Charles Okehalam co-founded an investment firm and has served as a director and chairman of several major private sector companies in Africa.

Prior to his commercial career he was a professor of finance at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa where he held the Donald Gordon chair in banking and finance and the Liberty Life Chair in financial economics. He has substantial experience in financial policy and regulation and has worked as an adviser to central banks and governments in several sub-Sahara Africa countries, the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and the United Nations.

He earned a Ph. D. in Economics-(Econometrics), Queen Mary College, University of London in 1991 and has published extensively in academic journals.  He was a Houblon-Norman Senior Fellow of the Bank of England in 2001 and earned a D.Sc. (Higher Doctorate) for contributions to the study of financial institutions in Africa from the University of Exeter in 2010.  He has served as an Honorary Professor at the University of the Witwatersrand and a Visiting Professor at the University of Surrey.

He has also served as a trustee/council member of several not-for- profit and academic institutions.