AfDB appoints Akin-Olugbade as vice president

The African Development Bank (AfDB) has appointed Marie-Laure Akin-Olugbade, a Cameroonian national, as the vice president in charge of the Regional Development, Integration and Business Delivery complex. The appointment is effective from the 1st of April 2023.

Akin-Olugbade is a seasoned senior executive with close to 31 years of experience delivering technical, managerial and strategic knowledge and leadership in capital markets, treasury, asset management and product development at the AfDB.

Before her appointment, she was Acting Vice President and Director General of the Bank’s Business Development and Delivery Office for the West Africa Region.

Akin-Olugbade led the development and implementation of transformative strategies, programmes and transactions, positioning the AfDB as the ‘Solutions Bank’. Working with the largest team of country managers in the institution, she was engaged in the full complexity of its lending and non-lending operations in middle-income and low-income countries, a statement by the bank said.

She oversaw the accelerated delivery of results on the $9 billion West Africa portfolio, engaging with governments, the private sector, regional economic communities, and non-state actors, to achieve significant and life-transforming development impact.

The new Vice President joined AfDB in the trading room of its Treasury Department in 1991 as a finance assistant, where she worked until 1993 when she became an investment officer. She served in that role from 1993 to 1997, managing the bank’s assets in international capital markets.

Subsequently, she became a principal financial analyst in the Financial Technical Services Division, where she was responsible for clients’ financial solutions across the continent.

Akin-Olugbade was appointed Manager of the Bank’s Financial Technical Services Division in 2008 and held that position through 2010. In that role, she oversaw new product development, client financial solutions and risk management services. She also led the team that authored the African Fixed Income and Derivatives Guidebook published in 2010.

She is a graduate of the Université Paris-Dauphine in France, where she obtained a master’s degree in applied economics. She also holds a postgraduate diploma in management from the Université Panthéon- Sorbonne.