Sierra Leonean Bags Top Accounting Award

Mustapha Wai. BS, MS, CPA, CGMA

Mustapha Wai, an excellent Sierra Leone born certified Public Accountant (CPA) and Certified Global Management Accountant (CGMA), a quiet and unassuming African intellectual, has just been awarded the Emerging Leader of Excellence Award by the United States Association of Government Accountants (AGA).

This outstanding annual honor is given by the AGA in recognition of a substantial contribution(s) by a government financial manager toward the profession and practice of financial management.

Mustapha who migrated from Sierra Leone to America in search of better educational opportunities in the 90s, obtained his Bachelor of Science (BS) from the American University in 2001. While at the American University, Mustapha's academic excellence was soon spotted and he was employed as a supplemental accounting instructor for financial and managerial accounting. At American University, Mustapha was given the distinguished American University Kogod School of Business Trailblazer Award, an award given to outstanding students who are viewed as having tremendous future potential in leadership, accounting and business.

Mustapha

After graduating from American University, Mustapha enrolled in the University of Maryland, College park and graduated in 2010 with Masters of Science in Business, Accounting and Internal audit.

In 2003, Mustapha was employed by the American government's National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the foremost aviation and aerospace corporation in the world, responsible for sending the first man to the moon and for building among others the Apollo spacecrafts and the Space shuttles. Hired as a project manager for audit, Mustapha eventually became the Deputy Director for Quality Assurance in just nine years, a major feat at such and outstanding government agency and a rare distinction for a humble boy born in the small West African nation of Sierra Leone.

University of Mary Land

University Gardens, College Park

The national Emerging Leader of Excellence Award was given to Mustapha after a rigorous selection process for his leadership effort in successfully overcoming major difficulties and challenges to make a major contribution to NASA's ability to ensure a sound financial management and internal control account, in the era of cost cutting by the American government in all public agencies. He contributed to the refining of NASA's internal auditing procedures and was also recognized for his contributions to the US federal government financial management community in general.

NASA's Space Shuttle

The AGA is a professional organization which supports development of government financial professionals working in federal, state and local governments as well as the private sector and academia. The AGA currently has over 100 local chapters divided into 15 regions across the United States. After sixty years of championing financial management excellence since its founding, AGA continues to pride itself as a long-standing thought leader for the government accountability profession in the United States.

Mustapha is currently a senior partner in the accounting firm Wai & Associates, based in Dumfries, Virginia, USA.