The immediate past Director General of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Arunma Oteh, has been appointed as World Bank vice president and treasurer.
The Bretton Wood institution announced Oteh’s appointment in a statement on Friday.
The bank said Oteh was selected to the position through an international competitive search and that her appointment is effective from September 28, 2015.
Nigerians have enjoyed prominent appointments in the bank, with the immediate past Finance Minister, Dr. okonjo Iweala, attaining the position of the Managing Director of the bank, which effectively made one of the top four appointees of the bank. It was was from that post that she came to take up appointment as Finance Minister in Nigeria.
Former Minister of Education, Mrs Oby Ezekwesili, was also vice-president in the bank for about five years.
The World Bank in announcing Oteh’s appointment said, “As vice president and treasurer, Arunma will manage and lead a large and diverse team responsible for managing more than $150bn in assets. Her top priorities will be to maintain the World Bank’s global reputation as a prudent and innovative borrower, investor and risk manager; and manage an extensive client advisory, transaction and asset management business for the bank.”
According to the statement, she would also engage in her capacity as one of the World Bank’s key representatives, with outside stakeholders including global private sector financial institutions, the financial media and the sovereign debt and reserve managers in client countries, as well as ratings agencies; and collaborate extensively with the finance partners throughout the WBG, including with IFC and MIGA, expanding shared approaches, in particular around innovative financing for development and for key new projects.
In her reaction, Oteh said, “A great time to join the World Bank given the innovative solutions it is deploying to ‘end extreme poverty and ensure shared prosperity.”
According to the World Bank statement, prior to joining the SEC, Oteh was the Group Vice President, Corporate Services, at the African Development Bank Group. In this role, she oversaw a number of departments, including human resources, information and communications technology, and institutional procurement. It said from 2001 to 2006, she held the role of AfDB Group Treasurer, where she led AfDB’s fundraising and capital market activities across the world. Earlier roles at the AfDB, which she joined in 1992, included trading room management, investment portfolio coverage, and public sector lending. She also held other positions in capital markets and lending during the course of her career at the AfDB.
Oteh began her career in 1985 at Centre Point, where she executed debt and equity offerings in the Nigerian capital markets. She earned her Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from the University of Nigeria and her Masters of Business Administration from the prestigous Harvard University in USA.
