Youngest Commissioner In Nigeria, Mark Okoye Wins The Future Awards Africa Young Person Of The Year

By Red Media Africa

In a time of national economic adversity, Africa's biggest youth event, The Future Awards bestowed its biggest honour on the 31-year old Anambra State Government Commissioner for Economic Planning and Budget Development, Mark Okoye.

He is the youngest commissioner and public servant at his level in Nigeria. Okoye brings tenure as a senior member of the investment banking division at Afrinvest (West Africa) Limited where he was instrumental in executing numerous capital raising and financial advisory transactions to his new position. Though enjoying an illustrious secure private sector career, he quit, heeding a personal call to serve. He pitched himself to economic teams of his state government with little initial success. After persevering, he eventually became the Senior Special Assistant on Investments of (former) Governor Peter Obi, Anambra State. He was 26 years old at the time.

All this paved the way for his current appointment and tenure as Commissioner. He manages the most critical of ministries in a state with great potential to be a manufacturing behemoth for Nigeria.

His role involves him running the day-to-day activities of the Ministry of Economic Planning and Budget. In addition, he has operational and strategic oversight over Anambra State Investment Promotion & Protection Agency.

Under his tutelage, 10,000 jobs have been created in Anambra as a result of investment inflows into key sectors of Anambra’s economy such as Agriculture, Trade & Commerce and Manufacturing. He has been nominated by the Vice President of Nigeria to serve as a Member & South East Geopolitical Zone Representative of the National Economic Council Retreat Implementation Monitoring Committee. He Led investment promotion teams that facilitated the successful launch of numerous Public-Private-Partnership projects in the State. Some of these investments include Coscharis farms - $100m, Lynden Poultry Farms - $40m and Anambra Delfarms Ltd - $60m.

He has also introduced monthly performance reviews to monitor the State’s internally generated revenues (IGRs), monitoring state wide initiatives that led to the increase of IGRs from N600m/month to approximately N1.3bn/month in 12 months.

He is truly deserving of the topmost honour of Africa's most prestigious prize for talented, hardworking, high-achieving youth.

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About The Future Awards Africa
The Future Awards Africa has been called the ‘Nobel Prize for Young Africans’, and the ‘most important youth awards’ by Forbes. It is a set of prizes given annually to celebrate and accelerate innovation, creativity and enterprise amongst young Africans aged 18 – 31. It has produced over 150 winners and over 1550 nominees since its first edition in 2006.

It is presented in conjunction with The Future Project, which has a mandate to build empowered citizens across Africa, through (inclusive) enterprise and (active) citizenship. This focus on Human Capital Development is informed by our value proposition: Africa's growth needs a generation of young people who are gainfully employed and able to demand and secure better leadership.

Our projects include Aiki.ng, an employability portal presented with Microsoft; the Nigeria Symposium for Young & Emerging Leaders, #StartupsAfrica, Intern4Jobs, YMonitor.org presented with National Endowment for Democracy (NED), The Future Enterprise Support Scheme and The Future Awards Africa, described as 'The Nobel Prize for Young Africans'.

Founded by the Chude Jideonwo and Adebola Williams, TFP is supervised by a Global Board of Advisors drawn from Africa, Europe, North America and the Middle East, including the Coordinating Minister of the Nigerian Economy, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala; Senior Economic Advisor with the Open Society Foundations, Dr. Obiageli Ezekwesili; co-founder of ONE, Jamie Drummond and the Chief of Cabinet with the Africa Development Bank, Anne Kabagambe.

About Red Media Africa
Red Media Africa ( www.redmediaafrica.com ) is the PR & Empowerment Marketing division under the parent brand, RED.

It focuses on using inspiration, empowerment and action to help brands and organisations connect with their audiences, enhance their bottom-lines and lead in their industries. It has 6 major practice areas: Corporate Practice, Technology Practice, SME Practice, Governance Practice, Faith Practice and the International Practice - with work for brands across Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya and South Africa. RED owns the continent's largest portfolio of youth media brands.

Its Content Division holds brands across TV, radio, online and events including Y! Magazine,YNaija.com, Rubbin' Minds, #YTech100 and the The RED Summit. It also anchors a development firm, The Future Project, which projects include Africa's leading youth platform, The Future Awards Africa, HowCanIGetInvolved.com and Aiki.ng, which is run in conjunction with Microsoft.