The Bank of Industry’s Executive Director, Small and Medium Enterprises (SME), Mr. Waheed Olagunju has been conferred with the Special Recognition Award of the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations (NIPR). The conferment took place at an impressive ceremony tagged: ‘Celebrating Our Stars’, which took place recently in Abuja. In selecting Olagunju for the award, the NIPR stated that as the professional body that is statutorily mandated to regulate corporate communications, reputation management and public affairs practice, it “cannot but celebrate Olagunju’s expertise, commitment, patriotism and wealth of experience garnered over the past 33 years during which he made outstanding contributions that impacted positively on Nigeria’s reputation as well as the country’s economic and social development.” The institute added that it was not only imperative for Nigerians to know and appreciate Olagunju’s hard work, it is also necessary for his untiring efforts to be put in public domain and documented for the records and posterity.
According to the award citation, Mr. Waheed Olagunju joined the Bank of Industry’s precursor institution the Nigerian Industrial Development Bank (NIDB) in 1990 as a Senior Manager Corporate Communications and rose to the position of Executive Director (Business Development) in 2012. He also acted as Managing Director/ Chief Executive Officer of the Bank of Industry (BOI) between 11th April and 16th May, 2014 and was recently reassigned as the Executive Director (Small and Medium Enterprises) under the Bank’s new management led by Mr. Rasheed Olaoluwa, BOI’s third Managing Director and Chief Executive.
Due to his versatility, Olagunju consistently demonstrated extra-ordinary efficiency, competence, capacity and capability in successfully taking on higher responsibilities assigned to him in the course of his twenty four (24) year banking career by the bank’s successive managements and Boards of Directors.
