Kolawole becomes Unity Bank's acting CEO as Somefun retires

The Board of Unity Bank PLC has announced the appointment of Ebenezer Kolawole (FCA) as the acting managing director/chief executive officer following the retirement of Oluwatomi Somefun who has completed her tenure as MD/CEO.

The appointment was announced at the Bank’s 18th Annual General Meeting (AGM), held in Lagos on Wednesday, after securing necessary approval from its primary regulator, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

Kolawole is a seasoned and consummate Banker with over three decades of industry experience. He began his financial services career at Caribbean Finance Limited (an affiliate of CFL in Cayman Island) in Kaduna in 1992. He later joined Ecobank where he worked in various departments of the Bank, both Operations and Finance suites and rose to the position of Deputy Financial Controller.

He moved to Standard Trust Bank (STB) and worked at various strategic areas including Operations, Regulatory Risk Management and Finance suites and played a pivotal role in the STB/UBA merger. Post-merger, he served as Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of the United Bank for Africa.

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He moved to Mainstreet Bank as the Bank’s Group Chief Finance Officer (GCFO) and actively drove the turnaround and transformation initiatives of the Bank. He had a brief stint at Globacom, a foremost and Nigeria’s leading Indigenous Telecommunication giant, where he served in various capacities for corporate business development.

Kolawole joined Unity Bank PLC as Chief Financial Officer (CFO) in 2015. He was later, in February 2018, appointed the Executive Director to oversee Finance, Operations and Information Technology, where he played a key role in the Bank’s strategic transformation and cost optimisation initiatives which enhanced the Bank’s performance and market feasibility.

In line with the Bank’s succession and business continuity plans, Kolawole is saddled with the primary responsibility of finalising the Bank’s ongoing corporate programmes and other strategic business initiatives of the institution.

Kolawole holds a First-Class (Hons) Degree in Accounting from Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife. He has participated in several management/executive education programmes at Columbia Business School, New York, USA and The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA.

Kolawole is a member of several professional bodies including a Fellow of The Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (FCA); a Fellow of the Institute of Credit Administration, (FICA), an Honorary member of the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria (HCIB), Associate Member of The Nigeria Institute of Management (AMNIM); and member of the Institute of Directors.

Hope Moses-Ashike

Hope Moses-Ashike is an Associate Editor, Banking and Finance, with more than a decade of experience reporting on Nigeria’s financial system and broader economy. She closely tracks market movements, monetary policy decisions, company disclosures, regulatory actions, economic indicators, and global developments, and interprets what they mean for businesses, investors, policymakers, and households. Her reporting helps readers understand complex issues such as inflation trends, foreign exchange market dynamics, interest rate decisions, bank performance, and investment risks. She also covers major international events and periodically travels to Washington, D.C., to report on the World Bank/IMF Spring and Annual Meetings. Her dedication to financial journalism has earned her multiple recognitions and invitations to high-level professional development programmes. She is an alumna of the International Visitors Leadership Programme (IVLP) in the United States and holds an Advanced Financial Journalism Certificate from the Press Association Training in London, UK. Her other notable achievements include completing the Lagos Business School CMC Programme, the Bloomberg Media Africa Initiative Programme, and a Master Class in Journalism at Rhodes University in South Africa.