Photo : Minette Lontsie, CC BY-SA 4.0
Célestin Tawamba
Pasta and pharmaceuticals industrialist, head of Cameroon's employers' body
Who are they?
A finance graduate of HEC and Paris-Dauphine University, Célestin Tawamba began his career at Ernst & Young in the early 1990s, then became finance director of the Hazim forestry group. In 2002 he founded La Pasta, a flour and pasta producer, and in 2005 he bought Panzani's Cameroonian subsidiary.
What made them famous
As head of the Cadyst Invest holding company he combines food processing (La Pasta, Panzani Cameroon) and pharmaceuticals (Cinpharm and SIPP, which make generic drugs). Elected president of GICAM, the country's main employers' organisation, in 2017, he engineered its merger with Entreprises du Cameroun (ECAM) at the end of 2023; the new Groupement des entreprises du Cameroun (GECAM) elected him president on 9 April 2024, with 550 votes out of 560.
Key facts
- At GICAM he succeeded André Fotso, who died in 2016.
- A champion of « made in Cameroon », he aims to let every African eat and get medical care for less than a dollar a day.
- He is honorary consul of Rwanda in Yaoundé.