Site Developed and Hosted by InfoSystems Solutions 2007
Life History
Dr Mullei was born in 1939 and raised at Kalamani village in Mutitu location of Mbooni District in Kenya. His father, the late Senior Chief Mullei Kyai, sent him to Mutitu Primary School in 1947 and later to Karura Intermediate School in 1952. He proceeded to Uganda in 1953 to pursue secondary education at Bugema Missionary College. He obtained the University of Cambridge Overseas School Certificate A and Senior School Diploma in 1958. After graduating from high school, he worked for Sterling Winthrop from 1959 to 1960.
UNIVERSITY EDUCATION
Dr Mullei went to Prague for his college education in 1961 and left Prague in 1962 to continue his college education at the University of Erlangen/ Nurnberg in Germany. He transferred to the University of Munich in 1963 where he completed courses for his first degree in economics and commerce. He left the University of Munich in 1967 to pursue a Master of Arts degree in economics at Howard University in Washington D.C. After completion of his M.A. degree in 1970 he received a Rockefeller Foundation Scholarship to pursue a PhD degree in economics at Northern Illinois University which he received in 1973.
EMPLOYMENT EXPERIENCE
Dr Mullei began his employment in 1974 working for the International Monetary in Washington D.C. He left the International Monetary Fund in 1977 to take up his new position as Trade Policy Advisor for the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa in Addis Ababa. He returned to the International Monetary Fund in 1979 to work as Advisor and Alternate to one of the Executive Directors. He left the International Monetary Fund in 1981 to work for the Central Bank of Kenya as Secretary to the Board of Directors, Counselor to the Governor and Director of Research.
Dr Mullei resigned from the Central Bank of Kenya in 1988 to take up the position of Director General of the African Centre for Monetary Studies in Dakar, Senegal and simultaneously the Secretary General of the Association of African Central Banks. He left the African Centre for Monetary Studies in 1993 to take up a new job as Regional Director for Africa at the International Center for Economic Growth in San Francisco. He resigned from the International Centre for Economic Growth in 1999 to set up the African Centre for Economic Growth in Nairobi as founder Executive Director.
Dr Mullei was appointed Chairman and Governor of the Central Bank of Kenya for a four year term from 4th March, 2003.He also served as Chairman and Director for a number of other companies among them the SOFGEN Africa Limited, the Kenya Seed Company Limited the Epass International Limited Akay Investments Limited and Info Systems Solutions Limited
FAMILY
Dr Mullei met his future wife, Veronica, in 1968 at Howard University. Veronica was also a student from Kenya pursuing a Master of Science degree in biology. Dr Mullei and Veronica dated for two years and became husband and wife in a memorable wedding held in Bethesda, Maryland on 15th August 1970. Following their wedding they moved to De Kalb, Illinois (where Silla was born on 20th January 1973) and back to Washington, D.C, (where Kyai was born on 8th March 1977) to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and back to Washington D.C. (where Kethi was born on 12th December 1978).
As Dr Mullei moved from one continent to another for whatever degree, work or career he had going (and there were several of each) Veronica and the three children pulled up their roots and made a new home wherever Dr Mullei went. When Dr Mullei lost Veronica’s life in a tragic car crash on a highway near Boston in the United States.he was left to mourn the loss of his dear wife and to mother their three children. Veronica had gone to attend Silla’s graduation at Dartmouth College when a speeding vehicle, gone out of control, collided with the one Veronica was riding in.
INTRIGUE AT SECOND SIGHT
Five years after Veronica’s death ,Dr Mullei met Gracie and. to say the least, the encounter with Gracie was for Dr Mullei “intrigue at second sight”. After a year of dating, Gracie and Dr Mullei agreed to get married. Both Gracie and Dr Mullei became husband and wife in a special family wedding in Kilungu. With a new wife in hand, Dr Mullei took to educating his three children, developing family farms and taking care of Gracie.Whetever Dr Mullei did or wherever he went Gracie was always an undetached companion to him.
Dr Mullei lives in Nairobi with his wife, Gracie, the now three grown-up children: Silla, Kyai and Kethi; three grand daughters: Mikhaila, Keli and Mukene. Dr Mullei is blessed to have two sisters Esther Kasiva and Mary Mueni, three brothers in-law Mwangangi Kasyoki, Paul Kavoi, Dr Henry Waema Maingi, and a host of nieces, nephews and relatives.
ENGAGEMENTS
Dr Mullei is privileged to have served in many local and international organizations among them the Kenya National Economic and Social Council, the Kenya National Anti-Corruption Advisory Committee, the Advisory Committee of the African Economic Research Consortium, the Board of Directors of the Central Bank of Kenya, the Board of Directors of the K-Rep Bank, the Board of Directors of the Institute for Policy Analysis and Research, the Board of Directors of the Kenya Gatsby Charitable Trust, the Advisory Group of Experts for the Non-Aligned Movement, the Scientific Advisory Committee of the United Nations University Initiative on Comparative Regional Integration and the Editorial Board of the African Review of Money, Finance and Banking in Milan, Italy.
PROFESSIONAL LIFE
Dr Mullei is remembered in academia as author and publisher of many articles in learned journals and editor of several books on economic development topics. Among his academic contributions are publications in the Eastern Africa Economic Review; Savings and Development Quarterly Review; African Review of Money, Finance and Banking and books on development economics as well as policy briefs and numerous reports on a wide range of economic management issues and public policy topics.
Andrew K. Mullei, PhD
Economist
