Roseline Emma Rasolovoahangy

Protecting the environment

Emma Rasolovoahangy advocates protecting Madagascar's forests and wildlife against deforestation. She has partnered with researchers to develop fast-growing trees to safeguard the future supply of timber for Madagascar native forests and wildlife. She is presently conducting preliminary projects in the Arivonimamo, Antsirabe, Bezaha, and Moramanga regions of the island.

Politics

Emma Rasolovoahangy's candidacy for President of Madagascar in upcoming elections scheduled for July 23, 2013 was announced on March 1, 2013. Rasolovoahangy is motivated on leadership, prosperity, and true independence in a New Madagascar. Her focus is to attract overseas investment, reduce poverty, development of infrastructure, and stimulating job growth. She plans to utilize her background in the extraction industries to reform government practices and support mining investments by foreign and local companies.

Professional career

Emma Rasolovoahangy is the founding president of Petromad (Mauritius) Limited. Petromad holds rights to the Bezaha exploration located in the Morondava Oil Basin, south-west of Madagascar. She is the first native Madagascan to win a bid for a concession to search for oil in Madagascar. Since Petromad’s establishment in 2005, more than 300 jobs have been created for Malagasy workers.

Early life and education

Emma Rasolovoahangy was born in the village of Fianarantsoa, Madagascar. She is the second of eight children; both of her parents are teachers. She is married with two children.

Her early education was in Antananarivo. In 1984, she was the captain of the national women’s basketball team. Subsequently, her three months of basic military training led to a junior high teaching assignment in a remote rural village. In 1991, she majored in Natural Gas Engineering and graduated with a Master of Science from the Algerian Institute of Petroleum in Algeria. Afterwards, she went to Texas A&M University in the United States, where she graduated with a Master of Science, Petroleum Engineering and Environmental Engineering in 1994. Determined to expand her portfolio and skills, she graduated with Master (2000) and Ph.D. degrees in Geophysics (2002) from Stanford University.