Forbes awards Joana Gyan-Cudjoe as Africa Leading Female Miner

Forbes, under the auspices of Foreign Investment Network (FIN) Africa, has bestowed on Ghanaian female mining executive, Dr. Mrs. Joana Gyan-Cudjoe, a plaque and Certificate of Distinction as the Best Female Miner of the Year, 2021.

Her citation and award were presented to her by the President of the US-based Custom Solutions Media at Forbes, Mark Furlong, during the FIN Women Africa and United Arab Emirates Investment Forum late last year, themed around making African women prosperous.

In addition to the Forbes award, Dr. Gyan-Cudjoe, who is the CEO of Golden Empire Legacy Holdings Limited, also won two other awards – the FIN Gold Woman of The Year, and the FIN Woman Executive Visionary of The Year.

The awards event, under the patronage of His Highness Sheik Tahnoon Bin Tahnoon Al Nayhan formed part of the FIN Africa and UAE Women Investment Forum held in Dubai late last year and themed around making African women prosperous. In all, over 25 individuals across Africa and the UAE also received FIN Awards.

In her acceptance speech, Dr. Gyan-Cudjoe expressed profound gratitude to Forbes for “the great and historic award” and for recognizing her as the Africa’s Leading and Best Female Miner. She also expressed a heartfelt gratitude to the Foreign Investment Network and its Chief Executive Officer for the organizing the forum, which brought Africa and the UAE together to discuss trade and investment collaborations.

Dr. Mrs. Gyan-Cudjoe also thanked His Highness Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed al Nahyan and his entourage for the opportunity to host them. She believes the prestigious award and recognition will go a long way to boost her confidence as a woman in an industry that is rugged and tough. The female gold trading guru is confident that “Ghana is ready to become the biggest gold producer in the world, and my company, Golden Empire Legacy is leading that crusade.”

Dr. Mrs. Joana Gyan Cudjoe is a self-accomplished business mogul who has been trading in gold and undisputedly known as the biggest exporter of gold in Ghana and the only woman exporter of Gold in Ghana.

Her Golden Empire Legacy Limited in Ghana is licensed by the Minerals Commission of Ghana to buy and export gold globally. She is also the founder of GELL Financial Services Limited, PTP Creations Fashion House Limited, Joana Gyan Foundation, and GEM Multimedia Ghana Limited.

While in the process of building the largest gold refinery in the world, Dr. Mrs. Gyan Cudjoe also prides herself with managing a total of over 600 small-scale & large-scale mining concessions across Ghana, with an estimated value of about US$120 billion worth of gold on the ground. Driven by the love to give back to society, not forgetting her humble beginnings, she has established the Joana Gyan Foundation to specifically meet the needs of the poor, vulnerable, and less privileged in Africa.

Her foundation is currently working to collaborate with Lancaster University to allow Ghanaians across all over the regions to get scholarships to study at this prestigious university, located at Tantra Hills in Accra. The much awaited collaboration will also allow students from the university to do their national service in her group of companies and also get jobs when they complete their degrees.

Dr. Mrs. Gyan Cudjoe also has a strong connection to the world of entertainment. She is the Founder and CEO of Gem Multimedia Ghana Limited and has, for the first time together with her team of investors, invested in the creative arts industry, particularly music and brand communications.

This investment gave her further impetus to pursue her vision of owning a multimedia company that discovers, nurtures, manages and grows talent into brands. The dream is to become influential in Ghana’s creative arts industry and break into the global entertainment
industry.

Dr. Mrs. Gyan Cudjoe started as a small-scale miner and has gradually worked her way up, competing favorably with the men in a male-dominated industry. She is an inspiration to many women in the artisanal small-scale mining sector in Ghana, Africa and strongly believes in linking mining to the shared global commitment to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including Goal 5, which focuses on gender equality and Goal 8, on decent work and economic growth.