French, English
Nina Okagbue holds an MBA (Keele University, UK, 1992), a bilingual MA in Conference Interpretation (English/French) from the Ecole Supérieure d’Interprètes et de Traducteurs (ESIT, 1977), a Degree in French Language and Literature, and a Political Science Diploma (Grenoble University, France, 1975).
Recruited by the European Commission to the African, Caribbean and Pacific States’ Secretariat in Brussels (Belgium), in 1978, Nina returned to Africa as a freelance interpreter in the early eighties. A staffer at the African Development Bank (AfDB, Côte d’Ivoire), she began volunteering as Council Member for Africa with the International Association of Conference Interpreters (AIIC) in the mid-eighties. The first woman elected Chairperson of the AfDB Staff Council (1990), her career ranged from interpreter to task manager for poverty reduction and health projects throughout Africa. She was a co-recipient of the Mahmoun Beiry Award for Excellence in Change Management Facilitation (2002).
On early retirement from the bank, Nina joined the faculty at the University of Ghana to start up the MA Interpretation program at Legon with fellow interpreter-trainers in 2012. She helped to consolidate the Pan African Masters Consortium in Interpretation and Translation (PAMCIT) at the United Nations Office at Nairobi as Coordinator, from 2016-2019. Nina was nominated by the AIIC Africa Region and elected to the UN Sector Negotiating Delegation, in 2026.
In 2008, Nina returned to freelance interpretation once again serving in AIIC, this time as Regional Secretary of the Africa Bureau that organized the 2015 AIIC General Assembly in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where she was elected to the AIIC Admissions Committee.
Originally from Nigeria and a mother of two, Nina Okagbue is a theatre arts enthusiast, sings mezzo soprano and plays classical piano.
