Published: October 3, 2009
Pan-African banking group Ecobank Transnational has named Kolapo Lawson as its new chairman. The decision was made at the 135th meeting of the board, held in Lome, Togo, at the end of September.
Lawson is the group’s seventh chairman, and succeeds the late Mande Sidibe, who passed away in August. He has been a non-executive member of the Ecobank board since 1993.
Lawson is chairman and CEO of Lawsons Corporation, a diversified industrial and trading group with operations in West Africa and the UK. He is also the chairman of Acorn Petroleum and Agbara Estates, as well as a non-executive director of three publicly quoted companies: Beta Glass, Pharma-Deko and Sovereign Trust Insurance. He was a director of Ecobank Nigeria from 1989 to 1997 and of Ecobank Togo from 1990 to 1993.
In his new capacity, Lawson takes over the chairmanship of the group. Ecobank has a larger footprint across sub-Saharan Africa than any other bank in the world, with operations in 28 African countries and a 29th subsidiary in France.
The Ecobank board also named Christian Adovelande, the chairman and CEO of the Ecowas Bank for Investment and Development, as first vice-chairman. Adovelande has been a non-executive member of the Ecobank board since 2002. Andre Siaka, a non-executive director since 2006, was named second vice-chairman. Siaka is chairman and CEO of Castel Breweries in Cameroon and a former chairman of the Employers Association of Cameroon.