Ghanaian appointed president of International for Bank of America

A Ghanaian banker and economist, Mr Bernard Mensah has been appointed president of International for Bank of America.

He is also a member of the company’s executive management team. He is also chief executive officer of Merrill Lynch International (MLI), Bank of America’s largest international subsidiary; head of the BANA London branch; and a member of Bank of America’s Management Committee.

He is the brother of the President of Ghana Rugby, Mr Herbert Mensah who was the Chief Executive of Ashanti Kotoko.

A statement on the website of the Bank of America and dated July 2020 said, based in London, Mr Bernard Mensah previously jointly led the firm’s Fixed Income, Currencies and Commodities (FICC) Trading business globally. In April 2018, he assumed additional leadership responsibilities as the firm’s EMEA president. He was appointed to his current role in July 2020.

In his role as president, Mensah is responsible for the execution and development of the bank’s strategy, business activities and support functions internationally. These span corporate, commercial and investment banking, treasury services and sales and trading.

He is also responsible for ensuring the effective delivery of the broad Bank of America franchise to its corporate and institutional clients around the world. Mensah chairs the firm’s regional executive committee and is a member of the Global Banking and Markets Management Committee.

Mensah has more than 20 years of global trading and investing experience, serves on the U.K.’s Financial Conduct Authority’s Markets Practitioner Panel, and was recently asked by the Bank of England to join the senior advisory group overseeing LIBOR transition in the U.K. He joined the firm in 2010 from Goldman Sachs in London, where he was a partner and global head of Bank Loan and Distressed Trading. Prior to that, he ran the company’s Asia Credit and Convertibles business, based in Hong Kong and Tokyo.

Mensah received his B.A. in social sciences at the Joint School of Philosophy and Economics at the University of Bristol. He is a qualified chartered accountant, and became a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants England and Wales.

He chairs the West Africa Advisory Board of Prince’s Trust International and is a member of the board of the Kofi Annan Foundation, a not-for-profit organisation that promotes better global governance to achieve a fairer, more peaceful world.