• Friday, March 29, 2024
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Women In Business – Nneka Osoka

Nneka Osoka

Nneka Osoka (nee Mbonu) is a seasoned and highly skilled professional with a decade-plus of international banking experience across the U.S, U.K and Sub-saharan Africa, covering fixed income trading, liquidity and investment management, corporate and public sector sales, and compliance risk management functions.

She is currently a Manager at Citibank in the Compliance Risk Management department. Citibank Nigeria is the oldest existing international bank in Nigeria with branches spread across the nation. The bank continues to focus on competitively creating value and providing innovative and efficient service delivery to its clients while maintaining a robust risk and control environment.

After graduating with a B.SC. in Psychology from the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, she had a short stint as a Credit Analyst at an American bank called PNC bank. She went on to complete her MBA (with a specialization in Finance and Strategy) at the same university, where she was directly recruited from campus by Citibank into their Management Associate program in New York city.

Her strong analytical skills proved valuable in the program where she was one of the top associates in the training program and also received an award in her first year of the program. During the program, she had the opportunity to rotate within different departments in the bank and also in the London office.

She accumulated considerable experience on the Fixed Income Securities Lending desk; the Securities and Funds Services department where she had the opportunity to be involved in infrastructure lift-outs and acquisitions deals; and in the Liquidity and Investment management services department where she managed short-term cash investments for Fortune 500 companies.

She returned to Nigeria in 2011 and joined the Citibank Nigeria Custody team where she was opportuned to work closely with the Nigerian Stock Exchange and other leading banks on the successful rollout of Securities Lending in the Nigerian Capital markets.

She went on to become Corporate and Public Sector sales manager for Abuja, where she was able to sharpen her relationship management and presentation skills, and gain in-depth knowledge of the Nigerian market and its resilient public sector.

In her current role as a manager, she assumes compliance risk management functions covering not only Sub-saharan Africa, but also the Middle East and North Africa. This has allowed her expand her financial and regulatory knowledge beyond the Nigerian, US and UK markets.

Compliance risk management is the process of managing corporate compliance to meet regulations within a workable timeframe and budget. Not every regulated company manages this particularly well, and some even consider noncompliance fines as a normal cost of doing business.

Nneka is a CFA level 2 candidate, and an affiliate member of the Chartered Financial Analysts Institute and the Chartered Institute of Bankers Nigeria. She is also a Certified AntiMoney Laundering Specialist (CAMS) and an associate member of Women in Management, Business & Public Service (WIMBIZ).

The Certified Anti-money Laundering Specialist (CAMS) certification is the leading standard in AML certifications and recognized internationally by financial institutions, governments & regulators as a professional commitment to protecting the financial system against money laundering.

Women in Management, Business and Public Service (WIMBIZ) is a non-profit organisation that has, over the last 18 years, implemented programs that inspire, empower and advocate for greater representation of women in leadership positions in the public and private sector.

WIMBIZ has a contributory associate pool of over 768 accomplished women in management, business and public service and over 9,500 women in its database. WIMBIZ collaborates with credible domestic and international global organisations to deliver programs, which have influenced over 107,465 women since inception.

Outside of work and family, Nneka is passionate about gender equality and inclusivity, and volunteers as a mental health counsellor at STER – a Nigerian NGO focused on genderbased violence.