Justina Akpoabugo Lewa is the immediate past Company Secretary and Chief Legal Counsel of Sterling Bank Plc. An alumnus of St. Louis College, Jos, the University of Jos (from where she obtained a Bachelor of Laws degree in 1987), the Nigerian Law School and the University of Lagos (where she bagged a Master of Laws degree in 1998).
She is currently a partner at Chapitre LLP, a progressive full service law firm providing legal services to clients across a broad spectrum of sectors. At Chapitre, they understand the business terrain in Nigeria and the challenges businesses face at all stages of their growth and development. They pay attention not only to the finer details of the law, but also to all the other issues which have the potential to impact their clients’ businesses.
Justina started her career with the Ministry of Justice, Jos, Plateau State as a State Counsel from August, 1989 to September, 1990. She was employed by NAL Bank Plc in September, 1990 as Supervisor with the Legal and Company Secretariat Department, and was appointed Senior Manager, Legal and Company Secretariat, and Head, Debt Recovery Team in 2005.
Her employment was transferred to Sterling Bank Plc in January, 2006 following the consolidation exercise of the banking industry. She was appointed Assistant General Manager and Head, Legal Department in 2007.
In June, 2009, Justina was appointed by the Board of Directors as Company Secretary and Chief Legal Counsel, and Group Head, Credit Collections and Recovery. As Group Head, Credit Collections and Recovery, she was responsible for setting and executing strategic goals for recovering the bad loan portfolio of the bank and ensuring that criticised assets remain performing.
She was also appointed Company Secretary and Legal Adviser of Sterling Bank’s subsidiary Companies: Sterling Asset Management Company Limited (SAMTL) and the Nigerian Stockbrokers Limited (NSL) from 2009 to 2011.
As Company Secretary and Chief Legal Counsel, her role required legal professionalism and business mastery given the complexities and challenges surrounding banking business.
Akpoabugo Lewa has drafted, reviewed, and advised on many complex transactions and agreements on project and asset based financing, public and private debt equity issues, loan syndications, power, oil and gas, mergers and acquisitions. A significant part of her function also involved negotiating and settling disputes arising from customer/banker business relationships and employee management.
Justina Akpoabugo Lewa has served as resource person on customer/banker, mediation, legal, career development issues at training and conferences.
