Wil Bako Freeman

The Managing Director, Liberia Airport Authority, Wil Bako Freeman is currently undertaking a giant development project that will change the image of the Country, thereby opening avenues for Foreign Direct Investment into the country

Abubakar Hashim in Monrovia

Wil Bako Freeman is an amazing personality who had served severally on different international organizations. He currently serves as the Managing Director of the Liberia Airport Authority (LAA), responsible for the operations of all airports within Liberia. Freeman’s mission is to re-position the Liberia Airport Authority, LAA, into a modern superstructure with all the paraphernalia and standards as required by the International Civil Aviation Organization, ICAO. With the present development project ongoing at the airport, he seemed determined to achieve this mission.

Prior his appointment, he was Director, Corporate Services at the West African Monetary Institute (WAMI), a specialized agency of ECOWAS working towards the realization of a common currency and Central Bank for West Africa. Before August 2010 when Freeman joined WAMI, he served as the Program Coordinator (Head) of the Liberia Better Business Forum (LBBF) of the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the Private Sector arm of the World Bank Group.

Prior to working for the IFC/World Bank, Freeman was a Senior Advisor to the Minister of Commerce in Liberia from October 2006 to September 2007 and a Central Banker, specializing in Banking Supervision and Market Risk Management for nine years with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in New York City, USA.

Freeman is a highly motivated and experienced professional with over eighteen years of cross-functional working experience in the United States, Ghana, and Liberia, also with other international organizations within a variety of disciplines and specialties such as Central Bank Policies, Economic and Private Sector Development Programs.

He holds a BA in Economics from University of Minnesota and an MBA from Rutgers University in New Jersey, the USA. He is also a Commissioned Bank Examiner from the Federal Reserve System in the United States and has obtained a Certificate in Airport Executive Leadership Program from the Airports Council International (ACI) Aviation Management Institute at the John Molson School of Business University in Canada.

Since he became the Managing Director of LAA, he has infused sanity and infrastructural developments at the airport, particularly the proposed new Roberts International Airport, RIA, that is presently ongoing.

He was appointed to this position due to his sterling qualities and enviable records in other reputable organizations he had earlier served. President Sirleaf will have carefully assessed Freeman’s distinguished inputs in previous renowned entities before making her firm judgment in appointing him at this critical juncture in the nation’s development.

When completed, the new Roberts International Airport, RIA, will be an ultra modern airport, equipped with all the international pre-requisites as dictated by the International Civil Aviation Organization ICAO.

As President Sirleaf once remarked, the new airport will be a major landmark achievement that Liberians will ever cherish and a symbol of unity for the country.