Tidjane Thiam

Tidjane Thiam (French: [tidʒan tiam]; born 29 July 1962) is an Ivorian businessman and politician. He was the chief executive officer (CEO) of Swiss bank Credit Suisse from March 2015 to February 2020. He was the chief financial officer of British banking group Prudential from 2007 to 2009, and then its CEO until 2015. In 2019, Thiam became a member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC). He was executive chairman of Freedom Acquisition Corp, a special-purpose acquisition company that merged with American solar company Complete Solaria in 2023, taking the latter public. Born into a prominent political family in the Ivory Coast, he had dual Ivorian and French nationality between 1987 and 2025. He studied advanced mathematics and physics in France before joining the management consultants McKinsey & Company in 1986, where he worked until 1994. From 1994 to 1999 he worked in the Ivory Coast first as chief executive of the National Bureau for Technical Studies (BNETD). Following the 1999 Ivorian coup d'état, he resumed a private sector career and rejoined McKinsey in Paris from 2000 to 2002, then worked as a senior executive for Aviva before being recruited by Prudential. In 2020, Thiam was appointed by the shareholders of the Kering Foundation to become part of the board of directors, as well as to take the position as Chair of the Audit Committee.