Patience Akyianu

Patience Enyonam Akyianu was a Ghanaian chartered accountant, banker and insurance executive who ran two of the country's best-known financial brands. She was Managing Director of Barclays Bank Ghana, then became the first Group Chief Executive Officer of Hollard Ghana in October 2018, a post she held until her death on Sunday, 20 September 2026. Hollard announced her passing in a statement two days later.

An accountant's training

Akyianu went to Wesley Girls' Senior High School in Cape Coast, then to the University of Ghana Business School, where she graduated with first class honours in Business Administration, majoring in accounting. She returned to the same school for an MBA in finance. She qualified as a chartered accountant and was a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants, Ghana.

That grounding in numbers shaped her whole career. Colleagues and the institutions that honoured her kept returning to the same point: she was a finance professional first, and the top jobs came from there.

From Standard Chartered to the top of Barclays

Her banking career began at Standard Chartered, where she worked as Financial Controller and was involved in the bank's move to International Financial Reporting Standards. The bank later sent her to Johannesburg as Chief Financial Officer for its Africa regional operations, a role that put her in charge of the numbers for a business spread across many markets.

She moved to Barclays Bank Ghana as Finance Director and was promoted to Managing Director, a job she held for about five years from 2013. Barclays Ghana was one of the oldest and largest banks in the country. The bank has since been renamed Absa Bank Ghana after Barclays sold its African business. In all, she spent about 17 years in banking.

Building Hollard Ghana

In October 2018 she crossed into insurance as the first Group CEO of Hollard Ghana Holdings, the parent of Hollard Insurance Ghana and Hollard Life Assurance Ghana. She said at the time that she was drawn by "a great brand with a great purpose." Under her leadership the group grew its customer base and pushed to make insurance products reach people who had never held a policy. In its tribute, Hollard said she would be remembered "for her grace, her unwavering commitment to our people, our customers, and our shared purpose."

Boards and networks

Akyianu sat on the board of Ecobank Ghana as an independent non-executive director from 2019. She joined the board of Hubtel, the Accra payments and commerce company, in 2021, and in November 2025 Hubtel named her as its next board chair, succeeding Hans Nilsson, who had chaired it since 2015. She was a founding member of the Executive Women Network and of the Ghana chapter of the International Women's Forum.

Recognition

Her awards trace a steady climb. The Centre for Economic and Leadership Development named her Africa Female Economic Champion in Banking in 2014 and inducted her into its Global Women Leaders Hall of Fame. The Ghana CFO Awards gave her Woman of Excellence in Finance in 2015 and Finance CEO of the Year in 2017. She was CIMG Marketing Woman of the Year in 2019 and was later named Outstanding Woman CEO of the Decade. In May 2025 she received the Millennium Excellence Award for Finance and Capital Market Excellence.

Family

She was married to Kwame Akyianu, a lawyer, and had two children, Awurama and Nana Banyin.