Festus Brew Quansah
Festus Brew Quansah is one of Africa’s top emerging experts in Finance and International business with strong analytical and strategic thinking skills. He has a rich portfolio of experience in national level policy planning in the finance, energy, climate change, macroeconomic and project space.
He has coordinated the Ghana Nuclear Power Finance group to produce all pre-feasibility studies in Funding and Finance. He also led Ghana’s team to comprehensively address all concerns of the Integrated Nuclear Infrastructure Review (INIR) team from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Vienna. These studies include financing strategies for project and back end liabilities, macroeconomic benefits, risk assessment, and financial viability analysis. His current work includes country risk analysis, economic appraisals, and financial risk management on projects.
With a special penchant for novel policy research, he conducted the first empirical study on Islamic Finance as an alternative model in Ghana’s context. Currently, Festus is pioneering technical work that envisions a ‘Hydrogen Economy in Africa’ with emphasis on the strategic role of Small Modular Reactors.
Festus demonstrates unique understanding of the workings of African economies and financial markets and is passionate about infrastructure growth, financial development, innovation and the energy-economy nexus especially in transition economies.
He has also worked as member of Response Measures Technical Working Group set up to coordinate analysis and implementation of Ghana’s climate action. He has been part of Ghana Macroeconomic Model Technical Team that worked on the first integrated model for macroeconomic forecasting, sectoral planning, and policy analysis.
He demonstrates strong cultural sensitivity skills developed through several international engagements. Festus has represented Ghana at various high-level technical meetings in Austria, the United States, Kenya, and Italy and is proficient in English and French (working proficiency). He has also served as distinguished speaker, reviewer, mentor and chair at different platforms including the IAEA and the International Youth Nuclear Congress.
In November 2023, Mr. Quansah was invited as an external expert (one of the youngest in the role) by IAEA for an IAEA Expert Mission in Sri Lanka on Nuclear Power Economics and Financing where he delivered lectures on:
-Financing of Nuclear Power Projects: Lessons and Approaches for Embarking Countries
-Financial Modelling as a Tool for Informing Financing Strategies, and,
held awareness and advisory meetings (i.e., stakeholder engagements) with senior officials of key government institutions of Sri Lanka.
Festus is an alumnus of several international programmes including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s training course on ‘Nuclear Energy in Low-carbon Future: Facts and Issues’ and ‘Promoting a Just Transition to a Low-carbon and Climate-resilient Development’ organised by the International Training Centre of the International Labour Organisation (ITCILO), Turin, Italy.
Currently, Festus serves as the Coordinator for Ghana on the World Economic Forum’s Advanced Energy Ecosystems: Accelerating New Nuclear Initiative. He is also the founder and President of the Ghana Hydrogen Initiative.
He is trained in the areas of Finance, and International Economics and Business Strategy. He holds an MBA (Finance major) from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Ghana, an MSc. International Business with Financial Services from the University of Huddersfield in United Kingdom and a BSc. Business Administration (Banking and Finance major) from Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Ghana.