Kofi Annan

Kofi Annan was born into an aristocratic family in Kumasi, Gold Coast (present-day Ghana) in 1938. Annan received a Ford Foundation grant, allowing him to study at Macalester College in Minnesota; he then studied in Geneva, Switzerland and at the MIT Sloan School of Management, where he received his M.S. Annan began working for the WHO in 1962. During the Rwandan Genocide, Annan directed United Nations’ Peacekeeping operations. He was appointed as the Secretary-General of the U.N. in 1997. In 2001, Annan and the U.N received the Nobel Peace Prize for Annan’s founding of the Global AIDS and Health Fund. Annan also served as the UN-Arab League Joint Special Representative for Syria in 2012.