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
Augustin Thiam Augustin Thiam Augustin Abdoulaye Thiam Houphouët (born 14 August 1952) is an Ivorian politician. Since 2011, he has been the governor of the Yamoussoukro Autonomous District. When Thiam was young, his father was government minister and the ambassador to Morocco. Thiam is also the grandnephew of Félix Houphouët-Boigny, Ivory Coast's first president. Thiam was trained as a medical doctor at the Université de Cocody and worked in public hospitals until 1989. He moved to Paris where he worked as a journalist. He returned to Ivory Coast in 1993 after the death of Houphouët-Boigny. In 1995, Thiam was appointed as the