Unity Bank appoints Ebenezer Kolawole as acting MD/CEO

The Board of Unity Bank Plc has announced the appointment of Mr Ebenezer Kolawole (FCA) as the Acting Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer following the retirement of Mrs Oluwatomi Somefun, who has completed her tenure as MD/CEO.

The appointment was announced at the Bank’s 18th Annual General Meeting (AGM), held in Lagos on Wednesday, after securing the necessary approval from its primary regulator, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

Mr Kolawole joined Unity Bank Plc as Chief Financial Officer (CFO) in 2015. He was later, in February 2018, appointed as an Executive Director to oversee Finance, Operations, and Information Technology, where he played a key role in the Bank’s strategic transformation and cost optimisation initiatives, which enhanced the Bank’s performance and market feasibility.

A seasoned and consummate banker with over three decades of industry experience, Kolawole began his financial services career at Caribbean Finance Limited (an affiliate of CFL in the Cayman Islands) in Kaduna in 1992.

He later joined Ecobank, where he worked in various departments of the Bank, including Operations and Finance suites, and rose to the position of Deputy Financial Controller. He moved to Standard Trust Bank (STB) and worked in various strategic areas, including Operations, Regulatory Risk Management, and Finance suites, playing a pivotal role in the STB/UBA merger.

Post-merger, he served as Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of the United Bank for Africa and later moved to Mainstreet Bank as the Bank’s Group Chief Finance Officer (GCFO), where he actively drove the turnaround and transformation initiatives of the Bank.

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Kolawole had a brief stint at Globacom, one of Nigeria’s leading indigenous telecommunications giants, where he served in various capacities for corporate business development.

In line with the Bank’s succession and business continuity plans, Mr Kolawole is saddled with the primary responsibility of finalising the Bank’s ongoing corporate programmes and other strategic business initiatives of the institution.

Mr Kolawole holds a First-Class (Hons) degree in Accounting from Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife. He has participated in several management/executive education programmes at Columbia Business School, New York, USA, and The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA.

Mr Kolawole is a member of several professional bodies, including a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (FCA); a Fellow of the Institute of Credit Administration (FICA); an Honorary Member of the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria (HCIB); an Associate Member of the Nigerian Institute of Management (AMNIM); and a Member of the Institute of Directors.

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