Genesis appoints new Financial Services lead in Nigeria
6 July 2017
Chidinma Lawanson has joined Genesis Analytics as the regional lead consultant in Nigeria for the Financial Services Strategy practice.
Richard Ketley, managing partner of the practice, said Genesis “has been serving clients in Nigeria for almost 20 years and continue to be committed to have representation in the market”.
Lawanson’s appointment means that the firm now has representation in both East and West Africa, as well as its head office in Johannesburg.
Ketley welcomed Lawanson: “Her expertise and knowledge in banking sector and her understanding of the financial inclusion market will be valuable in our team.”
She will be responsible for engagement with financial sector clients in Nigeria and providing expert advice to the team in the area of SME development.
Before her appointment she was CEO of Enhancing Financial Innovation & Access (EFInA), a company funded by the UK government’s Department for International Development (DFID) and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. EFInA strives to ensure that financial inclusion cuts across low-income segments, through research, innovation funding, capacity building and advocacy.
Lawanson’ began her career working for two non-bank financial services institutions in 1991. She later worked for the Diamond Bank Plc. in operations and business development, becoming group head in charge of branches. She also headed the micro, small and medium enterprise (MSME) unit at Diamond Bank. In that role she developed key partnerships with multilateral international agencies (IFC, USAID and Women’s World Banking) in the roll out of retail banking products.
She was appointed in 2012 as Diamond Bank’s head of human capital management, which covered the bank’s operations in Nigeria, Francophone West Africa and the United Kingdom. Thereafter she was appointed the bank’s head of MSME and agency banking, serving entrepreneurs and the under-banked and implementing the bank’s branchless banking strategies via agency banking. She held this role (as a deputy general manager) until December 2015.
In 2008, she earned a Hubert H Humphrey Fellowship and a Fulbright Scholarship in the USA, obtaining a post-graduate diploma in entrepreneurial management from Boston University, Massachusetts. She holds a B.Sc. in chemistry from the University of Calabar, Nigeria, and a post-graduate diploma in computer science from the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ife, Nigeria. She is a senior honorary member of the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria, an alumna of the Lagos Business School and a member of Institute of Directors (IoD) of Nigeria.