Clifford Mpare, CFA

Osu-Accra, Ghana
Charterholder since 1990

Clifford Mpare, who returned to his native Ghana after 30 years of working in the United States, sees an especially acute need for CFA charterholders in African nations. His current focus is on ensuring that the charter is seen as critical not only for individual success but for the growth of Africa’s national economies and the well-being of its people.

For a growing number of analysts, the resources, political stability and growing economies of many African countries make them ripe with investment opportunity. For Clifford Mpare, the CFA Program accelerated his ability to turn those opportunities into reality.

Mpare is Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Frontline Capital Advisors, Ltd., an investment advisory and consulting firm based in his native Ghana. His company provides investment banking, asset management and other related financial services to a wide variety of individual, corporate, governmental and institutional clients.

"Today, as an employer, if I have two competing résumés – one from a person with the CFA designation and the other holding, say, a Harvard degree – I might hire the charterholder because I know the rigor that person had to go through to obtain that distinction."

Mpare sees an especially acute need for CFA charterholders in African nations.

"The financial sector is driving development in Africa’s many emerging economies," he notes. "The CFA Program can speed development by promoting excellence among financial professionals and through the respect the charter commands in global capital markets."

"When it comes to finance, the CFA designation is it. It is the only professional designation that can help bring excellence and discipline to the divergent economic goals within the different countries in Africa."

Upon finishing high school in Ghana, he was encouraged by his father to further his education in Canada. He won a scholarship from Ghana’s government to study at St. Mary’s University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. After earning a Bachelor of Commerce degree there and an MBA from Dalhousie University, also in Halifax, Mpare began teaching finance and accounting at Wingate University in North Carolina.

"At Wingate, I designed a course in investment management," he recalls. "That gave me an appreciation and love for what that business is all about." He was soon hired as a financial analyst at First Union National Bank (Wachovia) in Charlotte, N.C., where Gigi Poole, his first boss and a CFA charterholder, suggested that he pursue the charter.

Earning the CFA designation led to a series of other career moves. At NCM Capital Management Group, he co-developed and managed the Calvert New Africa Fund, the first pan-African, open-ended mutual fund in the United States. In 2007, he became executive chairman and CEO of Frontline.

"I went to small colleges in Canada, but getting the charter put me on an equal footing with anyone, no matter where they received their degrees," Mpare explains.

He spent 30 years working in the United States, mostly in portfolio management. He helped take a North Carolina firm, NCM Carolina, from about $500 million in assets in 1986 to about $6 billion in assets, by which time he was serving as its chief investment officer. His next step: Ghana, and an entire continent’s worth of opportunities.

Today, Mpare believes even more in the economic future of African nations. Over the past six years, he has lent his expertise to a number of projects throughout the continent by serving as a consultant in the development of innovative financial instruments, implementing policies for financial institutions and capital market reforms.

Mpare’s firm encourages its employees to earn the CFA designation. His goal is to have at least his firm’s investment area staffed by CFA charterholders. New hires are told they’ll need the charter to advance their careers.

"If at my age I can still maintain the charter, there is really no excuse for young people, the future leaders of the continent, not to have it. That’s the only way we can grow our business – by being a cut above the rest in knowledge and expertise, and training the younger generation in these best practices."

"I am very passionate about developing young people, especially in Africa, to aspire to be their best. I think there’s still the professor in me who wants to continue to develop that, and to impart knowledge not only about investments but also about building a better society."

Mpare looks forward to seeing a continent-wide expansion in the number of charterholders and the day when the first CFA conference convenes in Africa. But he also remains focused on immediate needs. "Our charge is to ensure that the charter is seen as critical not only for individual success but for the growth of Africa’s national economies and the well-being of its people."