Ethiopian banker
leads dev't agency for Obama
administration
By Yeheyes
Wuhib [VOA] January 20, 2010
As
chief of the Millennium Challenge
Corporation, Daniel Yohannes, is the
highest ranking Ethiopian American in
Obama's government.
"We work with countries that have
implemented good social-economic polices and are
accountable for their own growth."
An Ethiopian immigrant is making history as
the highest Ethiopian-American official in the Obama
administration.
Daniel Yohannes was born in the Ethiopian capital. He completed
his elementary school at Addis Ababa’s Nativity Boy’s School and
later transferred to St. Joseph’s, a prestigious Catholic high
school in Addis Ababa.
“In those days people of my generation were idealistic, full of
energy, with a lot of love for each other, as well as love and
respect for our parents, elders, and teachers,” Yohannes says.
“Growing up in Ethiopia, we had a wonderful awareness of our
country as well as the world. We were more advanced in some
ways than most teenagers today,” he says.
Go west, young man
In 1970, the 17-year-old Yohannes came to the United States and
settled in Los Angeles, California. After completing high
school, he pursued his undergraduate studies at Claremont
McKenna College and went to graduate School at Pepperdine
University, where he obtained his MBA.
Of his time in California, Yohannes says the first few years
were difficult. With no car he had to walk two to three hours a
day trying to be on time for both classes and work.
With an undergraduate degree in economics and a graduate degree
in finance, Yohannes was finally ready to plunge into the world
of banking. He worked his way up to vice chairman of the sixth
largest bank in the United States, U.S. Bank, which has assets
close to $260 billion.
For many this would have been success enough. Not so for Daniel
Yohannes. Taking an early retirement from the bank in 2003, he
co-founded one of the first “green” banks in the United States,
one that specialized in funding companies creating non-polluting
technologies in northern California. Observers point out that
Yohannes “went green” before the movement became fashionable.
Making a difference globally
The MCC was created in 2004 with a mission to reduce poverty
through long-term economic growth. According to Yohannes, the
MCC was created based on best practices learned in the last four
decades from other U.S. development agencies.
