Skip to content
Opinion
Link copied to clipboard
Link copied to clipboard

Penn honors Ghanaian immigrant who rose from baker to hospital executive

Robert Asante came to Philly from Ghana. Starting as a busboy, he is now chief privacy officer at ChristianaCare. Penn, where he earned his doctorate, presented him this year's Kwame Nkrumah award.

Robert Asante arrived in Philadelphia from Ghana in 1998, worked as a busboy and baker, and volunteered to service computers for Drexel before earning his degrees. He is now chief privacy officer for ChristianaCares, the four-state medical network, and has started a nonprofit, Our Foundations, to build a road upgrading the forest trails he walked to school as a boy and other improvements in his hometown in western Ghana. He is pictured there with schoolchildren, including his niece, on a visit in 2019. He holds a bachelor's in computer science and MBA degrees from Drexel, and a doctorate from Penn's education school, which on May 14, 2022, plans to award him the Kwami Nkumrah Distinguished Alumni Award. Nkumrah, who won degrees from Lincoln University and Penn, was a leader in the struggle to end the U.K.'s colonial rule, Ghana's first president, a leader in the pan-African movement of the 1960s, and a native of Asante's home region.
Robert Asante arrived in Philadelphia from Ghana in 1998, worked as a busboy and baker, and volunteered to service computers for Drexel before earning his degrees. He is now chief privacy officer for ChristianaCares, the four-state medical network, and has started a nonprofit, Our Foundations, to build a road upgrading the forest trails he walked to school as a boy and other improvements in his hometown in western Ghana. He is pictured there with schoolchildren, including his niece, on a visit in 2019. He holds a bachelor's in computer science and MBA degrees from Drexel, and a doctorate from Penn's education school, which on May 14, 2022, plans to award him the Kwami Nkumrah Distinguished Alumni Award. Nkumrah, who won degrees from Lincoln University and Penn, was a leader in the struggle to end the U.K.'s colonial rule, Ghana's first president, a leader in the pan-African movement of the 1960s, and a native of Asante's home region.Read moreRobert Asante