Benedict O.

Background

About Benedict O.

I am an entrepreneurial and innovative executive with a broad background in financial services, consulting and academia. I founded AfriFinance to provide Chief Innovation Office services to banks, and to take ideas rapidly from discovery to launch.Since starting AfriFinance, I have successfully collaborated with U.S. and African financial institutions to develop new businesses and/or products and there are now 35+ issued U.S. patents in which I am principal inventor and co-inventor with American Express. We also have dozens more patents pending. At a national level, the Central Bank of Nigeria selected me as its trusted adviser on a high-profile project to create the financial sector blueprint for transforming Nigeria into 1 of the world's 20 largest economies. The blueprint covered capital, mortgage, and credit markets, SME finance, payment systems, ICT infrastructure, human capital, legal and regulatory reforms, and other areas. I played a very central and key role on the project, the Nigerian presidency approved the blueprint, it is being implemented, and Nigeria has moved up several places on the GDP league tables and overtaken South Africa to become Africa’s largest economy.My experience ranges from presenting concepts and business cases at CEO and board levels, to on-the-ground research, product and business development, leading teams, negotiating JVs, and hiring and managing service providers. I am adept at framing and presenting ambiguous, unstructured information in a concise manner; proven at thinking strategically and implementing tactically; superb at managing clients and stakeholders; and adroit at working across cultures, organizational levels, and functions. I tremendously enjoy mentoring, and international work and travel.I hold faculty appointments at Columbia University and NYU, and started my banking career at JPMorgan and Merrill. Before B-school, I headed the IT dept for a major NYC firm and developed software that got excellent reviews.