Prudential plc school students, in partnership with the NGO Plan Ghana; and a scheme to support actuarial science graduates. In September 2014, Prudential purchased Kenyan life insurer Shield Assurance and rebranded it as Prudential Kenya, further expanding the company’s presence in Africa. Prudential has since entered three other African countries – Uganda in 2015, Zambia in 2016 and Nigeria in 2017. On 10 March 2015, it was announced that the CEO, Tidjane Thiam, would leave Prudential to become the next CEO of Credit Suisse. On 1 May 2015, it was announced that Mike Wells, head of the company's US business, would succeed
Tidjane Thiam first Ivorian President, Félix Houphouët-Boigny, died and was replaced by Henri Konan Bédié. In April 1994, at the request of the new President, Thiam left France and McKinsey to go back to Abidjan and become the CEO of the National Bureau for Technical Studies and Development (BNETD), an infrastructure development and economic advisory body with more than 4,000 staff, reporting directly to the President and the Prime Minister. In that role, which had cabinet rank, he was also handling key negotiations with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Thiam was also a key member of the Privatization Committee,