Sheila Wristberg, the Chief Executive Officer of iRisk Management, has been named one of Africa’s 50 Top Women in Management by the Women in Management Awards (WIMA). The recognition was conferred during the 2023 WIMA Gala Dinner held on Friday 17th March 2023, at the Mlimani City Hall, in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania.

The WIMA Top 50 Award recognizes and celebrates high achievements within the African diaspora and seeks to amplify the African excellence narrative globally. Recipients of the award embody consistent and transformational leadership in their field of influence.

One criterion cited by the panel of judges is the positive impact of the honorees’ works and their contributions towards the empowerment and advancement of women across the African diaspora.

The WIMA Awards took place on the sidelines of the WIMA Summit, which aimed to harness, validate, and amplify the contributions of African women and their diaspora counterparts in Africa’s growth, security, and prosperity.

Sheila is an insurance and risk management professional with over a decade’s experience in providing professional services to entities across industries in and outside Ghana. Her areas of expertise include insurance advisory, risk management, audit, and taxation.

She is a Chartered Accountant and a member of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants in the United Kingdom (ACCA-UK), the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ghana (ICA), and the Chartered Insurance Institute of Ghana (CII).

She holds a BSc. in Business Administration from the University of Ghana and a certification in Insurance from the Ghana Insurance College and the Malta International Training Institute. Prior to joining the insurance business, she worked as an auditor at Pricewaterhouse Coopers (PWC) before focusing on Tax Reporting and Strategy and the mining tax.

Over the past five years, she has served as CEO of iRisk Management Ltd, expanding the company to become one of the top five insurance brokerage firms in Ghana, specialising in risk management and insurance brokerage services such as general, health, and life insurance.

Her leadership has been revolutionary, and she has had a huge impact on Ghana’s insurance market. She has experience in both insurance and reinsurance and has been the Executive Director of iRisk Reinsurance Brokers since 2019.

Sheila is currently the Vice Treasurer of the Insurance Brokers Association of Ghana (IBAG) and the Chairperson of the Ghana Insurance Industry Cooperative Credit Union’s Supervisory Committee. She also serves on several insurance sector groups, including IBAG’s Finance and Digitization Committees, as well as the Local Organizing Committee of the Munich Re Foundation’s World Conference on Inclusive Insurance 2023.

Sheila Wristberg’s dedication to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals prompted her company, iRisk Management Ltd, to sign the Nairobi Declaration for Sustainable Insurance in 2022, making it the first insurance brokerage firm in Ghana to do so.

Her advocacy for gender diversity in insurance leadership led her to establish Women Leadership in Insurance Africa (WLIAfrica), a network and leadership development platform for female professionals in Africa and the diaspora working in insurance, risk management, sustainability, and ESG.

Sheila’s efforts in the insurance sector have not gone unnoticed, as she was named the African Insurance Organisation (AIO) and Association of Young Insurance Professionals (YIPs) Africa’s First Runner-Up for Next-Gen Insurance in 2022.

In her words, Sheila Wristberg mentioned that she was grateful to be named as one of Africa’s Top 50 Women in Management. She also expressed her appreciation to God and for the help, she received from her family, colleagues, and mentors in her leadership journey.

Lastly, she stated that she was highly honoured to be a part of a global community of women who are breaking down barriers and shattering glass ceilings as they strive for gender equality in the workplace and beyond and that she had been inspired by all the other the many talented and accomplished WIMA awardees who are paving the way for future generations in their various fields.