Profile

Cheick-Oumar Sylla

Division Director for North Africa and the Horn of Africa
IFC

Cheick-Oumar Sylla serves as IFC’s Director for North Africa and the Horn of Africa, based in Cairo, Egypt. He covers Egypt, Morocco, Libya, Algeria, Tunisia, Sudan, South Sudan, Djibouti, Eritrea, and Somalia. Before joining IFC in Dakar in May 2017 as Principal Investment Officer- Africa Infrastructure and Natural Resources, Cheick-Oumar held leadership positions in a range of different industries in Africa and Europe, including in the pharmaceutical, real estate, banking and energy sectors, and was instrumental in creating a number of successful business ventures. Most recently, he served as Executive Vice President, Business Development Africa at ContourGlobal. Prior joining ContourGlobal, Cheick-Oumar was Director of the Investment & Financing Department at ICD, the Islamic Corporation for the Development of the Private Sector, a member of the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) based in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Cheick-Oumar also served as general manager of Pharmafinance (Ubipharm Group), one of the leading pharmaceutical distribution companies in Africa, and also as Chief Business Development Officer at Teylioum Group in Geneva, Switzerland. In July 2019, Cheick-Oumar became IFC’s Country Manager for the Horn of Africa covering Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti, Sudan and South Sudan. He was based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. In this last position and despite the challenges, Cheick-Oumar succeeded in increasing IFC’s footprint and growing IFC’s pipeline in the region. Cheick-Oumar is a graduate of École des Hautes Études Commerciales (HEC) in Montréal, Canada. He is also a member of the Institute of Directors (IoD)