Our Directors

We have the full compliment of professional and distinguished Board drawn from our shareholding companies. They are as follows:

Mr. Patrick Akinwuntan – Chairman

Mr. Akinwuntan is Executive Director, Ecobank Transnational incorporation. He has acquired over 20 years in the financial services industry. He holds an MBA Finance of the Obafemi Awolowo University and is an alumnus of the prestigious Harvard Business School (SEP). He is also a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (1988) and an Associate Member of the Chartered Institute of Taxation of Nigeria.

Mrs. Bunmi Lawson - Managing Director/CEO

MD/CEOBunmi holds a Masters Degree in Business Administration from the IESE Business School, University of Neverra and is an alumnus of the Lagos Business School and is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria. She also holds an HND Accounting from Yaba College of Technology graduating with a first class and has attended several courses both locally and internationally at renowned institutions including Harvard Business School and INSEAD.  She has dual citizenship of Nigeria and the United Kingdom.

Mr. Godwin I. Emefiele – Board Member

Mr. Emefiele is the Deputy Managing Director of Zenith Bank Plc. Prior to this appointment, he was the Bank’s Executive Director in charge of Corporate Banking, Treasury, Financial Control and Strategic Planning and has been on Zenith’s Management team since inception.
He holds a B.Sc. and an MBA in Finance, both from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. Before commencing his banking career, he has lectured Finance and Insurance at the University of Nigeria Nsukka, and University of Port Harcourt, respectively. He is also an alumnus of Executive Education at Stanford University, Harvard University and Wharton Graduate Schools of Business.

Enrique Ferraro – Board Member

Mr. Ferraro is the Managing Director of ACCION Investment Management Company, company manager for ACCION Investments in Microfinance, SPC (ACCION Investments).
Mr. Ferraro joined ACCION in 1999 as Vice-President of Capital Markets. He was responsible for the management of ACCION International's 100% owned investment vehicle, the ACCION Gateway Fund and the debt Latin America Bridge Fund, until early 2003 when he took on the role of Managing Director of AIMCO. Before joining ACCION in early 1999, Mr. Ferraro worked in commercial banking at Citibank and investment banking at First National Bank of Chicago in Argentina and the United States. He has also worked as an independent financial consultant, and later served as Chief Financial Officer of Alto Paraná S.A., a large industrial company.
A native of Argentina, Mr. Ferraro holds an M.B.A. from the National University of Buenos Aires and is fluent in English and Spanish.

Sam Kolawole – Board Member

Mr. Kolawole is a Vice President, SME Managers and was formerly the president of the Chartered Institute of Bankers. He holds a B.Sc Economics, 1st class honors and is a Fellow, Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria. He was the Managing Director of Trade Bank of Nigeria before joining SME Manager Limited. He has over 20 years experience in financial services.

Emeka Emuwa – Board Member

Emeka Emuwa is Citi Country Officer (CCO) and Managing Director of Nigeria International Bank, Citigroup’s Nigerian subsidiary. His career with Citi spans 20 years with previous assignments as Country Officer / Country Head in Cameroon, with regional responsibility for the bank’s Central African businesses in Gabon and Congo; and prior to that as CCO Tanzania, Ghana and Niger following various positions within Nigeria. He returned to Nigeria in 2005 to take up his current appointment. Emeka is a graduate of Finance from the University of Lagos and holds an MSc. in Management from Purdue University’s Krannert School of Management. He speaks French and is married with two children.

Solomon Adegbie-Quaynor – Board Member

Solomon Adegbie-Quaynor is currently IFC’s Country Manager for Nigeria, based in Lagos. Prior to this, he served as IFC’s Head of Business Development in Infrastructure for Africa, based in Johannesburg, with responsibility for developing the institution’s business activities across Africa in sub-sectors. In 2002, he was appointed to oversee IFC’s activities in Ghana, Sierra Leone, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Prior to his 2002 appointment, Mr. Adegbie-Quaynor worked in IFC’s Private Sector Advisory Services Group from 1999.
He has several years of prior senior investment banking experience on Wall Street, providing corporate finance advisory services to large and medium corporations. Immediately before joining IFC, he worked for five years in investment banking at Merrill Lynch and Bear Stearns in New York City as an Associate and Vice President in the generalist, mining and media & communications groups. Prior to joining Merrill Lynch, he worked for 4 years as a college professor in mathematics and engineering, and later served as Director of the Dual Degree Engineering Program at the Atlanta University Center.
Mr. Adegbie-Quaynor has a B.S. in Applied Physics from the Atlanta University Center in Atlanta, Georgia; an M.S. in Electrical Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, Georgia; and, an MBA in Finance and Marketing from the J. L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management, Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.