Before founding Ashesi, Patrick Awuah Jr. worked as a Program Manager for Microsoft Corporation. He holds bachelor degrees in Engineering and Economics from Swarthmore College, and an MBA from UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business and honorary doctorates from Swarthmore College, Babson College, the University of Waterloo, Connecticut College, the University of Toronto, and Sun Moon University Patrick is a Fellow of the Africa Leadership Initiative of the Aspen Global Leadership Network and a member of the USAID’s Advisory Committee on Voluntary Foreign Aid. He has received Ghana's Millennium Excellence Award for Educational Development and been named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum, one of the 100 Most Creative People in Business by Fast Company magazine and was named one of the 50 greatest leaders in the world by Fortune Magazine. In 2015, he was named a MacArthur Fellow, becoming the first Ghanaian to win the award. In 2017, he was named winner of the World Innovation Summit in Education Prize for Education, a prestigious award that celebrates global excellence in education and the people helping improve education around the world. He received the Africa Genius Awards Outstanding African Achiever 2024 for his transformative contributions to education and leadership development. In 2025, the Sunhak Peace Prize Foundation named Patrick a 2025 Laureate for his impact in Education.