Board of Directors

Mr. Foluso Olajide Phillips was appointed to the Board of Directors of Standard Chartered Bank Nigeria Limited as an Independent Non-Executive Director in April 2022 and was elected Chairman of the Bank’s Board of Directors, effective 21^st May 2022.

Mr. Phillips is a qualified industrial economist a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants of the United Kingdom and a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria. He has over 45 years’ experience in financial and cost management, industrial and operations management, Human Capital Management, Information Technology systems implementation and Business Management consulting.

He is a private sector leader with experience in consulting, advising, guiding, and mentoring organisations in the private and the public sectors. He has worked with and advised government and its many agencies, at national and state level in his professional capacity as a management consultant, a one-time leader and current Director of the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG) and member of other professional bodies and institutions. He continues to play a major role in the private sector through the firm of Phillips Consulting Limited and its affiliate companies – Phillips Outsourcing Limited and Phillips HMO where he serves as Executive Chairman.

He is committed to African Renaissance and is active in supporting Pan-African initiatives in different areas of endeavour. He is also a public speaker who has been actively involved in many international seminars and conferences across Africa, Europe and the United States of America.

Mr. Phillips is married with children and grandchildren.

Dalu Ajene is the Chief Executive Officer of Standard Chartered Bank Nigeria. Prior to this position, he worked at Rand Merchant Bank (RMB) for over ten years in various roles, cumulating to become the MD/CEO of RMB Nigeria. He has over twenty-two years of financial services experience working for both international banks and Africa banks. He has executed over US$20-billion worth of financing, structuring, capital markets and advisory transactions on several continents including Africa, Europe, Middle East and North America.

Dalu started his career in year 2000 at Bear Stearns as an Investment Banking Analyst in New York and spent the next nine years honing his skills in corporate finance at Bank of America and Prudential Capital Group. He moved to Africa in 2009 to join Rand Merchant Bank as a Business Development Director and was an integral member of the team that set up RMB Nigeria, where he led the corporate finance business until his departure in 2014. He spent the next four years in the Middle East, where he served as Managing Director and Investment Banking Head of Anglophone Africa for BNP Paribas out of their MENA office in Bahrain and Managing Director of UHNW Africa for Credit Suisse out of their MENA office in Dubai. In 2018, he returned to Rand Merchant Bank, taking up various roles including Global Head of Coverage in South Africa, Head of Investment Banking in Nigeria and MD/CEO of RMB Nigeria.

Dalu served on the Board of RMB Nigeria and was a senior member of FirstRand Group executive committees in South Africa including FSR Africa Exco, RMB FRM ExCo, Client Board and other Group risk and credit committees.

Dalu holds an M.B.A. in Finance and Strategy from Harvard Business School and a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from Dartmouth College. He is an active member of the Young Presidents Organization, the Metropolitan Club and other non-profit endeavors that he is committed to. Dalu is married and has two sons and enjoys running and playing squash.

Mr. Bukar is currently an Independent Non-Executive Director of Standard Chartered Bank Nigeria Limited.

In his capacity as Managing Director/CEO of ValuCard Nigeria (now Unified Payments Limited), he promoted the deployment and adoption of Visa products in Nigeria. Prior to this period, he served as Executive Director, E-Banking, Information Technology and Operations in FSB International Bank Plc (now Fidelity Bank Plc).

He has also held several roles such as Manager, Technical Marketing, Senior IT Consultant, Marketing Program Manager etc within the Hewlett-Packard Group in the USA.

Until recently, Mr. Bukar was the Managing Director/CEO of Central Securities Clearing System Plc, Lagos, where he has been credited with the transformation of the company to an efficient and resourceful organization. He is currently on the Board of the Nigeria Economic Summit Group (NESG).

He is married with children

Adiba Ighodaro was appointed to the Board of Directors of Standard Chartered Bank Nigeria Limited as an Independent Non-Executive Director in April 2021.

Prior to her appointment, she was a Partner in Actis, a Global Private Equity Firm, where she still serves as an advisor for one of the firm’s real estate funds. Adiba has a strong track record in emerging markets with over 30 years’ experience in legal structuring, development finance, private equity origination and investment. She received the 2019 Private Equity Africa special recognition award for being one of the top women deal makers and fundraisers in the industry, recognising leadership over the past decade and positive impact on women. Adiba is an advocate for diversity and inclusion (D&I). During her time in Actis, she initiated the firm’s D&I agenda and was a founding member of Actis’ D&I committee. Adiba also established and chaired the Actis Female Network with membership across geographies and sectors. Adiba also sits as a member of the Board of Trustees of the English National Opera. She holds a Bachelor of Laws degree from King’s College, London and a Diploma in Accounting & Finance from the ACCA. She is also called to the Nigerian Bar and the English Bar (Gray’s Inn). Adiba speaks both English and French.

Adiba is married with 2 children.

Emmanuel (Manu) De Groote joined the Board of Standard Chartered Bank Nigeria Limited in December 2017. He is currently the Non-Executive Director, with responsibility for Country, Business as well as the Financial Crime Compliance teams within the Africa & Middle East region. He is also a member of the Africa & Middle East Regional Management Team and the Region’s Compliance Management team.

Manu joined the Standard Chartered Bank Group in 2011 as Head of Regional Initiatives for Legal and Compliance, MEPA and South Asia. In this role, He was actively involved in a wide range of legal and compliance issues across the Middle East, Pakistan, Africa and South Asia. Prior to his current role, Manu was the Regional Head of Legal and Compliance for Africa.

He is currently tasked with leading the Standard Chartered Group Compliance agenda in the Africa & Middle East region.

Prior to joining the SCB Group, Manu worked for more than 10 years at Euroclear, the clearing and settlement bank in Brussels, as Chief Compliance Officer, and Group Head of Legal respectively.

He is married with two children and lives in Dubai.

Bisi Lamikanra was appointed as a Non-Executive Director of Standard Chartered Bank Nigeria Limited in March 2021.

Prior to her appointment, Bisi was a Partner and Head of Advisory Services in KPMG Nigeria, with responsibility for the Advisory Practice in Africa. She has over 36 years of professional experience, providing advisory services to various public and private sector clients including consumer/industrial markets, manufacturing, energy and natural resources, technology and financial services within Nigeria and across Africa. During her time with KPMG Nigeria, she pioneered and built several new service lines such as payment services, data analytics, digital transformation, customer solutions, amongst others.

Bisi is passionate about developing people and recently established a Non- Governmental Organisation focused on providing employability training to recent graduates. She studied Economics at the University of Lagos and is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria.

Bisi is married with 1 child and is based in Lagos, Nigeria.

Dayo Omolokun is the Executive Director and Chief Financial Officer, responsible for leading the Finance function in Nigeria. As an organisational leader and key member of senior management, he balances the responsibilities of stewardship with business partnership; constantly improving shareholder value through strategy execution and business risks mitigation. He also manages investor and key regulatory relationships.

Dayo is a seasoned finance and banking professional with over two decades of multi-functional and international experience in Africa, Middle East and UK markets. In his immediate past role as Director of Financial Integration and Change Management at Atlas Mara, Dayo managed aspects of the organisation’s strategy to achieve growth through mergers and acquisitions. Prior to this, he worked for Standard Chartered in various roles in Nigeria, UK, Botswana and Ghana, during which he made specific contributions to the growth of the business as Country Chief Financial Officer and executed a global acquisition and integration project at the Group Head Office. He has also been an Independent Consultant to African Development Bank on Non-Sovereign Operations (private sector investments). He trained with Arthur Andersen Nigeria (now KPMG Professional Services) rising to the position of Audit and Business Advisory Manager.

Dayo earned an Executive MBA from Cass Business School, City, University of London (UK), and holds a Bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering from Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife (Nigeria). He possesses chartered accounting and tax qualifications. He is married with children.

Siji Adeyinka is the Head of Compliance for Standard Chartered Bank Nigeria. He joined the bank in 2011 as Head of Conduct Financial Crime and Compliance. He is also an Executive Director and sits on the Board of Standard Chartered Bank Nigeria.

In this role, Siji provides leadership, strategic support and direction to the Compliance and Financial Crimes Compliance team and also guidance to the local board in Nigeria on Regulatory and Financial Crimes Compliance issues.

Siji has over 30 years extensive banking experience spanning various areas such as Finance, Trade Operations, Domestic Operations, Technology and Internal Control. His working life began in 1988 in Coopers and Lybrand (PricewaterhouseCoopers) where he trained as a Chartered Accountant before migrating into the banking industry 5 years later. He worked in Citibank Nigeria in the Finance department before joining First City Monument Bank and rising to become the Group Head of Operations and Technology and later the Chief Compliance Officer.

He holds a first degree in Economics from the University of Wolverhampton, UK (1987) and is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (FCA). He is also a Fellow of the Compliance Institute of Nigeria (FCIN), an Associate Member of the Chartered Institute of Taxation of Nigeria (ACIN) and an Honorary Senior Member of the Chartered institute of Bankers (HCIB).

Siji is married to Olayinka a consultant Orthodontist and they have two grown up children.

Sola Mabadeje is Head, Legal and Company Secretary for Standard Chartered Bank Nigeria Limited.

In her role as Head, Legal, she is responsible for the strategic identification, mitigation and management of legal risks for the Bank. As Company Secretary, she is responsible for ensuring that proper corporate governance structures are in place and that the Bank complies with statutory and regulatory requirements in Nigeria.

She is a seasoned legal professional with over 20 years’ experience and has advised financial institutions and large corporations on complex legal matters, commercial and capital market transactions and corporate governance issues. Prior to joining Standard Chartered Bank Nigeria Limited in 2018, Sola was the Corporate Governance Executive at Old Mutual Nigeria, where she led the Legal, Compliance and Company Secretarial teams from 2014 to 2017. Her career within the financial services industry started in 2002 when she joined Ecobank Nigeria Limited. She later moved to Standard Chartered Bank Nigeria Limited in 2009, where she rose to deputise for and acted as Head, Legal and Company Secretariat before her departure in 2014.

Sola holds a Law degree from the University of Buckingham, a Master’s degree from the University of London and is called to the Nigerian Bar. She is an Associate of the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators and an Honorary Senior Member of the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria.