Kwaku's Bio

KWAKU ADDO SAKYI-ADDO is a Communications Specialist and two-time Journalist of the Year in Ghana, and one of Africa’s best broadcasters.  He began his career in 1984.  He now works partly as General Manager (Communications) of Aqua Vitens Rand, South African-Dutch operator of Ghana Water Company. 

He was decorated with the Order of the Volta by the government of Ghana in 2008, the country’s second highest national award.

He is the Host and Executive Producer of KWAKU One-on-One, a weekly head to head TV interview programme which began in 1998 and currently airs on TV3, an independent network.  He also presents “The Front Page,” leading nationally-syndicated weekly current affairs talk programme on Joy FM.  At 13 years, the award winning programme is the longest-running radio talk programme in Ghana. 

Kwaku was the BBC correspondent in Ghana for 13 years and Reuters News Agency for eight years, leaving both jobs in 2007.

He has covered stories from Israel, Mexico, Haiti, Libya, Russia, China, South Korea and Japan, Nigeria and Liberia.

He has consulted for the West Africa Trade Hub (which monitors AGOA), The Trade and Investment Project for a Competitive Export Economy (TIPCEE), both USAID projects, the UN Millennium Campaign and the International Water Management Institute (IWMI).  He chaired a session at the 4th World Water Forum in Mexico City in 2006.

Kwaku has written for The Economist, the Washington Post, the Guardian, the Telegraph and the Mail on Sunday in the UK. and trained broadcast journalists in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Ghana.

He has won over a dozen profession awards, and was finalist twice in the prestigious Sony Radio Programming Awards in New York with entries submitted by the BBC World Service. 
In 2008, he won the Arts Critics & Reviewers’ Association of Ghana (ACRAG) Award for Television.
In 2006 he was honoured with an “Achievers’ Award” at the Africa International Media Summit in Accra for his reporting on Africa, and by the Chiefs of his hometown, Akropong-Akuapem.

Kwaku was the Editor-in-Chief of the Ghanaian Chronicle, an independent newspaper, from 1993-94 where his “Animal Farm” won Columnist of the Year in 1994.   He had previously worked at the Ghana News Agency, where he was the Best Reporter of the Year in 1986.

He has conducted exclusive face-to-face interviews with dozens of personalities, including UN Secretary-General  Ban-Ki Moon, his predecessors Kofi Annan and Boutros Boutros-Ghali; Presidents Jimmy Carter of the US; John Kufuor of Ghana, Charles Taylor and Ellen-Johnson-Sirleaf of Libera, and Prime Minister Melez Zenawi of Ethiopia. 

Others are former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright; fmr Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, fmr NATO Sec. Gen. Lord Carrington; Bono of U2; Richard Branson of Virgin; musician Stevie Wonder; TV personality Larry King, and sports personalities Don King, Marion Jones, Lennox Lewis, Sepp Blatter and Franz Beckenbauer.


In Nov. 2003, Kwaku shared a platform in London with Economist Jeffrey Sachs, then British Chancellor Gordon Brown, and other international journalists on The Media & the Millennium Development Goals.

In August 2006, he was one of two Africans invited by the Aspen Institute in Aspen, Colorado, to join a select group of experts to discuss the Impact of New Media on Society, Politics & Public Diplomacy.  The panel included the Publisher of the New York Times Arthur Sulzburger, the Managing Editor of Time magazine Jim Kelly, and fmr US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.

Kwaku was born in Accra and went to Achimota and Accra High Schools. He holds a Graduate Diploma in Communications from the School of Communications Studies at the University of Ghana. 
He’s a Chevening Scholar, having held a Commonwealth Scholarship at Thomson Foundation Editorial Study Centre at the University of Wales, Cardiff.  He holds an Advanced Diploma from the International Institute for Journalism in Berlin, Germany; and a Diploma from the Ghana Institute of Journalism in Accra. 

Kwaku is a Permanent Fellow of the World Press Institute at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, USA; and a Fellow of the Africa Leadership Initiative, a project of the Aspen Institute in Aspen, Colorado, which is dedicated to promoting enlightened global leadership.  He’s also an alumnus of the prestigious Salzburg Seminar in Austria.

Kwaku donates his time for social causes, including as board member of “Aid to Artisans,” an NGO that helps small-scale Ghanaian crafts-makers to build capacity and expand market access; and the Ghana Cleft Foundation which funds surgery for children with cleft lips and palates.
He is married to Georgette Barnes. They have three young children, Akua Ofeibea, Ohene Kofi and Abena Oforiwa Baawa.

His hobbies are weight-lifting, jogging, tae kwon do and poetry.