Nardos Bekele-Thomas is the first woman to lead the African Union’s development agency. She was appointment and endorsed as the new Chief Executive Officer of AUDA-NEPAD by the African Union Heads of State and Government during the Thirty-Fifth Ordinary Session of the African Union summit, in February 2022. She succeeds Dr. Ibrahim Assane Mayaki as CEO of AUDA-NEPAD.

Ms. Bekele-Thomas was previously the Senior Director of the Office of the United Nations Secretary- General. She also served as Resident Coordinator for the United Nations in South Africa and as Resident Coordinator and UNDP Resident Representative in Kenya and Benin. Prior to that she served for over four years in Kenya as Deputy Resident Representative. She is the author of several papers and monographs, and she is fully bilingual in French and English.

She has excelled as a Private Sector Policy Adviser focusing on the promotion of trade and investment in several African countries through private/public sector partnerships in the United States. Ms. Bekele-Thomas has also served in a technical and advisory capacity in which she helped initiate and conceptualise a pro-poor programme on the Social Dimensions of Development, and has served in various other capacities in the international development space.