Meet Extremely Shy Ex-Bank M.D Who Is Now Group CEO

With over 28 years  in commercial and investment banking in Europe, the United States of America and Africa to his name, including 10 years as the managing Director of a popular Bank as well as 6 years in the elevated position of Group Executive Officer – he remains extremely shy.

Meet Ladi Balogun, the Group Executive Officer of FCMB Holdings who has been unending in his refusal to be caught at social gatherings or have his name and face out there – except for very necessary work related issues.

Balogun, 51, overseers the operations at the holding company with interests in commercial and investment banking, investment management and pension administration – and FCMB (First City Monument Bank) as subsidiary.

 The holder of a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from the University of East Anglia, United Kingdom and an MBA from Harvard Business School, United States of America was the Managing Director of First City Monument Bank for some ten years beginning from 2005.

He became the Group Chief Executive Officer at FCMB Group plc in 2017 and is credited with a fantastic run that has kept shareholders delighted.

In between the journey that started at FCMB in 1996 as an Executive Assistant to the chairman – and chief executive officer – and rise to the posting of overall boss at FCMB Group, he had stints in various spheres including  including Treasury, Corporate Banking and Investment Banking and was in charge of the Institutional Banking Group and Strategy and Business Development among high profile tasks at different times – but he did not shed his shyness.

“The shyness appears forever associated with him, even thickening from the looks of things” SocietyNow.Ng gathered.

A very huge pointer is the recent cynosure of all eyes funeral activities that culminated in the talk-of-the-town burial of his father, Otunba Subomi Balogun – the noble Nigerian and founder of FCMB – on Saturday, July 8, 2023.

Despite high profile experience that include starting out his banking career at Morgan Grenfell and Co Limited, where he worked in the areas of risk management and corporate finance andwas responsible for managing the bank’s trading and investment positions in debt instruments across continents with added stints at Citibank in New York before adding exploits that resulted in his emergence as FCMB Managing Director and now group of the holding company, Ladi Balogun’s shyness forced him to be “incognito” during his father’s burial.

“He has always been on the quiet side and crowd shy. So coming across the way he did during the burial activities was just being himself” SocietyNow.Ng learned days back about the reduced visibility role the FCMB plc Group Chief Executive Officer played during his father’s burial.

Further checks revealed that it didn’t help that the “excellent administrator’ who played prominent roles in FCMB’s buy and mergers with the Cooperative Development Bank, Midas Bank, and Nigerian American Bank (for the Nigerian subsidiary of Bank Boston) in 2007 as well as the acquisition of FinBank Nigeria in 2012 among game changer responsibilities was the subject of media reports concerning his marital mishap at a point in time.

“For someone that is extremely shy, that development in November 2017 forced him to dig further low profile and far away from public engagements that are not significant to his work duties” SocietyNow.Ng learned.

He has not turned back since then.

Aside from his role as the headman at FCMB Group plc, Ladi Balogun is the Chief Executive Officer at Tenet Investing Company,- the investment company  focused on wealth development for smallholder farmers and also the President of  of the Otunba Tunwase Foundation that has special focus on the wellness of children.

The Otunba Tunwase Foundation is a front line helping hand initiative of pace setter and legend of the banking world who said goodbye to the world on May 18, 2023, in London after a brief illness at the age of 89 – Otunba Subomi Balogun.