Nairobi, 24 October 2022 – We have recently announced the appointment of Arunma Oteh, a seasoned business leader, to our Board of Directors to support the organisation’s work to strengthen and deepen Africa’s financial markets, particularly in the area of green finance.
Arunma is passionate about the role of financial markets in catalysing Africa’s success. Her deep expertise in finance, capital markets, economic development and sustainability as well as her wealth of experience in management, corporate governance and regulation will be indispensable to FSD Africa.
Arunma Oteh is a scholar and a member of the Global Leadership Council of Saïd Business School, University of Oxford. She is also the Chairperson of Veritas Asset Management, a U.K. asset manager and sits on corporate boards such as the Afreximbank Pan-African Payment System and Settlements Initiative. She is a member of the London Stock Exchange Africa Advisory Group.
Before joining the University of Oxford, she was Treasurer and Vice President of the World Bank and, before that, Director General of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Nigeria. She previously held several senior leadership positions at the African Development Bank (AfDB), including Group Treasurer and Group Vice President, Corporate Services. Arunma commenced her career in 1984 as a Lecturer of Computer Science at the University of Benin and has held several important positions in consulting, capital markets, finance, and research.
During her time as Director General of SEC Nigeria, she led the rebuilding of the Nigerian capital markets after the global financial crisis. She was also a member of Nigeria’s Economic Management Team, chaired by the President of Nigeria. She also served on the Board of the International Organisation of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) and chaired the Africa Middle East Regional Committee, during the same period.
As Treasurer of the World Bank, she led a global team that managed $200 billion multi-product asset portfolios for the World Bank Group, 65 central banks and other official institutions. They also raised over US$50 billion from the global capital markets, annually, for the World Bank’s lending activities. During this time, she led several ground-breaking green finance and thematic transactions and oversaw an extensive public sector financial advisory business that covered debt management, risk management and green finance.
Arunma Oteh graduated from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka in 1984 with a first-class honours degree in Computer Science. She received an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1990 and holds honorary doctorate degrees. She has received several awards, notably Nigeria’s Officer of the Order of the Niger (OON) in 2011, Power List’s 2020 top 100 people in the U.K. of African heritage and Forbes Africa’s 50 most influential African women in March 2020. She is the co-editor of the book African Voices African Visions, the Chairperson of the 120-year-old Royal African Society and a member of the Board of Trustees of the Prince’s Trust International, among other important charitable causes.
FSD Africa is extremely fortunate to have Arunma join its Board of Directors. Her experience as Treasurer of the World Bank and as Director-General of SEC Nigeria gives her a unique insight into the state of global and African financial markets. This will be immensely helpful to FSD Africa as it continues developing ambitious programmes that grow and improve these markets.
Mark Napier, CEO – FSD Africa
