Find out more about the leaders putting the 2023 Data Protection Africa Summit together.
Justice Samuel Kofi Date-Bah is currently Chairman of both the Electronic Communication Tribunal, and of the Law Reform Commission.
He was a member of the Supreme Court of Ghana from 2003 to 2013, before which he served as a Special Adviser (Legal) at the Commonwealth Secretariat in London from 1984 till 2003.
Prior to this, he was engaged as a law Professor at the Universities of Ghana, Nairobi, and Calabar (Nigeria), with visiting appointments at Lincoln College, Oxford, and the Yale Law School. Educated at the University of Ghana (LL.B, first class honors 1965), the Yale Law School (LL.M, 1967) and the London School of Economics (Ph.D.1969), he was called to the Ghana Bar in 1969.
Elected a Fellow of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2000, he is a member of the International Academy of Commercial and Consumer Law and was a member of the UNIDROIT Working Group which formulated the UNIDROIT Principles of International Commercial Contracts. Professor Date-Bah has published extensively on Ghanaian law and international commercial law; his latest, a book entitled: Reflections on the Supreme Court of Ghana (2015).
After retiring from the bench, he remained Chairman of the Ghana Law Reform Commission and the Data Protection Commission of Ghana till January 2017.
He Chaired the National Data Protection Conferences held in Accra in 2016 and 2017. He was re-appointed Chairman of the Law Reform Commission in 2017. He was decorated with the Order of the Volta in 2015.
President of Data Protection Authority – CNDP Morocco
President of Right to Information Access Commission – CDAI Morocco
Omar Seghrouchni is the current president of Moroccan DPA (CNDP), and the leader of “governance of transformations’’. He is born in 1962, in Rabat, married and has two children.
He graduated from the Mohammedia School of Engineering in 1986 as an Electrical and Industrial Automatic Engineer. In 1987, he obtained a DEA in Mathematics and Automation from the University Paris IX – Dauphine and Ecole des Mines of Paris. He had also a Master degree in Diplomacy and Strategy ECSR and a Master in Economic Intelligence at the School of Economic Warfare in Paris.
He began his career in 1988, in France, as a research engineer at the National Institute for Research in Computer Science and Automation (INRIA), before directing the Laboratory of Real Time Computer Science at the Higher Institute of Electronics in Paris (ISEP). Since 1998, Mr. Seghrouchni held several positions of responsibility and management in large firms and companies in the field of consulting and information systems architecture. He piloted several major digital transformation projects, in both the private and public sectors, in France and in Morocco.
President of the High Authority for the Protection of Personal Data
Ms. SANADY Tchimaden Hadatan, Grand Cross in the National Order of the Republic of Niger, was born on January 1, 1966 in Abardack in the Agadez Region. She did her primary and secondary studies from 1973 to 1984 in Agadez, a historic city in northern Niger.
Ms. SANADY, President of the High Authority for the Protection of Personal Data (HAPDP) since December 2019, Principal Inspector of the Public Treasury of her state, was from March 2010 to April 2011, Minister of Population, Promotion of Women and Child Protection with management of four (4) sectoral policies (population, advancement of women, child protection and social protection) before occupying the position of President of the National Information Processing Unit Financial (CENTIF) from September 2011 to September 2019.
Also, she has extensive experience in the sector of the fight against money laundering and the financing of terrorism, having been for 6 years at the head of the CENTIF and National Correspondent of the Intergovernmental Group for Action against Money Laundering in West Africa (GIABA), an ECOWAS institution with an interface role between GIABA and the sectoral ministries in charge of the issue.
A graduate of the 3rd cycle of the National School of the Public Treasury of Noisiel in Paris, the President of the HAPDP obtained her 2nd cycle diploma at the National School of Administration (ENA SUP of Niamey), option Public Finances in 1998.
In her brilliant career, Ms. SANADY, a specialist in Public Finance, has held several positions of responsibility within the Ministry of Finance, which is her guardianship both at the central administration level and at the provincial level.
Ms. SANADY Tchimaden Hadatan, in her professional career, has been very active in bilateral and multilateral cooperation. Among other things, we can note his remarkable participation within the Intergovernmental Group for the Fight against Money Laundering in West Africa, within the EGMONT Group, the FATF and recently his active participation in the Francophone Association of Protection of Personal Data (AFAPDP) as well as to the African Network for the Protection of Personal Data (RAPDP) of which she currently holds the Presidency.
Ms. SANADY is finally a convinced feminist who participates in several social actions and the promotion of women and gender.
President of General Confederation of Moroccan Enterprises – CGEM
Elected President of the General Confederation of Moroccan Enterprises in January 2020 for a 3-year term and re-elected to the same position in May 2023, Mr. Chakib ALJ is a Moroccan business leader and industrialist.
He is President and CEO of Cap Holding, a group with over 3500 employees operating in a wide range of activities, such as flour milling, agri-food, aviculture, the plastic industry, tourism, distribution and civil engineering, among others.
After completing his studies in the United States at Columbia University, Mr. ALJ embarked on his career in Morocco in 1987, managing the “Société Nouvelle des Moulins du Maghreb”, a hundred-year-old leader in the flour-milling industry. He expanded this business by launching “Le Moulin de Berrechid”, “Moony”, “Matahine Bab Mansour” and “GSB”.
As an experienced industry leader, Chakib ALJ created “Multisacs”, a company operating in plastic processing and packaging, “Alf Mabrouk – Cicavi” in aviculture and livestock feed production, “ACTL” in transport and logistics and “Adiwatt Maroc” in renewable energies.
As part of his civic and business activism, he has chaired the National Federation of Milling in Morocco (FNM), the Interprofessional Federation of Cereal Activities (FIAC) and the Federation of Professionals in the Distribution of Consumer Products (TIJARA 2020).
Mr. Chakib ALJ is married and is father to 4 children.
Chairman HPS
Mohamed HORANI is the Chairman of HPS. He is the architect of PowerCARD multi-channel payment software, developed by HPS and used by more than 500 banks in 90 countries across five continents. He is a recognized pioneer in the global payment industry, leading HPS to become one of the top payment solution vendors within ten years of its inception in 1995.
Mr. HORANI is an expert member of the Economic, Social and Environmental Council (CESE) which is an independent constitutional institution setup by His Majesty King Mohammed VI on February 21, 2011.
He is also an independent board director of the National Telecommunications Regulatory Agency (ANRT) in Morocco and Euromed University of Fez (UEMF).
Mr. HORANI was a member of the High Authority for National Dialogue for the Reform of Justice in Morocco. He has also served as a board member for several Moroccan institutions and foundations including the National Council for Foreign Trade (CNCE), the National Social Security Fund (CNSS), the Moroccan Interprofessional Pension Fund (CIMR) and Al Akhawayn University.
Mr. HORANI was president of the General Confederation of Employers (CGEM) in Morocco from June 2009 to June 2012. CGEM is the main representative of the private sector in Morocco. Created in 1947, it represents more than 90,000 direct and affiliated members.
Mohamed HORANI was decorated by His Majesty King Mohammed VI with the “Wissam Al Moukafaa Al Watania” of the Order of Grand Officer. He holds a degree in engineering from the National Institute of Statistics and Applied Economy, Rabat. He is also the honorary consul of Singapore in Morocco.
Ms. Akuetteh was the first Executive Director to set up the Data Protection Commission of Ghana and facilitated the implementation of Ghana’s Data Protection Act until her exit in July 2017. She is a Senior Partner at Nsiah Akuetteh & Co. a law firm based in Accra, Ghana that specializes in information technology and telecommunication law in Africa. She is a privacy and data protection consultant and has previously worked for the Government of Ghana in the development of several key legislation for the ICT sector including the Data Protection Act, 2012 (Act 843), Electronic Communications Act, 2008 (Act 775) and Electronic Transactions Act, 2012 (Act 772). She has also worked in various capacities with regional bodies such as ECOWAS.
She is a member of the UN Global Pulse Privacy Advisory Group and a member of advisory committee for the 40th International Conference of Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners.
She holds an LLM in Information Technology and Telecommunications Law from the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow – Scotland and a Bachelor of Arts in Law and Political Science from the University of Ghana (Legon), Accra – Ghana.