Not many can beat her professional pedigree. Nneka Onyeali-Ikpe has served as an Executive Director at two different banks- first at the erstwhile Enterprise Bank (now Heritage Bank) and later, Fidelity Bank Plc.
She is well regarded as a turnaround specialist- with her well acknowledged effort as part of the team that took over the former Enterprise Bank and repositioned the Bank before its acquisition by Heritage Bank.
She also reportedly performed the same feat as the Executive Director responsible for the Lagos and South West Directorate in Fidelity Bank Plc which she joined in 2015.
With over 30 years of banking experience, Mrs Nneka Onyeali-Ikpe has worked in various banks which include Zenith Bank and Standard Chartered Bank among others. A well rounded banker, she has also worked in different units which include the legal department, treasury, investment banking and commercial banking. She is also a board member of Unified Payment Services, a company which provides shared infrastructure and payments service for banks and customers within and outside Nigeria.
Mrs Onyeali-Ikpe is a Law graduate from the University of Nigeria, Nsuka. She also attended the Nigerian Law School and holds a Master of Laws (LLM) from Kings College, London, United Kingdom. She is a Honorary Senior Member of the Chartered Institute of Bankers in Nigeria. She has attended various executive programmes at the Said Business School, University of Oxford, London Business School, University of Chicago, Harvard Business School, Wharton University of Pennsylvania, USA, INSEAD at France, IMD at Lausanne, Switzerland and Lagos Business School among others.
With core competencies in innovation and digital leadership, strategy formulation, business improvement and finance management and deep industry knowledge having held middle, senior and executive management positions in corporate, commercial, retail banking, treasury and legal departments, the financial services sector is witnessing the arrival of a transformational leader in Mrs Onyeali-Ikpe.
Set to assume the mantle of the leadership of Fidelity Bank Plc on January 1, 2021, she is taking over from Mr Nnamdi Okonkwo who assumed leadership of the Bank on January 1, 2014 and whose tenure expires on December 31, 2020.
In an industry where not many women have assumed the leadership of their banks, Fidelity Bank Plc is an outlier and all eyes will be on Mrs Onyeali-Ikpe as she takes over the mantle of leadership on January 1, 2021.
-Taiwo Lukman, a business analyst, lives in Abuja.
