The Senate has on Thursday considered former deputy governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Tunde Lemo’s appointment 9 month after President Muhammadu Buhari announced his appointment as chairman of the Federal Emergency Road Maintenance Agency (FERMA).
Tunde Lemo is a fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountant of Nigeria (ICAN) as well as fellow of the Chartered Institute of Bankers (CIB) with significant leadership and top management experience in both the public and private sectors spanning over 26 years. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Accountancy (first class division) from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka in 1984 where he won seven academic laurels, including the Best overall graduating student in his Faculty.
In 1985, Lemo started his career in Arthur Andersen & Co Chartered Accountants and over the years, he held various other positions in Finance and Control as well as providing significant leadership and top management training both in the public and private sectors.
He attended Advanced Management Programme (AMP) at the Wharton College, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, U.S.A in 2002 as well as executive training programmes in world class institutions including Harvard University, INSEAD, Fontainbleau, France, Brandies University, Boston, etc. He served as Deputy Governor in charge of Operations, Central Bank of Nigeria, where he drove the industry-wide shared services initiative towards achieving efficient banking services with 30% cost savings for the Nigerian banking industry and greater penetration of banking services.
He equally provided strategic direction and supervises five departments of the CBN including Reserve Management, Banking and Payments System, Currency Operations, Branch Operations and Information Technology departments. Prior to this, he was Deputy Governor, Financial Systems Surveillance.
He is an experienced and versatile public officer and financial manager. His contributions to public policy include the implementation of the Banking Sector Consolidation, formulation and implementation of the Microfinance Policy and Supervisory Framework both under the supervision of the Governor.
He also led the restructuring of Abuja Security and Commodities Exchange and Nigeria Export Import Bank (NEXIM), as the Chairman of both institutions. As Vice Chairman Technical Committee for the establishment of Africa Finance Corporation (AFC), he participated actively in the establishment of the Pan-African investment institution where he served as a Director.
Prior to his appointment as Deputy Governor, he had led the transformation of Wema Bank Plc as MD/CEO between 2000 and 2003 resulting in the bank’s superlative performance which made it rank as one of the top ten most profitable commercial banks in Nigeria in 2003.
His major strengths are his passion for excellence, ability to transform challenges into opportunities, integrity and exceptional people-management and problem solving skills.
This is complemented with strong inter-personal and negotiation skills as well as sound analytical and financial management capabilities. He leverages his diverse exposure and works effectively with people of different background in the private and public sectors.
He is excited by the opportunities to formulate policies that will raise people’s standard of living and regularly render volunteered and community development services through Tunde Lemo Foundation.
He was awarded with the prestigious National honour of the Officer of the Federal Republic (OFR) in November, 2011.