JUST IN: UBA Appoints Abiola Bawuah As First Female CEO

UBA has appointed Abiola Bawuah as the First Female CEO of the bank.

Glamtush reports that the United Bank for Africa (UBA) Plc has appointed Ghanaian national Mrs Abiola Bawuah as its new Chief Executive Officer. 

According to a statement Mrs Bawuah will oversee the bank’s operations across Africa, excluding Nigeria. 

She is the first female CEO of UBA Africa and her appointment demonstrates the bank’s commitment to diversity.

Across UBA Group, there are now eight female directors.

More about Mrs Abiola Bawuah: Before now, Mrs Bawuah was UBA’s Regional CEO for West Africa, managing operations in nine subsidiaries including Benin, Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Mali, Senegal, and Sierra Leone. Before this, she served as the CEO of UBA Ghana.

What UBA said about her: While commenting on the appointment, UBA Group’s Board Chairman, Mr Tony Elumelu, said:

• “Abiola has contributed significantly to the growth of UBA Africa for close to a decade. She brings a wealth of experience in commercial banking, and stakeholder engagement. It also gives me great pleasure that with her appointment, the UBA Group Board has now become a majority female board.” 

Other major appointments: UBA Plc also announced other key executive appointments across the group as highlighted below-

• Chris Ofikulu was appointed as the Regional CEO of UBA West Africa. He has over two decades of banking experience spanning corporate, commercial, and retail banking. 
• Uzoechina Molokwu was appointed as Deputy Managing Director of UBA Ghana, subject to regulatory approvals in the West African country. Before now, he served as the Executive Director of Business Development at UBA Côte d’Ivoire. He has over 23 years banking experience. 
• Ayokunle Olajubu will be the Managing Director/CEO UBA Liberia, subject to local regulatory approvals. He currently drives compliance across Africa subsidiaries and comes with 30 years banking experience in Nigeria and other African countries, including Sierra Leone, Cote D’Ivoire and the Gambia. 
• Theresa Henshaw has been appointed as CEO of UBA UK, subject to local regulatory approvals. She was previously the DMD, Business Development, UBA America and joined the Group as ED, Business Development at UBA UK. 
• Usman Isiaka, currently CEO, UBA Sierra Leone, will be the Deputy CEO in UBA America, subject to local regulatory approvals. 
• Adeyemi Adeleke, the former CEO of UBA, UK is now the Group Treasurer. Adeleke will be working to unlock the immense value in the Group’s multi-jurisdictional balance sheet, leveraging on its presence in 24 countries within and beyond Africa. 

Additional information: The bank also announced the retirement of High Chief Samuel Oni, an independent non-executive Director, from the Board following the expiration of his tenure. He joined the UBA Group in January 2015 and served on the Board of the Group for eight years. 

Mr Elumelu thanked High Chief Oni, for his commitment, leadership and extensive contributions to the UBA Group and on behalf of the Board, wishes him the very best in all his future endeavours. 

What you should know: UBA Group operates in 19 African countries and also has global operations in the United States of America, France and the United Arab Emirates.

It specialises in retail, commercial and institutional banking services and leads financial inclusion using cutting edge technology.

UBA is one of the largest employers in the financial sector on the African continent, with 25,000 employees group wide and serving over 37 million customers globally.