So Inspiring! Ibukun Awosika Becomes First Female Chairman of First Bank

It’s so awesome to see enterprising Nigerian women achieve great feats in their various fields of endeavor.

Ibukun Awosika was yesterday appointed at the Chairman of First Bank, making her the first female to occupy the position.

Here is some information about Awosika’s background, as seen on the First Bank website:

Ibukun Awosika is the founder and chairman of the Chair Centre Ltd, a market leader in the office furniture and banking security systems industries. She graduated with a BSc. in Chemistry from the University of Ife. She is an alumnus of the executive programme of Lagos Business School and the global executive MBA programme of the prestigious IESE Business School, Barcelona, Spain. She started her working career with Akintola Williams & Co. (now Deloitte) as an audit trainee during her national youth corps service. Thereafter, she worked at Alibert Nigeria Ltd, a furniture company, as showroom manager. Three and a half months after her employment, she resigned her position to set up her own furniture manufacturing company, Quebees Ltd, from which The Chair Centre Ltd later evolved.

She cofounded the Afterschool Graduate Development Centre (AGDC), a national career centre in Lagos, Nigeria, which was set up in September 2007 to address the high rates of unemployment in the country by helping Nigerian graduates’ become employable and good assets to the economy. In addition, she independently established another ultra-modern furniture facility, furniture manufacturers’ mart, in Lagos in the later part of 2006. The latest additions to her entrepreneurial exploits are the new branches of the Chair Centre Ltd in Accra (Ghana), Tinapa and Calabar (South eastern Nigeria).

Ibukun Awosika is the immediate past chairperson of the board of trustees of Women in Management and Business (WIMBIZ). She is currently the Chairperson of Intermac, the organisers of SmartCard Conferences in Nigeria and Kenya, and a director on the board of First Bank of Nigeria Plc (before becoming chairman).

In other related news, Osaretin Afusat Demuren was appointed chairman at Guaranty Trust Bank in April 2015. She is also the first female to hold the position.

Photo Credit: Y Naija