Abimbola Agbejule, Head, Corporate Sustainability & Responsibility, Wema Bank Plc

Abimbola Agbejule is the pioneer Head, Corporate Sustainability and Responsibility, Wema bank. She has been instrumental in driving the sustainability agenda for the bank with a focus on developing and implementing solutions that will effectively impact society, environment, and business. Abimbola led the design of policies, processes, operational activities, objective setting, integration and entrenchment of sustainability and ESG considerations into the Wema bank corporate philosophy. She also developed and championed the implementation of the framework for effective monitoring, evaluation and reporting of key metrics on the impact of the bank’s sustainability initiatives.

She has been at the forefront in driving inclusive socio-economic initiatives with focus on making an impact on youth and women. She has also led several women empowerment initiatives which include capacity building, skill acquisition, mentorship, and financial inclusion/literacy.

In 2023, Abimbola directly led the bank’s sustainable finance drive and commitment to the systemic reduction of financed emissions through reduced lending to high climate risk sectors and promoting investment in more sustainable segments of the economy such as renewable energy, waste management, gender finance, smart agriculture amongst others.

She leads the bank’s capacity building and knowledge sharing sessions on promoting sustainability awareness across internal processes and operations as well as services rendered. This is exemplified by the annual ‘Vendors’ Environmental & Social Forum’ and other initiatives targeted at promoting sustainable impact across the bank’s operations and customer segments.

Agbejule also led the conversation for Wema bank’s sustainability impact at the 2023 COP-28 in Dubai across panel sessions organised by multilateral development banks and other international organisations in line with the bank’s aspiration to be a leader in sustainable finance, strengthen climate resilience and most importantly, source for sustainable funding in order to provide sustainable finance facilities to stakeholders at affordable rates.

Abimbola Agbejule has displayed excellent proficiency in converting challenges into opportunities and this is reflected in her giant strides to promote sustainability at Wema bank. She was central to the development and launch of ALAT – Africa’s first digital banking platform. She led the ALAT development team in her capacity as the then Head of Commercial, in providing an unprecedented innovative solution.

She championed Wema bank’s donation of ₦100million to the private sector Coalition Against COVID-19 (CACOVID) relief funds targeted at reducing the negative impact of the pandemic on Nigerians.

Abimbola recently won the ‘Sustainable Finance Professional of the Year, Africa’ by: The Digital Banker.