Wole Olajide
Abubakar Suleiman is a smart and intelligent management professional currently serving as the Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of Sterling Bank Plc.
With two decades of banking experience spanning tax advisory, business audit and financial services, Abubakar remains focused with a philosophy of excellent service delivery. He holds a B.Sc. in Economics from the University of Abuja and M.Sc. in Major Programmes Management from the University of Oxford. He is also an alumnus of Wharton School and INSEAD Business School in addition to executive education from Harvard and Said Business School.
Mr. Suleiman started his banking career as a Management Associate in MBC International Bank in 1998. In 2000, he moved to Citibank Nigeria where he worked in roles covering Treasury and Asset & Liability Management. He served as Treasurer in Sterling Bank and was the Integration Director for the merger with Equitorial Trust Bank. He attained the role of Executive Director, Finance and Strategy with responsibility for Finance & Performance Management, Strategy & Communications and Human Resource Management. In addition to these responsibilities, Mr. Suleiman briefly assumed the additional role of the Executive Director in charge of the Commercial & Institutional Banking Directorate, before his appointment as Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer.
Sterling Bank, the ‘one-customer bank’ is a full service national commercial bank in Nigeria.
In over 50 years of operations, Sterling Bank, formerly NAL Bank has evolved from the nation’s pre-eminent investment banking institution to a fully-fledged commercial bank; and completed a merger with 4 other banks – Indo-Nigeria Merchant Bank, Magnum Trust Bank, NBM Bank and Trust Bank of Africa – as part of the 2006 consolidation of the Nigerian banking industry.
In 1960, the bank commenced operations as NAL Bank, the nation’s pre-eminent investment banking institution. Following the Indigenization Decree of 1972, we became a government owned institution.
Between 1972 – 1992, Sterling Bank was managed in partnership with Grind lays Bank Limited, Continental International Finance Company Illinois and American Express Bank Limited.
In 1992, the Bank was partly privatized and listed as a public company on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE). In 2000, the government sold its residual interest in the bank effectively making it a fully privatized institution.
In January 2006, NAL Bank completed a merger with four other Nigerian Banks namely; Magnum Trust Bank, NBM, Trust Bank of Africa and Indo-Nigeria Merchant Bank (INMB). The merged entities have successfully integrated and are operating as a consolidated group with the name Sterling Bank.
In 2011, Sterling Bank assimilated the entire business interest of the defunct Equatorial Trust Bank (ETB). This effectively enhanced its position in the hierarchy of respectable players in the Nigerian banking industry on all key parameters.
With the vision to be the financial institution of choice, Sterling Bank deliver solutions that enhance stakeholders’ value.