Business
His Major Strength As EcoBank CEO, Bolaji Lawal Takes On Career Defining Fight
the jury is still out
One year after he assumed office, the jury is still out on the Chief Executive Officer of Ecobank, Bolaji Lawal.
Appointed as the Chief Executive Officer of the Bank whose official name is Ecobank Transnational Inc (ETI) on December 6, 2021, Lawal formally assumed office on March 1, 2022- after the approval of his appointment by the Central Bank of Nigeria.
The development signaled the beginning of a career defining battle for the holder of a MBA from Oxford University, United Kingdom at the Pan-African banking group with operating in 35 African countries SocietyNow.Ng learned.
SocietyNow.Ng learned his performance is being mirrored against what would have been at Guaranty Trust Bank (GTBank).
Lawal was one of two persons strongly touted as possible successor to Segun Agbaje as GTBank CEO in 2021.
He, however, “retired ” along with the other person who is Ademola Odeyemi ahead of the announcement of Miriam Olusanya as the first female Managing Director of GTBank in July 2021.
Ademola Odeyemi went on to become the Managing Director at Optimus Bank (March 2022) while Lawal became the Chief Executive Officer at Eco Bank.
“So in a way, among industry watchers it has become a three-horse race to see how they will fare as heads of different banks” SocietyNow.Ng learned.
Those who should know points out Lawal’s major strength in the battle underway.
“That he was a senior banking executive and digital transformation specialist for over 28 years at GTbank and the last ten spent as leader of the team that put put in a place a pace setting digital strategy is very significant” SocietyNow.Ng gathered.
Digital strategy is playing a major role in the future of Banks across the globe and Nigeria is no exception with Fintechs taking increasing shares from the Banking space with Digital Banks.
A development that has forced reactions like Vulte (Polaris Bank) and ALAT (Wema) from traditional Banks in trying to keep up.
Credited with leading the team that pictured, put in place and entrenched the retail and digital banking strategy laid wondrous foundation at his immediate past place of employment, Lawal exited as Executive Director at GTBank Plc Nigeria, and as Non-Executive Director at both GTBank Ghana Limited and Nigeria Interbank Settlement Systems Plc.
“Lawal has the proper background and structure to work with (at EcoBank) from the look of things but how well things really are and he leverages them to outperform others is another thing. The jury is still very much on that” SocietyNow.Ng learned.
