The AfDB Group appoints Marie Laure Akin-Olugbade Country Manager, West Africa Regional Development and Business Delivery Office

The African Development Bank is pleased to announce the appointment of Ms. Marie-Laure Akin-Olugbade as the Country Manager for the West Africa Regional Development and Business Delivery Office. The West Africa Regional Development and Business Delivery Office is part of the new business approach of the Bank to accelerate its business and development impacts across Africa. As Country Manager, a new senior executive position in the Bank, Ms. Marie Laure Akin-Olugbade will be responsible for management oversight over country resident representatives and portfolio operations in key countries and serve as the deputy to the Director General in the overall management of the regional office operations.

Ms. Marie-Laure Akin-Olugbade, a Cameroonian national, is an experienced finance and development professional, with close to 25 years of relevant strategic, technical, operational and managerial experience in positions of increasing complexity and responsibility at the African Development Bank. She has a record of leading complex and innovative initiatives, investments and policy dialogue with public and private sector clients, multiple partners and stakeholders.

She currently serves as the Bank Resident Representative in Ghana, responsible for the elaboration, coordination and delivery of the Bank's strategy and related work program. She was instrumental in supporting the origination and delivery of a 100% increase of Bank lending to the private sector in Ghana. She leads multi-disciplinary and multi-cultural teams of high caliber professionals and oversees lending and non-lending operations of US $1 billion, with a strong focus on transport, energy and agriculture.

She also currently acts as the Coordinator of the Bank’s Regional Public Private Partnerships Hubs. She had spent the first 20 years of her career in finance and treasury positions within the African Development Bank.

She was a Manager in the Treasury Department where she oversaw new financial product development, financial innovation and risk management services. She directly worked on the financial structuring of innovative landmark transactions including a US $85 million equivalent Nigerian naira linked loan to the first Public Private Partnership toll road project in the city of Lagos, a US $10-million policy based guarantee to the Republic of Seychelles for its international Eurobond exchange (debt restructuring), and a US $1.5 billion policy based loan to Botswana, which was the first Bank loan in 17 years.

She had primary responsibility for debt issuance in African debt capital markets and developed local currency structuring capabilities in African currencies to fund transactions and promote the development of African capital markets. She led the Bank team that authored the second edition of the African Fixed Income and Derivatives Guidebook published in 2010. Prior to this, she was a fixed income trader with solid treasury experience, instrumental in contributing to the Bank’s investment income.

Ms. Marie-Laure Akin-Olugbade is a graduate of Université Paris-Dauphine, France and Université Pantheon-Sorbonne, France with Masters’ degrees in Applied Economics and Management.

The President of the African Development Bank, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, said of the appointment: Ms. Marie-Laure Akin-Olugbade has managed complex private sector and public sector operations and brings strong experience in building effective public-private sector partnerships. Her deep experience of operations and private sector and capital markets will be enormously helpful to support the Bank as it accelerates its operations in the West African region”.

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