Dr. Justice Nyigmah Bawole is a Professor of Public Administration and Management. He is the immediate past dean of the University of Ghana Business School (UGBS) and a former Chair of the Department of Public Administration and Health Services Management at the UGBS. He holds a PhD in Development Policy and Management from the Global Development Institute, University of Manchester, UK, and MPhil, BSc Administration, and Diploma degrees in Public Administration from the University of Ghana. He was trained earlier as a teacher at Wesley College of Education, Kumasi, and taught at the basic and secondary school levels before entering academia.

Professor Bawole also worked as Director of Research and Projects at the International Centre for Enterprise and Sustainable Development (ICED) an Accra-based nonprofit, where he led numerous community development and capacity-building initiatives. His academic work spans over 100 publications, including books, book chapters, encyclopedia entries, technical reports, and journal articles in leading international outlets. His teaching and research interests include Ethics in Administration, NGO and Nonprofit Management, Green Business Management, Leadership Development, and Public Sector Human Resource Management. He is a member of the editorial board of the Human Resources Development Review.

As Dean of UGBS from August 2019 to July 2025, Professor Bawole led a transformative agenda that expanded infrastructure, staff and faculty development, strengthened partnerships, and advanced the School’s global reputation. Prior to that, he served two terms as Head of the Department of Public Administration and Health Services Management. In addition to serving on all UG statutory bodies where he makes very constructive contributions, Prof Bawole had chaired very important university level committees such as the Committees that developed the UG Internship Policy, Teaching and Learning Policy, Transport Policy among others. He has also served on very important search committees in the University.

Beyond academia, he has served as Commissioner of the National Development Planning Commission, member of the Governing Council of the National Banking College and a member of Ghana Board of Reach for Change (nonprofit). He is a founding Convener of the Africa Chapter of the UK based Development Studies Association. Prof Bawole chaired the technical committee that developed the Ghana National Public Sector Reform Strategy and is currently co-chairing the Committee to revise the next phase of the strategy. He is also a member of the Strategic Plan Steering Committee of Parliament of Ghana. Prof Bawole is a regular and highly sought after speaker on important national issues and a trainer of leaders and Managers in different sectors.

Professor Bawole has over three decades of experience in teaching, leadership, and development consultancy. He has contributed to numerous international assignments, including World Bank funded projects, UNDP, UNEP, SECO, KFW, OXFAM. Prof Bawole is a passionate advocate of ethical leadership and ardent developer of talent. He loves to mentor the next generation of leaders and scholars and advocates for institutional and governance reforms and a corruption-free Africa. 

Dr. Justice Bawole aspiration at the Interdisciplinary Research Center of Finance and the Digital Economy is to advance knowledge and practice at the intersection of mobile money security, fraud prevention, and digital financial inclusion. I intend to develop a research agenda that critically examines vulnerabilities within mobile money ecosystems across Africa, while drawing structured lessons from Saudi Arabia’s rapidly evolving and well-regulated fintech landscape. By adopting a comparative perspective, I aim to explore how elements of Saudi Arabia’s state-led digital finance architecture, particularly its emphasis on interoperability, oversight, and infrastructure, can inform more resilient and scalable fraud mitigation strategies in African contexts with high mobile money integration.