Omotunde E. G. Johnson

Born and raised in Sierra Leone to Krio parents, he is a dual citizen of both that country and the United States, and came to California in 1961 to study at the University of California Los Angeles. He completed a Bachelor of Arts in economics in 1965, a Master of Arts in 1967 and a Doctor of Philosophy in 1970. He began lecturing at both California State University and the University of Sierra Leone at Freetown in the late 1960s.[2]

During the academic year of 1973 to 1974, he served as a visiting assistant professor at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, departing to begin what would become an almost 25-year career with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Beginning as an economist in 1974, he later served as a senior economist, deputy division chief and division chief, advisor and resident advisor to Ghana. From 1979 until 1994, he held a broad range of positions at the International Monetary Fund,[1] which centered on operational work and structural adjustments related to the economies of African, Asian and Eastern European member nations. Since 2000, he has been an independent economics researcher and consultant, with terms as an adjunct faculty staff member at the School of Public Policy at George Mason University and the country director for Sierra Leone at the International Growth Center at the London School of Economics.[2]

Omotunde Johnson has published extensively in various journals,[3]including World Development, Finance & Development and numerous IMF publications and white papers. He is also the author of Dancing With Trouble: a Novel on African Leadership, and has presented papers at several IMF seminars on central banking. Likewise, he is a member of the American Economics Association, the American Finance Association and the Royal Economic Society of the United Kingdom and considers his academic publications to be the highlight of his career. He credits his parents, both teachers, for encouraging him to pursue academia and prioritize education, and considers his grandfather, the first Anglican assistant bishop in Sierra Leone, to have been his primary inspiration while growing up.[2]