/ Our People

Mr. Kwasi M. Tagbor was appointed to the Board of the Bank in November 2018 as an Independent Non-Executive Director and subsequently elected as Chairman of the Board on February 6, 2019.

A retired Engineer and Petrophysicist, Mr. Tagbor holds a Bachelor of Science (B.Sc.) degree in Electrical Engineering from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) and a Post Graduate Diploma in Computer Science from the University of Ghana, Legon.

He started his career as a Resident Project Engineer with Finco Engineers, Lagos, Nigeria in 1977, a position he left in 1980 to join Schlumberger, an internationally renowned Oil & Gas service company as a wireline field engineer, becoming the first Ghanaian to have held that position.

Mr. Tagbor has over 33 years’ experience in the Upstream Oil and Gas sector, obtaining various qualifications and certifications over the years.

His illustrious career path spans operations management to technical equipment and maintenance management, training and development management, personnel training, wireline logging, formation evaluation/log analysis in shaly sand/ thin-bed/ turbidite reservoirs, among others.

Mr. Agbaje is the Managing Director of Guaranty Trust Bank plc. With over 19 years investment and international banking experience, Mr. Agbaje is involved in the general management of the bank’s day-to-day operations and has earned a reputation as a truly accomplished and highly respected professional within the West Africa sub-region, given his diverse experience in the financial services industry.

Prior to joining Guaranty Trust Bank plc, he worked with Ernst & Young, San Francisco, USA. He subsequently joined Guaranty Trust Bank as a pioneer staff in 1991 and rose through the ranks to become an Executive Director in January 2000, and Deputy Managing Director in August 2002, in light of his diverse background and experience in almost all areas of the bank’s activities including commercial banking, investment banking, treasury, corporate planning and strategy, settlements and operations.

Mr. Agbaje possesses a deep understanding of the Nigerian business environment having initiated and led the execution of large, innovative and complex transactions in financial advisory, structured and project finance, balance sheet restructuring and debt and equity capital raising in several sectors of the Nigerian economy notably Oil and Gas, Energy, Telecommunications, Financial Services and Manufacturing industries. In addition, he helped in developing the Interbank Derivatives market amongst dealers in the Nigerian banking industry and introduced the Balance Sheet Management Efficiency system.

He was also very instrumental in putting together Guaranty Trust Bank’s landmark USD350million Eurobond offering in 2007 and later that year, the listing of its US$750 million Global Depository Receipts (GDR) in an unprecedented concurrent global offering in the domestic and international capital markets – which made Guaranty Trust Bank the first Nigerian company and first bank in Sub-Saharan Africa to be listed on the Main Market of the London Stock Exchange. In 2011, he further led GTBank to launch the first Sub-Saharan Africa financial sector benchmark Eurobond when the Bank launched its USD500million Eurobond without a sovereign guarantee or credit enhancement from any international financial institution.

Mr. Agbaje serves on the boards of several other notable companies including Guaranty Trust Bank (Ghana) Limited, Guaranty Trust Bank (Gambia) Limited, Guaranty Trust Bank (UK) Limited and also a Director on MasterCard Advisory Board Middle East and Africa.

He is an alumnus of the Harvard Business School and holds a Bachelor of Science and a Masters in Business Administration from the University of San Francisco, USA.

Mr. Agbaje was appointed Acting Managing Director of Guaranty Trust Bank plc in April 2011, and as Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer on June 22, 2011.

Mr. Lawal joined Guaranty Trust Bank plc (GTBank) in 1992 as an executive trainee within the Credit Risk Management Group. He is currently the Divisional Head, Investment Banking Division and is directly responsible for coordinating the activities of Treasury, Corporate Finance and E-Business Groups of the Bank. Prior to this, he was the Group Head in charge of Corporate Finance Group, wherein he led the Bank’s core execution and advisory team that worked on so many complex and landmark debt syndication transactions within the Nigerian Banking Sector.

Mr. Lawal has over 18 years of broad and increasingly responsible banking experience covering, Corporate Banking, Commercial Banking, Credit Risk Management and Investment Banking. In addition, over the years, he has developed strong institutional and geographical knowledge based on his work experience in over four of the Banks’ business divisions and major commercial cities of Lagos, Port Harcourt, Kano, Kaduna and Warri.

He obtained a Bachelor of Laws degree from Obafemi Awolowo University, (1990), professional certification of B.L from the Nigerian Law School (1991) and a Masters of Business Administration from Oxford University, United Kingdom (2002). He has also attended a number of executive management and banking specific programmes which includes Citibank School of Banking, New York; Venture Capital Institute, Atlanta Georgia; United States, Harvard Business School, Boston and INSEAD, France.

Mr. Thomas Attah John is an astute banker, a Certified Brewer and Chemist with a combined work experience of 16 years in various business development, deal origination and structuring and credit appraisal roles.

He has over the last 14 years led and executed landmark deals in various roles within GTBank’s Corporate, Telecom, Operations and Retail Business.

Thomas holds a Chartered Banker MBA from the University of Bangor, UK, an MBA from the Lagos Business School, Certificate in Management Performance Measurement from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore and a Bachelor of Science (BSC. Hons) in Pure Applied Chemistry from the University of Calabar, Nigeria.

Ms. Maidie Elizabeth Arkutu was appointed to the Board of the Bank in May 2019 as an Independent Non-Executive Director.

Maidie Arkutu is the immediate past Vice President, Chairman and Managing Director of Unilever Francophone Africa. In this role, she led one of the 4 sub-Saharan Africa clusters for the Unilever Africa Group, managing over 10 French speaking countries and based in Abidjan. She was the Managing Director of Unilever Ghana prior to taking on the Francophone role.

Before her appointment as Managing Director of Unilever Ghana, Ms. Arkutu was the Marketing Director for Unilever West Africa (UWA). Miss Arkutu joined Unilever West Africa from Coca-Cola East and Central Africa Business Unit (ECABU) where she was the Marketing Manager for the Horn, Islands and Mid Africa (HIMA).

A professional Marketer, Ms. Arkutu has a post-Graduate Diploma in Marketing from the Chartered Institute of Marketing (U.K Board). She also holds a Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium and a Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree in Business Economics with a minor in French from Vesalius College, Belgium.

Prior to her recent appointment, Miss Arkutu was the Lady Chair and Executive Board Member of the Executive Women Network (EWN), a Non- Executive Board member at Barclays Bank Ghana Limited and an Executive Board Member at Unilever Ghana Limited. She also served as a Regulatory Committee Member of the Business Enabling Environment Programme and a corporate advisory Group Member at the University of Ghana Business School.

During her tenure as Managing Director of Unilever Ghana, Miss Arkutu received several recognitions, including the prestigious Marketing Woman of the Year (2015) at the Chartered Institute of Marketing Ghana Awards and Outstanding Manufacturing Executive, Personal Products (2016) at the Feminine Ghana Achievement Awards. She was awarded the Female Influential Leader Award by Ghana UK Based Achievements (GUBA) in 2017, and in 2018, the prestigious Jeune Afrique Magazine named Ms. Arkutu as one of the Top 50 Most Influential Women in African Business.

Mr. Rasheed Ibrahim was appointed to the Board of the Bank in November 2018 as a Non-Executive Director.

Mr. Ibrahim holds a Bachelor of Science degree (B.Sc. Hons.) in Business Administration from the Abraham Lincoln University, Pennsylvania, United States of America.

He is a Businessman with diverse experience. He holds and has held various executive and managerial positions in Dara Salam Group of Companies, Chrome Energy Resources Limited, Dara Salam Estate Limited and Osagyefo Leadership International School.

His key areas of competence and skills include business development, contract negotiation, project and risk management as well as marketing and corporate sponsorships.

Ms. Irene Baaba Hagan was appointed to the Board of the Bank in September 2019 as an Independent Non-Executive Director.

Irene is a Fellow Chartered Accountant (FCA) with the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales and a Certified Information Systems Auditor with both local and international experience in Audit, Finance, Governance, Risk and Compliance with FTSE 100 clients in the financial and telecommunications industries.

Her early career was with KPMG, UK in the Assurance practice within the Infrastructure & Government Group. She moved on to work with Pricewaterhousecoopers, London (U.K) and Boston, MA (U.S.A) where she managed various teams to deliver high quality engagements on a range of risk assurance and audit services including IT, Internal and External audit, Controls reporting, Business process re-engineering, SOX 404 and Finance effectiveness advisory engagements.

She later worked in various capacities in both Vodafone Plc, United Kingdom and Vodafone, Ghana and rose to a senior management position before leaving to pursue other interests.

Irene holds a B.Sc. (Hons.) in Accounting & Finance from The London School of Economics and Political Science and an MBA from the Hult International Business School, Massachusetts, USA. She is currently the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW) contact member and ambassador in Ghana.

She is also the founder of IHagan Consult, a consultancy practice which provides corporate advisory and capacity building services across a variety of industries.