Former Credit Suisse CEO Tidjane Thiam has officially been named the presidential candidate for Ivory Coast's main opposition party, the Democratic Party of Côte d'Ivoire (PDCI), in the country's upcoming election.
Thiam, 62, was the sole contender for the PDCI nomination. To qualify, he renounced his French citizenship, having spent the past two decades living and working abroad.
A former Ivorian planning minister, Thiam has held top executive roles at major global firms including Aviva, Prudential, and Credit Suisse. He made history in 2009 as the first Black CEO of a FTSE 100 company when he took the helm at Prudential. However, his career has faced controversy: he was reprimanded by a UK financial regulator over a lack of transparency during a takeover attempt, and resigned from Credit Suisse in 2020 following a spying scandal—allegations he denies.
Despite his international stature, political analyst Geoffroy Kouao told AFP that Thiam remains relatively unknown among Ivorians due to his long absence and will need a strong campaign to win the October election.
The ruling RHDP party has yet to announce its candidate. President Alassane Ouattara, 83, has hinted at running for a fourth term. Meanwhile, three key political figures, including former President Laurent Gbagbo, have been barred from running, AFP reports.
Thiam, who was the first Ivorian to pass the entrance exam for France’s elite Polytechnique engineering school, returned home in the 1990s to join politics. In 1998, he became planning minister, but his tenure was cut short by a coup in 1999 that ousted the PDCI.
He also has deep political ties in West Africa, he is the great-nephew of Ivory Coast’s founding president Félix Houphouët-Boigny and the nephew of Senegal’s former Prime Minister Habib Thiam.
