Arunma Oteh is a one-time director general of the Nigerian Stock Exchange Commission (SEC) and was just recently made (in 2017) the Vice President and Treasurer of the World Bank Group making her the second woman to occupy the position after Dr Ngozi Okonjo Iweala.
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Background
Arunma is half British, half Nigerian. She studied Computer Science at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka and graduated with first class honours. She went on to obtain a master’s degree in Business Administration from Harvard Business School.
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Rise to Prominence
Arunma Oteh’s rise to prominence was a definite outcome given how steadfast and hardworking she is. She started out with working with the African Development Bank and stayed at it for 14 years. Her experience with the number of years she had worked for them was a determining factor in her rise to the position of Vice President Corporate Management.
Arunma Oteh work and achievements with the SEC are indeed noteworthy. With her strong enforcement actions and improvement of rules and regulations she was able to attract investors to the commission. Under her tutelage also the market significantly expanded and became more regulated seeing as there was zero level of tolerance for rule violations. Values like transparency were upheld earning her the informal title of a no nonsense iron lady.
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Accolades
Her hard work did not go unnoticed. In 2011 she was made an officer of the Order of the Niger (OON). In 2014 she was named West Africa’s Business Woman of the Year at the All Africa Business Leaders Awards (AABLA). She was also names the Capital Market Personality of the Year at the Africa Investor (AI) Index Series Awards in the same year.
One other notable feat she achieved was how she turned the table on her accusers so much that one of them had to resign. It so happened that in March 2012, Arunma Oteh and the SEC were supposed to be under investigation by the House of Representatives Committee on Capital Market and Other Financial Institutions. Arunma Oteh shocked the world when she turned the table on them and accuse them of demanding a bribe of N44 million from her. The accusation eventually led to the resignation of one Herman Hembe from the committee.
