Godwin EMEFIELE (CON)
Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN)
Godwin Emefiele is the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). Prior to his joining the CBN, he spent over 26 years in commercial banking culminating in his tenure as Group Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Zenith Bank PLC, one of Nigeria’s largest banks with over 7,000 staff, about US$3.2 billion in shareholders’ funds, and subsidiaries in Ghana, Sierra Leone, Gambia, South Africa, China, and the United Kingdom.
Under Emefiele’s leadership, Zenith Bank had strengthened its position as a leading financial institution in Africa, winning recognition and endorsement at home and abroad for giant strides in key performance areas like corporate governance, service delivery and deployment of cutting-edge ICT.
Before his banking career, he was a lecturer in Finance and Insurance in two Nigerian Universities. Mr. Emefiele holds degrees in Banking and Finance from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, and is also an alumnus of Stanford University, Harvard and Wharton Graduate Schools of Business where he took courses in Negotiation, Service Excellence, Critical Thinking, Leading Change and Strategy.