Herbert Mensah

Herbert Mensah played rugby for Saracens while studying economics at Sussex University. Decades later the sport took him to the top of African administration: on 18 March 2023 he was elected President of Rugby Africa, the first from an English-speaking country, and in November 2024 he joined the World Rugby Executive Board.

Early life

Herbert Amponsah Mensah was born on 26 December in Kumawu, Ashanti. He attended Achimota School and finished his O Levels in England before university at Sussex.

Business

He went into business as a student, working in tobacco in Zimbabwe, then distributed mobile phones for Motorola, Sony Ericsson and Nokia in the 1990s and ran a certified repair centre in Accra. He represented the BBC in Ghana from 1995, became country manager of MultiChoice Ghana and in 2004 set up the outsourcing network SOS (Strategic Outsourcing Solutions).

Sports administration

From 1999 to 2003 he was chairman of Asante Kotoko, appointed by the Asantehene, Otumfuo Opoku Ware II. He has since led Ghana Rugby, first elected in 2014 and re-elected in 2017 and 2020, during which Ghana won bronze at a sevens tournament in Lome in 2016, became a full member of World Rugby in May 2017 and won the Africa Men's Sevens in Kumasi in 2021. He has also sat on the Ghana Olympic Committee board and has been an outspoken critic of the Ghana Football Association and of governments that neglect minority sports.

Honours

He was made a Member of the Order of the Volta in 2024 and received the Living Legend award at the 2025 Ghana Football Awards. He also leads the May 9 Foundation, which remembers the 2001 Accra Sports Stadium disaster.