Education
Ashenafi holds a degree in Economics from Columbia College of Columbia University, where he studied under the guidance of Nobel Prize winner in Economics, Professor Edmund Phelps. Ashenafi is an alumnus of Harvard Business School and attended the Owner/President Management Programme (Office of Personnel Management).
Career
He currently serves as Chief Executive Officer of SouthWest Energy. Ashenafi is Chairman of SouthWest Energy, Ethiopia’s first and only indigenous oil and gas company. He also serves as Chairman of SouthWest Development, which provides various services to oil and gas companies in Ethiopia, and Chairman of Ambo Mineral Water, a beverage brand in Ethiopia.
Ashenafi started his career at Merrill Lynch & Company in New New York
Prior to founding SouthWest Energy in 2005, Mr. Ashenafi carried out international political and economic consulting work advising large international companies and pension funds about investment conditions in emerging markets, mainly in Latin America and the Commonwealth of Independent States.
Ashenafi is on the Board of Directors of East West Institute, a New York-based security think tank.
Membership
He is also a member of Initiative for Global Development’s Frontier 100.