Tidjane Thiam an executive director, sitting on the plc board. In January 2007, after Richard Harvey announced he would step down as chief executive of Aviva, Thiam was tipped as a possible future head of the group. Thiam left Aviva in September 2007 to become chief financial officer of Prudential plc. In March 2009, Thiam was named chief executive, effective from October, after Mark Tucker chose to step down. The appointment made him the first African to lead a FTSE 100 listed company. His departure from the role was announced on 10 March 2015. After he became chief executive, Prudential launched a
Tidjane Thiam he was awarded the Grand Prix de l’Économie, organised by Les Échos and Radio Classique, in partnership with law firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer. In July 2018, business and finance magazine Euromoney named Thiam "Banker of the Year 2018", citing his "radical three-year plan" that had "reinvented" Credit Suisse. Tidjane was married to Annette Thiam, an African-American lawyer who used to work for Joe Biden, and they have two sons. In October 2015, it was reported that they had separated. In addition to being a dual citizen of the Ivory Coast and France, he speaks English, French, and German, fluently. Tidjane