Bukola Smith is a graduate of Economics from the University of Lagos, she has an MBA from the Manchester Business School UK and is a fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria. She has attended several courses both local and international, including Insead Business School, France. Bukola is also a certified member of the Chartered Institute of Pensions.
Her banking career spans over 27years working in different aspects of banking. Earlier in her career, she worked in trade services and banking operations before moving to treasury where she built most of her middle to senior management experience. At Fidelity bank, she was Treasurer for years and was later made Regional Head of Lagos Island Branches, Private Banking and Financial Institutions.
Bukola moved to First City Monument Bank (FCMB) Ltd. in November 2006 as the Group Head, Treasury and Financial Markets. Up until August 2011, she was the Senior Vice President (General Manager), Divisional Head in charge of Investment Banking and Financial Markets. Her job function included supervision of Treasury, Financial Markets, Structured Finance and two of the Bank’s flagship subsidiaries-FCMB Capital Markets and CSL Registrars. She also set up and ran the Group’s Project and Structured Finance business till June 2012.
She was Divisional Head of Group Internal Audit between June 2012 and June 2015; overseeing the audit of all branches and head office units, investigation of all fraud incidents and I.T audit, ensuring our systems are impenetrable.
Bukola became the Regional Director, Lagos in July 2015 and functioned in this capacity till April 2017. She supervised the Eight Zones in Lagos Region, Public Sector and Private Banking Groups. She provided adequate marketing support to all business units, strategic business leadership geared towards development of team members and ensured profitability of the Region.
She was the Executive Director, Business Development, where she oversees the branches of the Bank across the country, Transaction Banking Services, Agric. Business Banking Group and Public Sector Segments with full responsibility for the financial budgets of the respective businesses. In addition, she sits on the board of CSL Stockbrokers and FCMB Trustee Limited.
In the last two years she has been actively involved in projecting women in business and was instrumental to setting up FCMB’s proposition for Women owned/ managed business branded ‘SheVentures’. SheVentures, in the last one year has impacted over 2,000 female owned businesses.
Bukola serves as a mentor at Women in Successful Careers (WISCAR) from inception in 2008 till date. As a way of giving back to the society, she mentors with the I.N.V.E.N.T Leadership Summit and Mentorship Programme 3.0; where she speaks with pupils from various public secondary schools giving them the insight they need to make the right choices with respect to their course choices and career paths.
Her hobbies include swimming and walking.
The foundation of WISCAR was inspired by a keenly felt societal need. During her long professional and corporate career, the Founder; Mrs. Amina Oyagbola, constantly recognized a gaping need for an institutional framework that would provide to professional women inspiration, motivation, guidance, and support to help them better navigate their different career pathways.
