Lucy Quist And 2 Other Wesley Girls' Old Students Who Rose To Become Ghana's First Female CEOs

• Wesley Girls' Senior High School is an all-girls institution that was established in Ghana in 1836 and has helped train 1000s of women who have risen to various positions of influence
• The school can boast of producing the first female police officer in Ghana, the first female pilot in Africa, and the first female professor, among many others
• Afua Adwo Jectey Hesse, Lucy Quist and Yvonne Tsikata are old students of Gey Hey who made history by holding high-profile positions in their field

Wesley Girls' Senior High School has been the desired school of choice for many Ghanaian girls since it was founded in 1836. This can be attributed to the quality of education and prestige attached to the school's name.

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Over the years, 'Gey Hey', as the school is fondly called, has produced ladies who have risen above the status quo and made notable impacts in their field. For example, the school is credited with producing the first female police officer in Ghana, the first female pilot in Africa, the first female professor in Ghana and the first female brigadier general of the Ghana Armed Forces, among others.

YEN.com.gh seeks to bring to light the achievement of three such goal-getters and their various roles before getting to the top.

1. Professor Afua Adwo Jectey Hesse, the first female Acting CEO of Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital

Professor Afua Adwo Jectey Hesse has experienced many 'firsts' in her career. One such feat was her appointment as acting chief executive officer of the Korle-Bu on January 1, 2013. This made her the first woman in the hospital's history to take that position.

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Before being CEO, Afua became the first woman to head the Paediatric Surgery Unit and became director of Medical Affairs of Korle Bu. She is recognised as the first female paediatric surgeon in Ghana.

The passionate Gey Hey past student is a professor of surgery at the University of Ghana Medical School (UGMS), where she lectures both undergraduates and postgraduates. Afua's hard work saw her become the head of the Department of Surgery at the UGMS.

In August 2010, Professor Afua Adwo made history when she became the first Ghanaian to serve as the president of the Medical Women’s International Association. She is currently the president of the Accra College of Medicine.

After her secondary education, she obtained her MB ChB at UGMS in 1976. She also became a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh in 1983, a fellow of the West African College of Surgeons in 1990 and a foundation fellow of the Ghana College of Surgeons in 2005.

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The driven surgeon and academic is married to Rev. Prof. Adukwei Hesse, a physician specialist, and the two have four children.

2. Lucy Quist, the first female CEO of Airtel Ghana, now AirtelTigo

Lucy is a chartered electrical and electronic engineer who started her career as an engineer at Ford Motor Company and eventually pivoted to the telecommunication space, becoming the first Ghanaian woman to head a multinational telecommunications company.

She first became the head of business development at Millicom International Cellular and rose to the position of head of operations before becoming the chief marketing officer for the same company in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Then, in September 2011, Lucy took up the head of strategy and planning position at Vodafone Ghana and became director for the Enterprise Business Unit.

The electrical engineer made history in May 2014 when she became the CEO of Airtel Ghana, currently known as AirtelTigo. She served for more than three years.

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In an interview, Lucy opened up about how she processed her huge feat as a history maker;

"It really hadn't dawned on me the magnitude of what that meant but I had been prepared for that and I always tell people that it is not about your gender, race, identity. All that become part of the story when you actually get there.

The journey of the story is about building the skills, closing the gaps of the things you need to be able to do to get there so focus on developing yourself, your skills, abilities, temperaments and character because when you get to the top, the only question would be, 'can you do the job or not?'", she said.

In 2016, she was named the Telecom CEO of the year. Lucy Quist is currently a Managing Director at top UK firm, Mogan Stanley.

3. Yvonne Tsikata, the first Ghanaian woman to become vice president at the World Bank

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Yvonne pursued an economics degree from New York University (NYU) after completing her secondary education at Wesley Girls' Senior High School. She started her career journey as a monetary theory and macroeconomic theory lecturer at her alma mater, NYU, and in 1991, she joined the Word Bank.

In the early stages of her career, she took up positions such as country director for the Caribbean and sector manager for the Poverty Reduction and Economic Management Unit in the Africa Region. She worked in the World Bank's International Trade Department and the Independent Evaluation Group. The driven woman also became the Chief of Staff to the World Bank CEO in 2013.

In January 2016, Yvonne Tsikata made history when she became the first Ghanaian to hold the position of vice president and corporate secretary of the World Bank. In all, she worked with the World Bank for over 29 years.

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During a speech at the 2015 Women In Parliament Global Forum, Yvonne opened up about her grandmother's contribution to the success she has experienced in life.

"In my 20s when my classmates were marrying, I faced a great deal of pressure to do the same, even from my parents, but my grandmother, an entrepreneurial woman with little formal education, told me not to listen. She asked me to finish my doctorate, which was much more important than getting married.

My grandmother used her success to help me grasp opportunities. She gave me security, agency, and confidence. So I could follow my ambition and work to achieve my potential. Because of her, I finished my PhD and joined the World Bank group", she said.

Florence Dolphyne: Life History of The Ghanaian Woman Who Became First Female Professor at University of Ghana

Another female trailblazer worth celebrating is Florence Dolphyne. She grew up with a goal to become an educationist someday, and through hard work accompanied by various opportunities, she rose through the ranks after commencing her career at the University of Ghana, Legon, making her the first woman to hold a number of positions in her field, including her feat as the first female professor of the university.

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Just after females were given equal rights to education thanks to decades of advocacy, many have lived to become pacesetters across various fields worldwide.

Like many, Florence Dolphyne a young girl from Akyinakrom in the Ejisu-Juabeng District of the Ashanti Region, discovered her love for academia at a very young age and pursued that with all her might until she was finally recognized and her works, celebrated.

Source: YEN.com.gh