring back jobs and Make America Great Again,” Blackstone said in the release published by Business Insider. On  The list;  Adebayo Ogunlesi, a Nigerian is the only African face in the  16-man team, which  has  Steve Schwarzman, CEO of  private-equity giant Blackstone as chairman.

The Man Adebayo Oggunlesi, Was Born in 1953, to Prof. T.O Ogunlesi of Makun who is the first Nigerian professor of medicine. Ogunlesi attended Kings College Lagos, Nigeria after which he received his B.A. with first class honors in Philosophy, Politics and Economics, from Oxford University, his J.D. magna cum laude, from Harvard Law School and his M.B.A. from the Harvard Business School.

Adebayo Ogunlesi is currently Chairman and Managing Partner of Global Infrastructure Partners, a joint venture whose initial investors included Credit Suisse and General Electric. He is also a member of the Board of Directors of Goldman Sachs. He was named lead director on 24 July 2014.[6] Prior to his current role, he was Executive Vice Chairman and Chief Client Officer of Credit Suisse, based in New York. He previously served as a member of Credit Suisse’s Executive Board and Management Council and chaired the Chairman’s Board. Previously, he was the Global Head of Investment Banking at Credit Suisse. Since joining Credit Suisse in 1983, Mr. Ogunlesi has advised clients on transactions and financings and has worked on transactions in North and South America, the Caribbean, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia. In 2009, Global Infrastructure Partners acquired the majority in London Gatwick Airport in a deal worth £1.455 billion.

Prior to joining Credit Suisse, Ogunlesi was an attorney in the corporate practice group of the New York law firm of Cravath, Swaine & Moore. From 1980-81 he served as a law clerk to Associate Justice Thurgood Marshall of the United States Supreme Court. Ogunlesi is a member of the District of Columbia Bar Association. He was a lecturer at Harvard Law School and the Yale School of Organization and Management, where he taught a course on transnational investment projects in emerging countries.

All these, brought the man, Ogunlesi, to the rare attention of the American President Elect, Donald Trump to be part of his well structured economic team comprising of very experienced American Business  Executives.

Below is the  List Of 16 Members Of The Forum :

Stephen Schwarzman (forum chairman), chairman, CEO, and cofounder of Blackstone

Paul Atkins, CEO of Patomak Global Partners, former commissioner of the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Mary Barra, chairwoman and CEO, General Motors

Toby Cosgrove, CEO, Cleveland Clinic

Jamie Dimon, chairman and CEO, JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Larry Fink, chairman and CEO, BlackRock

Bob Iger, chairman and CEO, The Walt Disney Company

Rich Lesser, president and CEO, Boston Consulting Group

Doug McMillon, president and CEO, Wal-Mart Stores Inc.

Jim McNerney, former chairman, president, and CEO of Boeing

Adebayo “Bayo” Ogunlesi, chairman and managing partner, Global Infrastructure Partners

Ginni Rometty, chairwoman, president, and CEO of IBM

Kevin Warsh, Shepard Family Distinguished Visiting Fellow in economics at the Hoover Institute, former member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System

Mark Weinberger, global chairman and CEO, EY

Jack Welch, former chairman and CEO, General Electric

Daniel Yergin, Pulitzer Prize winner, vice chairman of IHS Markit

For Ogunlesi, the appointment may be a distraction as he  has his hands full. Ogunlesi on 15 October was named as an independent director of Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. Apart from being managing partner of Global Infrastructure Partners, he also serves on the boards of Callaway Golf Co. and Kosmos Energy Ltd. At the same time he’s the chairman of Africa Finance Corp. and serves on the boards of various not-for-profits ranging from New York Presbyterian Hospital to the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. Ogunlesi, whose father came from Makun, Sagamu in Ogun state was born in 1953. His father, Theophilus Ogunlesi was Nigeria’s first professor of medicine. After attending Kings College, Lagos for his secondary education , he received his B.A. with first class honours in Philosophy, Politics and Economics, from Oxford University. He graduated from Harvard Law School in 1979 and later got an MBA from Harvard Business School. Ogunlesi  had a banking career  with Credit Suisse First Boston from 1983 and rose to become its executive vice chairman. Before  joining Credit Suisse, Ogunlesi was an attorney in the corporate practice group of the New York law firm of Cravath, Swaine & Moore. From 1980-81 he served as a law clerk to Associate Justice Thurgood Marshall of the United States Supreme Court. He was a lecturer at Harvard Law School and the Yale School of Organization and Management, where he taught a course on transnational investment projects in emerging countries, according to Wikipedia He is married to an optometrist, Dr. Amelia Quist-Ogunlesi. His company Global Infrastructure Partners manages Gatwick Airport in the UK.