Nana Bediatuo Asante is the Secretary to the President of the Republic of Ghana. He is responsible for managing the Secretariat of the Presidency, including staff and process flow. He is among the top officials of the Presidency and one of the most Senior Advisers to the President. Prior to becoming the Secretary to the President, Nana was the Managing Partner at Ampem Chambers, a leading law firm in Accra, specializing in corporate transactions, constitutional law, public policy, and advocacy.
As a specialist in corporate and investment law,
Nana has significant experience in structuring transactions and providing legal advice in Ghana and in the major international financial centers. Nana was a Senior Executive and General Counsel at the Databank Group, Accra, responsible for all legal aspects of its investment banking, corporate advisory and finance, fund and asset management, and brokerage operations. Nana's experience includes negotiating, reviewing and drafting transaction contracts, structuring fund offerings to international and local investors, and advising on appropriate strategies for transactions in the international and local capital markets.
On Wall Street, Nana was a corporate associate with the distinguished international law firm, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, where he represented blue-chip clients in a broad range of corporate transactions, including mergers and acquisitions, public and private securities offerings, bank and subordinated financings, strategic alliances and investments and formation of private investment funds.
Nana has represented the African Development Bank, Abidjan, La Côte d'Ivoire, as a legal consultant in the various aspects of the bank's lending operations and has also advised senior management on bank financing and portfolio management issues. He was Executive Director of Citi Savings & Loans, a non-bank financial institution, and was solely responsible for drafting transaction documents and negotiating terms of acquisition of majority shares in the bank by Intercontinental Bank, Nigeria.
On international public policy and advocacy, Nana has also been an advisor to the Alliance of Small Island States in negotiations towards an international convention on climate change and has assisted attorneys for the republic of Chad in its border dispute with Libya at the International Court of Justice, The Hague. Nana regularly advises government institutions and agencies and independent public policy organizations on various subjects including matters related to land and forestry, environment, good governance, constitutional and legal reform, anti-corruption initiatives, and private sector policy. He has been a consultant to GTZ, the German International Development Agency, the National House of Chiefs in Ghana, and the Ghana Center for Democratic Development (CDD) on natural resource management issues including land and forestry policy reform. He has also been a consultant to GTZ-Forum and landowners towards developing a framework for collaborative forest management with the Ghana Forestry Commission. Nana is the legal adviser to the Okyeman Environment Foundation and the Okyeman Lands Commission. He regularly presents papers at, and participates in, seminars and conferences on public policy and development matters.
Nana Bediatuo is a published scholar of international law and has contributed to a number of international journals and seminars. He is a Senior Fellow of the Danquah Institute, a conservative think tank in Accra. Nana also serves on the boards of a number of institutions.
Nana Bediatuo is a Barrister-at-Law and Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Ghana and admitted to practice in New York, U.S.A. He obtained his Doctor of Jurisprudence from the New York University School of Law and holds a Qualifying Certificate in Law from the Ghana School of Law. Nana is a Fellow Emeritus of the Centre for International Studies, New York University. He is a member of the Ghana Bar Association and the New York State Bar Association.
