Arnold Onyekwere Ekpe (born August 1953) is a Nigerian banker and businessman who was the group chief executive of

Ecobank Ecobank, whose official name is Ecobank Transnational Inc. (ETI), is a pan-African banking conglomerate, with banking operations in 36 African countries. It is the leading independent regional banking group in West Africa and Central Africa, se ...

, the pan-African bank with operations from Togo to Nigeria to

the DRC The Democratic Republic of the Congo (french: République démocratique du Congo (RDC), colloquially "La RDC" ), informally Congo-Kinshasa, DR Congo, the DRC, the DROC, or the Congo, and formerly and also colloquially Zaire, is a country in ...

from 2005 to 2012.

Early life

Ekpe was born in Nigeria, and also lived in Cameroon. He graduated from

King's College, Lagos King's College, Lagos (KCL) is a secondary school in Lagos, Lagos State, Nigeria. It was founded on 20 September 1909 with 10 students on its original site at Lagos Island, adjacent to Tafawa Balewa Square. The school admits only male students ...

in 1972, earned a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering at the

University of Manchester , mottoeng = Knowledge, Wisdom, Humanity , established = 2004 – University of Manchester Predecessor institutions: 1956 – UMIST (as university college; university 1994) 1904 – Victoria University of Manchester 1880 – Victoria Univer ...

, and followed up with an MBA from the

Manchester Business School Alliance Manchester Business School (Alliance MBS) is the business school of the University of Manchester in Manchester, England. One of the most prestigious business schools in the United Kingdom, it is also the second oldest in the UK, and pro ...

Career

Ekpe served as the group CEO of Ecobank from 1996 to 2001, and 2005 to 2012. Under his auspices, he oversaw the expansion of the bank across Africa and steered the company through the

Great Recession The Great Recession was a period of marked general decline, i.e. a recession, observed in national economies globally that occurred from late 2007 into 2009. The scale and timing of the recession varied from country to country (see map). At ...

. Prior to joining Ecobank, he was the vice-president of the West/Southern African corporate finance desk at

Citibank Citibank, N. A. (N. A. stands for " National Association") is the primary U.S. banking subsidiary of financial services multinational Citigroup. Citibank was founded in 1812 as the City Bank of New York, and later became First National City ...

. From 2002 to 2003 he was group CEO of United Bank for Africa (UbA), and from 2003 to 2005 he was a partner with African Capital Alliance, a private equity firm. He was the honorary president of the Business Council for Africa, chairman of Safire Luxembourg, and chairman at Atlas Mara, the investment management firm founded by former Barclays CEO, Bob Diamond, between December 2013 and December 2016. He is now senior adviser to Dangote Group and Equator Capital Partners (US). He is chairman of Micro Cred France, non-executive director of Crown Agents Bank (UK), Crown Agents Investment Management Ltd (UK), AVMS India, and Dangote Flour Mills Ltd. He is a trustee of Vision for a Nation, a global charity, and supports research at University of Manchester, his alma mater.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ekpe, Arnold Living people Nigerian businesspeople Nigerian bankers Alumni of the University of Manchester Alumni of the Manchester Business School King's College, Lagos alumni 1953 births