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DR ADESEGUN AKIN-OLUGBADE - OON

Managing Partner

Dr. Adesegun A. Akin-Olugbade is the Founder and Principal Partner of Luwaji Nominees. He is a graduate of King’s College London and Harvard Law School, in addition to being the Best Overall Student at the Nigerian Law School in 1984. He has served for over 30 years in the legal profession and financial services sector, having worked at both the technical and executive management level, in the public and private sector, for leading commercial law firms and multilateral financial institutions.

He was previously General Counsel and Senior Director at the African Development Bank (AfDB) and the first Chief Legal Officer and Head of the Legal Services Department of the African Export-import Bank (Afreximbank). He retired as Executive Director (Chief Operating Officer), General Counsel and Corporate Secretary of Africa Finance Corporation (AFC) in December 2018. 

Dr Akin-Olugbade has significant Board level experience. He was a Non-Executive Director and former chairman of the Governance Committee of the Ecobank Transnational Inc (ETI). He was a founding shareholder and non-executive Director of Asset and Resource Management Company, a leading financial services company in Nigeria. He is currently Chairman of Utica Capital Limited, Southern Marine Petroleum Limited and Axion Realty & Development Company Limited. He sits on the Boards of NSIA Insurance Limited (as an Independent Director) and O.B.A Transport Limited (as a Non-Executive Director).

He is an Officer of the Order of the Niger (OON); and currently serves as International Counsel of AELEX Partners and ‘Of Counsel’ of Clifford Chance LLP.

Dr Akin-Olugbade was appointed as the first African member of the World Trade Board in September 2019 and has been a member of the committee on International Monetary Law of the International Law Association (MOCOMILA) since 2003.

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JOHN TAYLOR

International Advisor

John Taylor is an Advisor to Luwaji Nominees on International Law, Finance and Corporate Governance.  He is an honours (first class) graduate of Adelaide Law School and was Frank Knox Fellow at Harvard Law School (LLM, 1969).   During a career of more than 50 years, he has acquired substantial transnational legal and financial experience in Australia, Asia, the United States and Europe in leading international law firms (including Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton and Berwin Leighton Paisner) and multilateral financial institutions, as well as various in-house legal and operational positions with private sector financial enterprises.

He has been General Counsel of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), Head of Cofinancing of the World Bank, and Counsel at the Asian Development Bank.  In the private sector, he has held senior managerial legal and financial positions at Banque Paribas Capital Markets, Emerging Markets Partnership (Europe) and INVESCO UK.  He has led countless international investment and business transactions, and regulatory advisory work, in civil law and common law jurisdictions.  He currently serves as International Adviser to the Centre for Commercial Law Studies, Queen Mary University of London, the largest post-graduate law school in Europe, and is an active Honorary Member of the Bankers Association for Finance and Trade (BAFT).