Former Banking Executive, Julie Essiam is set to take over as head of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) when the tenure of the retired Commissioner-General, Rev. Dr. Amishaddai Owusu-Amoah, 62, comes to an end on Sunday, 31st March 2024. Until her elevation as the new Commissioner-General for GRA, Ms. Essiam was the Commissioner responsible for the Support Services Division of the GRA, a position she has held since 2019.

Julie Essiam, 61, prior to her appointment was the Group Executive in charge of Human Resources and Corporate Affairs at Ecobank Transnational Incorporated. She was also CEO of Ecobank Foundation. Julie graduated from Carnegie Mellon University (1986 – 1990) and lived in the United States (US) for 18 years working for Chase Manhattan Bank (now JP Morgan Chase) in New York right out of university as a Management Associate before moving to Human Resources. She also worked at Citigroup, another Bank in the US where she held several HR roles and thereafter Citigroup’s Africa Division, based in South Africa as the Head of HR covering 15 countries. Julie Essiam has a passion for transforming communities and has initiated several community-based programmes. She has dedicated the last 15 years of her professional life working with the youth in mentoring and supporting them to shape their thinking around their life journeys.

Here are the 5 facts about Julie Essiam:

1. She becomes the first female Commissioner-General of the Ghana Revenue Authority
2. She is the originator and founder of Africans4Africa (A4A) initiative; a private sector-led development organisation that calls for a collaborative effort across the leadership of Africa to contribute to the successful achievement of an impact transformation of the continent towards a thriving and prosperous Africa
3. She was a Board member of the Global Fund representing the private sector
4. She was a member of Ecobank Group Executive Committee, and has been on the Boards of Ecobank Zambia, the Ecobank Foundation and 3 Board committees of Ecobank Group in the areas of Finance and Audit, Risk and HR
5. She was the head of Talent, Development, and Resourcing for Middle East and Africa at Ecobank Group covering 22 countries within both regions.

Ms Essiam took over as acting Commissioner-General on Wednesday, March 27, after Rev. Dr. Amishaddai Owusu-Amoah was relieved of his post by President Akufo-Addo following the resignation of chairman of the GRA Board of Directors, Tony Oteng-Gyasi and the subsequent dissolution of the said Board. Rev. Dr. Owusu-Amoah was first appointed as Commissioner-General in October 2019 and granted a 2-year post retirement contract from October 2021 to October 2023 with a further extension which ends today. GRA management in a press release dated Thursday, 28 March 2024 commended Rev. Dr. Owusu-Amoah “for his exceptional leadership and immense contribution to the operations of GRA” crediting him with the roll out of an extensive digitalisation agenda which resulted in initiatives such as cashless payment of taxes, online filing of returns, electronic tax clearance certificate, electronic tax credit certificate and the introduction of e-commerce.

A new Board is yet to be reconstituted, however, ceditalk.com has gathered that the current Deputy Director General, Operations, at SSNIT Ms Pearl Darko will be moved to take up a new role as Commissioner responsible for the Support Services Division of GRA, a position that was occupied by Julie Essiam.