Kofi Adjepong-Boateng

Kofi Adjepong-Boateng is a Bye-Fellow at Darwin College where he is the Associate Director at the Centre for Financial History. He is also a Member of the Senior Combination Room at King’s College. Both colleges are constituent parts of the University of Cambridge. His research work covers the evolution of monetary systems in parts of West Africa from the early nineteenth century as well as aspects of British monetary and colonial history.

Kofi is a Trustee of the UK’s Royal Economic Society and a Trustee of the Council of Management of the UK’s National Institute of Economic and Social Research. Up until January 2020, Kofi was a Trustee of the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, where he also chaired the Penrose Lecture series, established in honour of the late Professor Edith Penrose.

He is also a founding partner of Pembani Remgro Infrastructure Managers and sits on the board of Helios Fairfax Partners Corporation which is listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

Kofi began his working life in 1987 while still at St John’s College, Oxford; he served as research assistant to the late Dr. Jonathan Frimpong-Ansah, former Governor of the Bank of Ghana. In 1995, in a joint venture with S.G. Warburg & Co., Kofi co-founded First Africa as a corporate advisory firm with offices in London, Johannesburg, Nairobi and elsewhere. In July 2009, Standard Chartered Bank bought First Africa, whereupon Kofi became a Vice Chairman at Standard Chartered.  In 2012, Kofi stepped down from Standard Chartered.

In October 2020, Kofi was recognized in the Queen Elizabeth II’s birthday honours and awarded a CBE for his contribution to philanthropy.

Updated July, 2025