By Peter OBIORA InvestAdvocate
New York (INVESTADVOCATE)-Arunma Oteh, immediate past director general (DG) of the Nigeria’s Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Friday was appointed vice president and treasurer of the World Bank.
Oteh in her new role at the World Bank will manage and lead a large and diverse team responsible for managing more than $150 billion in assets, according to the World Bank in a statement on its official website.
Oteh whose appointment is effective on September 28, 2015 has as her top priorities to maintain the World Bank’s global reputation as a prudent and innovative borrower, investor and risk manager, manage an extensive client advisory, transaction and asset management business for the Bank, 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.
Other priorities are collaborating extensively with the Finance Partners throughout the World Bank Group, including with IFC and MIGA, expanding shared approaches, in particular around innovative financing for development and for key new projects.
“Arunma has deep knowledge of capital markets and tremendous experience as the former Treasurer of one of our partner development banks,” said Jim Yong Kim. “We are very fortunate to be able to recruit an individual of Arunma’s obvious caliber.”
The World Bank says Oteh, a Nigerian national, was most recently the DG of SEC Nigeria. Appointed to a five-year term by the president of Nigeria in 2010, she led the transformation of the country’s capital markets industry into a major global presence. She was a member of the board of the International Organisation of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) and the chairperson of the Africa Middle East Regional Committee of IOSCO.
According to the global bank, prior to joining Nigeria’s SEC, she was group vice president, Corporate Services, at the African Development Bank Group (AfDB). “In this role she oversaw a number of departments, including human resources, information and communications technology, and institutional procurement,” the World Bank affirmed.
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.
