AFRICA – The African Development Bank (AfDB) has appointed Mrs. Chinelo Anohu, a highly accomplished international corporate lawyer, as head and senior director of the Africa Investment Forum (AIF).
The announcement was made by Dr Akinwumi Adesina, the President of the African Development Bank (AfDB) Group.
Dr. Adesina expressed his delightment in having Mrs Anohu join them as the Head and Senior Director of the Africa Investment Forum.
He added that Mrs Anohu’s “hands-on experience in working with global pension funds and institutional investors, will significantly position and help the AIF to drive its global agenda to attract more investments to Africa”.
According to a press release by the bank, Mrs Anohu appointment took effect as from September 1, 2019.
Prior to her appointment at AIF, Mrs Anohu had previously worked as the Director-General of the National Pension Commission of Nigeria, a position she had held for five years.
During her tenure at the commission, the number of contributors rose from five million to about eight million.
Through her leadership, the commission’s total assets also grew from $19.3 billion to a record $42 billion.
Mrs Anohu, while serving as the Director-General the National Pension Commission of Nigeria, helped created the first ever World Pension Summit Africa which convened global financial experts across the pension industry.
She has also worked with the Nigerian Bureau of Public Enterprises, the implementation agency for the reform and privatisation of state-owned enterprises.
As a consultant assigned by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Mrs Anohu helped to restructure and privatise a number of state owned entities including the Nigerian Telecommunications Limited, Nicon Hilton Hotel and AfriBank.
The AIF was launched by the AfDB in 2018 as a multi-stakeholder transactional platform for leveraging investments from the private sector and other financial African and global financial institutions.
It was able to attract a total of US$39 billion in investment interests for bankable deals in Africa.
The multi-lateral continental lender is set to hold the second edition of the forum on November 2019 in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Mrs Anohu is also a member of the London Stock Exchange Africa Advisory Board.
She graduated in 1996 with a Bachelor of Law from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, and a Master’s degree in Computer and Communications Law from the London School of Economics in 2000.
She has also studied at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, USA and the Insead Business School, France.
