Mr Pelaelo was appointed Governor of the Bank of Botswana effective October 21, 2016, after, in total, over 25 years as a central banker.
Governor Pelaelo joined the Bank of Botswana in 1990 as Senior Bank Examiner in the Banking Supervision Department following a six-year lectureship in accounting and management studies at the Botswana Institute of Administration and Commerce and University of Botswana. He rose to various senior positions in the Bank and, in 1996, was appointed Head of Administrative Services Department and shortly thereafter transferred to be Director of Banking Supervision Department. In the Banking Supervision Department he was instrumental in establishing the institutional framework for banking supervision post the abolition of exchange controls in Botswana. He formulated a number of prudential regulations and policies, including a paper on banking soundness and macroeconomic stability, capital adequacy framework for Botswana and introduction of the public Annual Banking Supervision report.
In 2003, Mr Pelaelo took a three-year sabbatical leave and joined the Financial Stability Institute (FSI) at the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) in Basel (Switzerland), where he continued to expand and deepen his knowledge of banking regulation, supervision and financial stability. As part of his work at the BIS, he coordinated a number of international conferences and presented on a wide range of topics for banking supervisors across the world, including in Africa, Middle East, South East Asia, South and Central America, the Caribbean Islands, Eastern Europe, Transcaucasia and Central Asia. Mr Pelaelo also hosted a number of banking supervision seminars for the global group of banking supervisors at the BIS, Switzerland.
Before his appointment as Governor, Mr Pelaelo had been Deputy Governor since 2006 with overarching responsibility for banking regulation and supervision, payment infrastructure and oversight, banking & currency, accounting, security and other support services.
​Governor Pelaelo graduated from the University of Swaziland with a Bachelor of Commerce degree in 1983 and obtained a Master's Degree in Business Administration from the University of Miami, Florida (USA) in 1987.