The Board of Directors of Seplat Petroleum Development Company Plc has announced the appointment of Ms. Arunma Oteh and Mr. Xavier Rolet as Independent Non-Executive Directors of the company, joining from October 1, 2020.
Oteh is a seasoned C-suite executive with several years of experience operating at the highest levels at major multilateral agencies, global financial institutions and in government. She has been an academic scholar at University of Oxford since January 2019 and a member of the London Stock Exchange Africa Advisory Group since January 2020.
Having served as Treasurer and Vice President of the World Bank from 2015 to 2018, she led a global team that managed the World Bank’s $200bn debt portfolio as well as an asset portfolio of $200bn for the World Bank Group and several public sector clients, including 65 central banks.
She was responsible for a $600bn derivatives portfolio used for hedging and risk management purposes. She also had oversight over a treasury operation with an annual cash flow of $7tn and led an extensive public sector financial advisory business, pioneering a number of innovative solutions such as the world’s first ever pandemic bond in 2017 and blockchain public bond in 2018.
Oteh was the Director General of the Securities and Exchange Commission Nigeria from 2010 to 2015. responsible for the regulation of Nigeria’s capital markets, including the Nigerian Stock Exchange and led the rebuilding of the capital markets after the global financial crisis.
She also served on Nigeria’s Economic Management team, chaired by the president. Prior to SEC Nigeria, she worked at the African Development Bank for 17 years in a variety of roles including Group Vice President, Corporate Services (2006 to 2009) and Group Treasurer (2001 to 2006).
Rolet is an experienced entrepreneur. Named as one of the 100 Best CEOs in the World in the 2017 Harvard Business Review, he has demonstrated a history of successful turn-arounds in the global financial services industry.
In his decade at the helm of the London Stock Exchange, the LSE’s market valuation rose from £800m to more than £15bn, transforming it into one of the world’s largest exchanges by market capitalisation.
He is currently the Chairman, Board of Directors at Phosagro PJSC, a member of the Board of Directors of the Saudi Stock Exchange, Tadawul, as an appointee of the Public Investment Fund, and an expert adviser to the Shanghai Institute of Finance for the Real Economy.
He has held various senior positions in the financial services industry throughout his career: CEO of CQS, a global hedge fund; CEO of Banque Lehman Brothers in Paris; co-head of Global Equity and Derivatives Trading at Lehman Brothers New York; Global Head of Risk and Trading at Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein; Vice President, International Equity Risk Arbitrage at Goldman Sachs New York, among others.
