The Oxford-trained banker who has headed JPMorgan’s West African business since 2018, Adedapo Adedayo Olagunju, will lead the American financial institution’s planned merchant bank in Nigeria after the Central Bank of Nigeria cleared his nomination as Managing Director.
The apex bank announced the approval in a statement on Friday, October 23, 2026, in which it also gave JPMorgan approval-in-principle to set up JPMorgan Merchant Bank Nigeria Limited.
The proposed bank has not yet been issued a final operating licence.
The CBN also approved Latter Kevin George, Nzelu Chinedum Izunwanne and Syed Gabriel Murtaza as Non-Executive Directors.
Alade Sarah Omotunde, Ajayi Olukonyinsola and Adetu Seni were named Independent Non-Executive Directors.
The appointment is another milestone in a career that started in Nigeria’s investment banking sector, although his earliest ambition had nothing to do with money, as he wanted to explore space.
As a boy, Olagunju was captivated by space travel and hoped to become an astronaut, a goal that first led him to study science in secondary school.
That plan changed when he began looking at university admission options in Nigeria.
In an interview in May 2019, he recalled finding that the brochure of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) listed no course connected to aeronautical engineering, which narrowed his path to his childhood dream.
His parents attached great importance to academic success, and this led him to write the JAMB entrance examination, the forerunner of today’s Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, before finishing secondary school.
Having already passed the private Senior School Certificate Examination (SSCE), he won admission to university before taking his West African Examinations Council (WAEC) papers.
Though he never became an astronaut, his studies eventually drew him to finance, the field in which he built his career.
He graduated in 1998 from Ogun State University, now Olabisi Onabanjo University, with a bachelor’s degree in Banking and Finance.
In 1999, a year after graduating, he qualified as a chartered accountant, adding a professional credential to his degree.
His choice to study accounting was shaped in part by the instability of Nigeria’s university system in the 1990s.
Frequent strikes by lecturers and student protests regularly disrupted academic activities in that period and kept students at home for long stretches.
Instead of letting one such long break stall his progress, Olagunju began preparing for the examinations of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN).
The decision proved a turning point, as he completed the professional qualification soon after graduating and then found an opening in investment banking.
He pursued further studies abroad, attending the University of Oxford in 2005 for a Master of Business Administration (MBA) and completing Harvard Business School’s General Management Programme in 2014.
He is also a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria and an Honorary Senior Member of the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria.
His banking career started at Investment Banking & Trust Company (IBTC), which later became part of Stanbic IBTC, where he was Chief Dealer from January 2000 to March 2003.
He joined IBTC at a time of major economic and political change in Nigeria, following the country’s return to democratic rule in 1999.
After a little over three years at IBTC, he moved to Access Bank in 2003 as Treasurer, a role he held until September 2005.
His work in treasury management gave him deeper exposure to banking liquidity, financial markets and the handling of financial assets and liabilities.
After that first stint at Access Bank, Olagunju spent a short period between May and July 2006 as a consultant with the United Nations, working on the financing of peacekeeping operations in New York.
He returned to Access Bank in September 2006 and served as Group Treasurer for 11 years, until January 2018.
In that role, he took charge of major parts of the bank’s treasury operations, including balance sheet management and dealings in fixed-income securities and foreign exchange markets.
His remit grew in January 2017 when he was made Head of Global Markets, supervising a business group that combined Treasury, Financial Institutions, and Project and Structured Finance.
The role covered several areas of corporate and institutional banking, ranging from managing relationships with other financial institutions to providing structured financing and advisory services to clients.
After almost 15 years with Access Bank, Olagunju changed course in January 2018 and joined JPMorgan as Managing Director in charge of its West African business.
The appointment put him at the head of the American institution’s operations across the region, where he has spent the past eight years managing its engagement with financial institutions, corporate clients and other market participants.
His tenure has coincided with JPMorgan’s push to strengthen its presence in Africa, including its plan to set up a fully licensed merchant banking operation in Nigeria.
Olagunju made those plans public on October 8, 2026, at the Nigeria–Asia Financial Connectivity Dialogue in Singapore, an event that involved the CBN, JPMorgan, Nigerian Exchange Group and FMDQ Group.
The proposed merchant bank would take JPMorgan’s footprint in Nigeria beyond its representative office in Lagos and let it carry out a broader range of regulated banking activities once it obtains a final licence.
With the CBN’s approval of his appointment as Managing Director of the planned subsidiary, Olagunju is placed to lead the next stage of JPMorgan’s expansion in Nigeria, more than 26 years after he began his professional journey at IBTC.
