Tidjane Thiam  Tidjane Thiam (; born 29 July 1962) is a French-Ivorian banker who 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 2013. Born into a prominent political family in the Ivory Coast, he holds dual Ivorian and French citizenship. 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. Thiam was born in the Ivory Coast (Cote d'Ivoire) on 29 July 1962. He is a descendant of two prominent families from Senegal and Ivory Coast. On his mother’s side, he is a descendant of Queen Yamousso, after whom the capital of Côte d'Ivoire, Yamoussoukro, is named. Thiam's mother, Marietou, was the niece of Chief Félix Houphouët-Boigny, the founder and first President of Côte d'Ivoire (known for the quote "People are surprised that I like gold. It's just that I was born in it"). His father, Amadou Thiam, a journalist, was born in Senegal and emigrated to Côte d'Ivoire in 1947. He supported Houphouet-Boigny in his fight for the independence of the country and served more than ten years in the Ivorian cabinet after independence. Tidjane’s uncle, Habib Thiam, was Prime Minister of Senegal for more than 10 years and also served as President of the National Assembly. In 1982 Thiam was the first Ivorian to pass the entrance examination to the École Polytechnique in Paris. In 1984, he graduated from the École Polytechnique and in 1986 from the École Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Paris where he was top of his class. In 1986 he was offered a scholarship to study for an MBA at INSEAD and join the McKinsey Fellows Programme' in Paris.