How Nigeria’s LNG project led Billionaire Bayo Ogunlesi from Law to Banking

Nigerian-born investment banker and Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP) founder Bayo Ogunlesi has explained how an unexpected assignment linked to Nigeria led him to leave a legal career at Cravath, Swaine & Moore for investment banking.

Ogunlesi shared the story during a virtual EnterpriseNGR meeting with AIG Imoukhuede, where he reflected on his career and the decisions that eventually led him to spend 23 years in investment banking.

Ogunlesi said his initial career was in law, having worked at the prominent US law firm Cravath.

However, he later decided to pursue an MBA because he expected to work with corporate executives and wanted to understand their world.

Bayo Ogunlesi explains banking switch

“If I am going to have corporate people as my clients, I might as well go and study with them,” Ogunlesi said, explaining his decision to attend business school.

He joked that he had an additional motivation: if he performed better than his future clients at business school, he could tell them he had done better than them in the programme.

Ogunlesi said his transition into banking ultimately came through Nigeria.

While working at Cravath, he received a call from Hakeem Belo-Osagie, whom he had known from their time at Oxford.

• “I was working at Cravath one day when I got a call from Hakeem Belo-Osagie. We had been at Oxford together, and he had gone back to Nigeria. He was then the Assistant Minister of Petroleum.
• ”The Nigerian government was looking for advisers for the LNG project, Bonny LNG. So I said, why don’t you go talk to all these investment banks?
• ”CSFB got hired, and they discovered that Cravath had this Nigerian friend who was a lawyer and a friend of their client. So they called Cravath and said, ‘Can Bayo come to work on this assignment? I said, alright, I’ll do it for a few months.
• ”When I got there, they discovered I had an MBA and could read financial statements. Then they said, ‘Wouldn’t you rather be a banker than a lawyer?’

He said the difference between the two careers was made particularly clear to him during meetings. The lawyers would return to their offices after meetings to draft documents, while the bankers would continue engaging with clients, including taking them out to dinner.

• “So they ask, what would you rather do, draft documents or take clients to dinner?” Ogunlesi said, “I prefer to take clients to dinner.”

That decision led him to join Credit Suisse First Boston, where he initially expected to remain for only a few years. Instead, he spent 23 years in investment banking.

Bayo Ogunlesi’s Blackrock acquisition and OpenAI board appointment

In January 2025, Nairametrics reported that Ogunlesi had joined the OpenAI Board of Directors, bringing his experience in corporate finance, infrastructure investment and global markets to the board.

• At the time, Ogunlesi was a Senior Managing Director at BlackRock and the Chairman and CEO of Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP), the infrastructure investment firm he founded.
• His appointment followed BlackRock’s acquisition of GIP in a deal valued at $12.5 billion, announced in January 2024. The transaction involved $3 billion in cash and approximately 12 million BlackRock shares.

GIP managed about $100 billion in assets at the time of the deal, with companies in its equity portfolio generating a combined annual revenue of about $80 billion. Its portfolio included Gatwick Airport, London City Airport, Port of Brisbane, Port of Melbourne, Sydney Airport and Ruby Pipeline in the US.

Ogunlesi eyes Nigeria infrastructure opportunities

Ogunlesi has maintained an interest in investment opportunities in Nigeria, particularly in infrastructure and sectors including aviation and energy.

• In October 2025, Nairametrics reported that Ogunlesi had hinted at potential investments in Nigeria’s ports and aviation sectors after a meeting with President Bola Tinubu in Abuja.
• At the time, he said his group was exploring additional investment opportunities in the country but declined to disclose details.
• Ogunlesi also identified energy, aviation and infrastructure as sectors with potential in Nigeria, pointing to the country’s gas resources and his group’s experience in aviation.

He also referenced GIP’s acquisition of Gatwick Airport in the UK, saying aviation remained an area of interest for the group.