Meet Aida Diarra, the Daring Woman Calling the Shots at VISA Africa and Overseeing 48 Business Operations

Born in Dakar, Senegal, and with a career experience that spans 25 super-productive years in financial services, Aida Diarra is known in the global business community as a highly-skilled business executive.

In her current role as the Senior Vice President at Visa and Group Country Manager for Sub-Saharan Africa, Aida
oversees all the 48 business operations of the company across the region.

Aida was born to a Malian father, a professor at the University of Abidjan and a Nigerien mother, a diplomat at the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa.

With the kind of learned parents she had, along with an audacious grandmother, whom she described as an avant-garde, Diarra knew she had no excuse to not succeed in her studies and do great exploits in life.

Due to the nature of her parent’s jobs, they had lived in several countries, including Ethiopia, where she did her high school education. She then went off to France for further studies. She obtained a Diploma in Finance and Economics from the American Business School, Paris. She proceeded to the University of Hartford in Connecticut, where she obtained an MBA in Management and International Business.

Diarra was 25 years old and living in the United States when she took her first shot at entrepreneurship. She went into a partnership agreement with another business enthusiast, establishing Electro Ink Jet, an import-export company that traded in telecommunication equipment. Unfortunately, the joint venture failed and the partners went their separate ways…

EDITOR’S NOTE: Read the entire piece here. It’s on page 60 of our ’50 Most Influential Women in Business’ edition.