Rukaiya El-Rufai

Rukaiya el-Rufai is an Economic Transformation and Development Finance Executive with more than twenty years of leadership experience spanning government, international consulting, sustainable finance, corporate governance and public policy. She currently serves as Special Adviser to the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria on the National Economic Council and Climate Change under the Office of the Vice President, where she supports national economic coordination, strategic policy implementation and institutional reforms that advance sustainable and inclusive development. She also serves as the National Coordinator of Nigeria's Human Capital Development Programme, leading cross-sector partnerships and high-impact initiatives aimed at strengthening Nigeria's long-term economic competitiveness. Previously, she was a Partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), where she led the Sustainability & Climate Change practice in Nigeria, served as ESG Platform Lead and Net Zero Leader across West Africa, and grew the Nigeria practice by more than 300 percent while advising governments, financial institutions, development partners and multinational organisations on sustainability, climate finance and transformation strategies. Earlier in her career, she served as Special Adviser to Nigeria's Honourable Minister of Finance, where she led the development of the Strategic Revenue Growth Initiative (SRGI), establishing governance frameworks and implementation mechanisms to strengthen domestic resource mobilisation. Her career bridges public policy, development finance, board governance and private sector leadership, enabling her to connect strategy with execution and build institutions capable of delivering sustainable economic transformation.