Meet Olawale Edun, Nigeria’s new Presidential Adviser on Monetary Policies

In the last couple of weeks since the inauguration of President Tinubu, a lot of names have been in the news. From the names of new appointees to suspended public office holders, and even the newly inaugurated Legislature at both federal and state levels, there are a lot of names to track.

Of particular interest to us is the appointment of Chief Adebayo Olawale Edun as the Presidential Adviser on Monetary Policies. If anyone was ever in doubt about the impact of monetary policies, the January to March 2023 experience with the cashless policy must have cleared that doubt.

So, let’s meet the man who will now be advising the president on issues such as this.

Wale Edun’s background

Known popularly as Wale Edun, his pedigree dates back more than four decades. He has career experience that spans merchant banking, corporate finance, economics and international finance at national and international levels. He is an economist, with both first and Master’s Degrees in Economics, from the University of London and the University of Sussex, England.

Edun worked at Chase Merchant Bank as the Head of Treasury and then as Deputy Head of Corporate Finance. These positions put him in charge of the bank’s Treasury and Money Market activities. He was responsible for the Capital Market and Financial Advisory operations and had to represent several local subsidiaries and affiliates of major multinational companies.

While still at Chase Merchant Bank, he was seconded to the Wall Street firms of Lehman Brothers and Chase Manhattan Capital Markets Corporation in New York, USA. By 1980, Edun was sent down to work at Chase Merchant Bank (later Continental) in Lagos, Nigeria and he worked there till 1986.

In September 1986, Wale Edun joined the World Bank/IFC in Washington DC, USA through the elite Young Professionals program in September 1986, allowing him to further broaden his international experience. He worked on economic and financial packages for some countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, including the Dominican Republic and Trinidad as well as Indonesia and India in the Far East.

Three years later, in 1989, he returned to Nigeria as Co-Founder and Executive Director of Investment Banking & Trust Company Limited (now Stanbic IBTC Plc).

Entrepreneurship called, and Edun answered

In 1994, Wale Edun decided to apply his decades of experience differently and he founded Denham Management Limited. Edun has served as Chairman of Chapel Hill Denham Group since March 2008. Chapel Hill Denham is a prominent independent investment banking, securities trading, and investment management firm.

The group is focused on providing unbiased advisory, execution, and investment services to corporations, governments, institutions, and individuals involved in investing in and developing Nigeria and Africa.

Chapel Hill Denham Group has also been actively targeting sectors such as Infrastructure, Energy and Renewables, Real Estate, SMEs, Digital and Financial Inclusion, Healthcare, and Education, among others. The firm has received significant recognitions and awards, including Africa’s Best Bank for Advisory in the Euromoney Awards 2016 – 2019.

Wale Edun also sits on the Board of several other companies.

Other interests

Wale Edun is Chairman, of the Board of Trustees, Ogoni Trust Fund for the environmental Clean-up of Ogoniland in the Niger Delta of Nigeria. He is also an International Trustee of the Duke of Edinburgh’s International Award Foundation and Chairman of Lagos Boxing Hall of Fame, a registered non-profit youth development organization that runs amateur boxing in Lagos in conjunction with the Lagos Amateur Boxing Association.

Wale Edun has also been involved in several acts of Philanthropy, He is the Chairman of Livewell Initiative, a health sector Non-Governmental Organization(NGO), as well as a Trustee of Sisters Unite for Children, another NGO focused on helping underprivileged children.

Public Service Career

In 1999, the then Lagos State Governor, Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu (who is now President of Nigeria) appointed Wale Edun as Honourable Commissioner for Finance in Lagos State. He held this office for a total of eight years.

Before his appointment as Commissioner for Finance in Lagos, the state had not filed any financial report from 1997-1999 or even any record of income and expenditure, but Edun changed this. Also, with a population of 10 million residents at the time, Lagos state had internal revenue that revolved around N1.2bn monthly. With Edun on the team, the administration ramped up the internal revenue by up to 469 per cent, to N6.9 billion monthly, thus reviving the dwindling economy.

In October 2015, Wale Edun was named one of the Ministerial nominees to be screened by the National Assembly under the President Buhari-led administration, but it would seem that nothing came out of that nomination.

On March 28, 2023, Boss Mustapha, the then Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) and Chairman of the Presidential Transition Council (PTC) announced Wale Edun as a member of the Presidential Transition Council (PTC).

Just some days ago, he was announced as one of the new Special Advisers to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. He will now serve as Presidential Adviser on Monetary Policies. Nigeria has recorded the fifth consecutive rise in the inflation rate this year, and all eyes will be on the Economic team and the new Adviser to see what will change.