Ojone UMORU
Ojone Umoru is a lawyer called to the Nigerian Bar Association in 1999. She is a 1997 law graduate of the University of Abuja. She is also an Associate member of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators, UK.
She possesses nineteen (19) years’ experience in capital market regulation. She currently has the honor of serving in two capacities i.e. as special assistant to the Acting executive commissioner (Operations), and head of the legal division of the Securities and Investment Services Department of the Nigeria Securities and Exchange Commission (the Commission). Before the current role, she headed the legal Division of the Investment Management Department for eight (8) years, in the course of which she initiated, drafted Rules and/or supervised the implementation of the following:
- Custodian Services for Mutual Funds
- Introduction of exchange traded Funds
- Introduction of alternative/specialized Funds e.g. Private Equity and Infrastructure Funds
- Investment in unlisted equities by mutual funds (Rules)
- Activities of foreign collective investment schemes in Nigeria
- Revised Rules/Regulation on Real Estate Investment Funds
- The Collective Investment Schemes Roadmap for the industry.
Most notably, she was part of the team that drove the development of the mutual fund industry in Nigeria to its present state.
Ojone Umoru has also served the Commission and the market generally in various capacities over the years, these include: as secretary to the market-wide Committee on Investment Management –a sub-committee of the Capital Market Committee (CMC) (2010 -2013); as a member of the secretariat of the sub-committee which prepared the Capital Market Literacy Master Plan (a section of the Nigerian, Ten Years Capital Market Master Plan (2015 -2025), (2014) ; a project team member on the implementation of the Ten Years Capital Market Master Plan and secretariat of the Capital Market Master Plan Implementation Council, (2015-2018); member of the Commission’s Rules Committee (a committee of the Board), (2015 to date).
In the course of her career, she has garnered diverse experience in regulation as she had served in various Departments of the Commission, including: Enforcement Department; Investigation Department; Secretariat and Legal Advisory Department (as it was then called), and the Commission’s Lagos Zonal Office.
Ms. Umoru has attended many foreign and local courses on capital markets, private equity, leadership, investigation, corporate governance – to mention but a few. Some of these include at: the Nigerian Capital Market Institute; the Institute of Public-Private Partnership (US); the SAID Business school (Oxford) – of which she is an alumnus.