Diamond Bank Appoints Dele Babade as Acting Chairman

By Dipo Olowookere

Following the resignation of Mr Oluseyi Bickersteth as Director/Chairman of the board of directors of Diamond Bank Plc, Mr Dele Babade has been asked to take over the role in an acting capacity.

A statement issued by the financial institution disclosed that the appointment of Mr Babade was effective December 24, 2018.

He was nominated by First Carlyle Growth V and his appointment as a Non-Executive Director was approved by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) effective April 20, 2017. 

Mr Babade holds Bachelors and Master’s degrees in Laws from University of London and was called to both the Nigerian and English Bar.

He started his career with Midland Montagu London (the predecessor of HSBC Investment Bank) on the Graduate Training Programme in 1988 and at various times worked in the UK and Greece mainly in Corporate and Merchant Banking.

He joined Citibank in 1993 and garnered experience from Citibank’s Emerging Markets business focusing on businesses beyond Africa and became Vice President in charge of all cross border/international deals for Africa in 1996.

In 1998, he joined Nomura International in London as a Director for Investment Banking for Africa and after re-joining Citibank in 2000, he was moved to Nigeria and Ivory Coast in 2001 as Executive Director covering Nigeria and West Africa and was a board member of Citibank Nigeria from 2001 to 2006. He also served as Citibank’s Director & Regional Head Sub-Sahara Africa Corporate Finance & Investment Banking based in South Africa from 2002 to 2006.

He started his own investment advisory firm in 2007 but left briefly to join Ecobank Transnational Inc as Head of Ecobank Capital from 2010 to 2012 and was also a member of the Group Executive Committee, the top executive body for overall direction of the Ecobank Group.

Since 2012, he has been running his firm focusing on inward cross border transactions across the African continent.

He currently serves as Chairman of the Africa Risk Capacity Pan African Insurance Company (ARC Ltd) and is also the Chairman of its Finance and Investment Committee.    ARC Ltd is a financial affiliate of the African Risk Capacity, a specialized agency of the African Union (AU), an initiative designed to improve current responses to climate-related food security emergencies.