Professor Kwame Karikari is the former Executive Director of the MFWA. He has been for several years, a professor in journalism and mass communication at the School of Communication Studies at the University of Ghana.  He has also been involved in training journalists in several countries in Africa over the years.

Prior to that and during all those years, he practiced as a journalist, including serving as director general of the public Ghana Broadcasting Corporation in the early 1980s. He has also been an activist pursuing social justice and human rights causes, in Africa, including democratic reforms in Ghana. He serves on the boards of a number of African and international rights organisations and on the editorial boards of academic publications.

He was educated at the City College of New York and Columbia University in New York.