First Bank Expands Board With Three Executive Directors

First Bank Expands Board With Three Executive Directors – Three executive directors have been added to the board of First Bank Nigeria Limited, the flagship subsidiary of FBN Holdings Plc.

The financial institution said Mr Olusegun Alebiosu will join the board as the Executive Director, Risk Management & Executive Compliance Officer, Mr Oluwatosin Adewuyi as the Executive Director for Corporate Banking, and Mr Ini Ebong as the Executive Director for Treasury and International Banking.

Prior to this appointment, Mr Alebiosu was a Group Executive and the Chief Risk Officer of the First Bank Group, a role he had occupied since he joined the bank in September 2016.

As CRO, he was the Executive accountable for enabling the efficient and effective governance of significant risks, and related opportunities in First Bank and its subsidiaries.

Under his leadership, there has been a risk management transformation at the bank, significant improvement of our credit underwriting process with vintage NPL ratio of less than one per cent, reduction of our NPL ratio to sub-7% levels, significant recoveries, exemplary franchise protection and excellent stakeholder management.

In addition to his role as CRO, Mr Alebiosu is also the Executive Compliance Officer of the bank with the responsibility of ensuring the Bank complies with extant rules and regulations. With a career that has spanned about 30 years, he is an outstanding professional with a demonstrated commitment to the success of the franchise.

Prior to First Bank, he was the Chief Credit Officer at the African Development Bank (AfDB) where he led risk teams in various areas including financial institutions, trade finance (to support African Banks), and critical infrastructure projects across Africa.

Before then, he worked at the United Bank for Africa Plc in various risk capacities including credit policy, credit risk management, agriculture, trade, retail and specialized lending.

On his part, Mr Adewuyi was Group Executive, Corporate Banking where he was responsible for the bank’s corporate banking business following the exit of the previous Executive Director.

He was until recently Executive Director of FBNBank UK, a role he occupied when he joined the First Bank family in 2017. Under his leadership, the corporate banking franchise achieved significant growth in assets and net revenue.

He was also able to reposition the business and portfolio of FBNBank UK in line with the lender’s revised strategy for the franchise and pioneered collaborations between First Bank, FBNBank UK and its African subsidiaries via the Global Account Management program.

He is an international banker with over 20 years of experience covering sub-Saharan Africa. Tosin joined First Bank from J.P. Morgan, where he was a Managing Director and had been Head of its Nigeria Business for eight years.

In his role, he led the execution of J.P. Morgan’s strategy for Nigeria and managed key client relationships including the Central Bank of Nigeria, Ministry of Finance, Debt Management Office, Nigerian Sovereign Investment Authority and top-tier Nigerian Banks.

In addition to his Nigerian role, he was also the Head of Treasury Services (Cash Management and Trade) for Sub-Saharan Africa with prior roles in trade finance, corporate banking, debt capital markets, financial institutions and correspondent banking.

Prior to J.P. Morgan, he worked at Standard Bank, London for about five years and qualified as a Certified Chartered Accountant during the four years he worked at KPMG.

As for Mr Ebong, he was the Group Executive in charge of the Treasury and International Banking at First Bank. In this role, he is responsible for the bank’s Treasury business, its international banking franchise across sub-Saharan Africa covering six countries (Democratic Republic of Congo, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea Conakry, Senegal and Sierra Leone), the bank’s custody business, servicing local and international clients, and the bank’s financial institutions business, which covers its relationships with domestic and international correspondent banks, multilateral agencies, development finance institutions and non-bank financial institutions. Until recently, he was also responsible for the Structured Trade and Commodity Finance business.

Prior to joining First Bank, Mr Ebong was the Head of African Fixed Income and Local Markets Trading for Renaissance Capital. Prior to joining Renaissance Capital, he had worked in Citigroup for 14 years, predominantly in a market-facing and trading role where rose to the Head of Sales and Trading, and Country Treasurer.

Throughout his career in financial services spanning more than 25 years, he has had extensive experience in investment banking, financial markets, equity and debt capital markets businesses, with work experience that covers trading, treasury, balance sheet management and finance.