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Access Corporation has appointed its most senior director to head the bank after Wigwe’s demise.
Access Corporation, the parent company of Access Bank, Nigeria’s biggest bank by assets, has appointed the most senior executive director, Bolaji Agbede, to head the company two days after the death of Herbert Wigwe, the company’s founding Group CEO. Agbede will hold the position of Acting Group Chief Executive Officer (GCEO), according to a statement signed by the bank, joining the league of women banking CEOs in Nigeria.
Wigwe had died along with his wife, son, and three other passengers, including Abimbola Ogunbanjo, the former chairman of the Nigerian Exchange Group (NGX), aboard a helicopter identified as a Eurocopter EC130 by the US Federal Aviation Administration on Sunday bound for Las Vegas. Share prices of Access Holdings tumbled by 6.26% on Monday in the Nigerian stock market. Lots of trading activities were observed around Access stocks as 24.90 million units of ACCESSCORP were sold yesterday—making it the highest traded stock this week.
“The appointment of Agbede is in alignment with our robust succession planning practices,” said Abubakar Jimoh, chairman of Access Holdings in a statement published on the NGX. “We are strongly convinced that Agbede, being the company’s most senior executive, would provide the much-needed leadership to steer the company towards the attainment of its strategic vision,” he added.
Agbede’s appointment as acting GCEO is subject to regulatory approvals by the Central Bank of Nigeria and comes as a fulfilment of the Access board’s promise to appoint a successor to build on the bank’s legacy of growth and operational excellence.
Agbede holds a bachelor’s degree in Mathematics and Statistics from the University of Lagos (1990) and subsequently obtained a Master of Business Administration degree from Cranfield University in 2002. She is also a member of the Chartered Institute of Management UK and the Chartered Institute of Personnel Management of Nigeria.
Before this appointment, Agbede spent two years serving as the bank’s most senior founding Executive Director in Business Support. She has spent 21 years at Access Bank, having first joined as the Assistant General Manager, responsible for managing the bank’s portfolio of chemical trading companies. Agbede is a versatile professional with over 27 years of experience in Human Resources management, customer relationship management, and banking operations. She has a proven record of successful people integration during mergers and acquisitions, culture transformation and execution of corporate strategies. She had formerly served as the bank’s head of Group Human Resources for 12 years between 2010 and 2022.