Jean Kambanda (born October 19, 1955) was the prime minister in the caretaker government of Rwanda from the start of the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
He is the only head of government to plead guilty to genocide, in the first group of such convictions since the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide came into effect in 1951.
Kambanda holds a degree in commercial engineering and began his career as a low-level United Popular BPR banker, rising as a technocrat to become the chair of the bank.
The opposition MDR had been promised the prime ministerial post in the transitional government established by the Arusha accords, but Kambanda leapfrogged several levels in the party's hierarchy to take the job from the initial choice, Faustin Twagiramungu.
He remained in the post for the hundred days of the genocide until July 19, 1994.