Sierra Leonean Mustapha Wai honored in the USA with Emerging Leader Award of Excellence
Recipient of the 2012 National Emerging Leader Award of Excellence by the Association of Government Accountants
June 19, 2012 – The Emerging Leader Award of Excellence is an honor given by the Association of Government Accountants (AGA) to one individual in the US Government-wide financial management community including state and local governments in recognition of a younger government financial manager for notable contributions toward excellence in financial management. This year, Sierra Leonean-born, Mustapha Wai (in photo) was awarded the national honor. After winning his local Washington DC Chapter’s 2012 Emerging Leader Award, Mustapha was among other local chapter winners across the United States nominated for the 2012 national award.
Mustapha, a Certified Public Account (CPA) and Certified Global Management Accountant (CGMA), is a Deputy Director in the NASA Office of Chief Financial Officer in Washington DC. Mustapha is recognized for his leadership effort in successfully overcoming difficult obstacles and challenges to make a major contribution to NASA’s ability to ensure a sound financial management internal control environment as well as produce auditable financial statements, thereby paving the way for the agency’s first clean financial statement audit opinion in almost a decade. Mustapha was also recognized for his sustained efforts in contributing to the US federal government financial management community in general and the AGA.
The AGA is a professional organization which supports development of government financial professionals working in federal, state and local governments as well as the private sector and academia. The AGA currently has over 100 local chapters divided into 15 regions across the United States. After sixty years of championing financial management excellence since its founding, AGA continues to pride itself as a long-standing thought leader for the government accountability profession in the United States.
Mustapha, the reassuring and dynamic, yet humbled young man jokes about his recognition stating “my job is as easy as accounting for rocket science, something even the cave man can do”. Mustapha was quick to share the credit with his staff, senior management and colleagues at NASA. Mustapha is scheduled to be honored along with other distinguished award recipients including Peggy Sherry, Chief Financial Officer, U.S Department of Homeland Security, Wendy Payne, Executive Director, U.S Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board and Henry Steininger, Managing Partner, Grant Thornton at AGA’s 61st Annual Professional Development Conference slated for July 29th to August 1st , 2012 in San Diego, CA.
By Emmanuel Aninye, MSc, CPA, CFE, CGMA
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