Standard Chartered Bank Nigeria CEO, Bola Adesola, has been appointed the new vice chair of the United Nations Global Compact Board.
The UN Global Compact Board has a vital role to play in shaping the strategy and policy of the initiative, which acts as the United Nations flagship for responsible business action. Designed as a multi-stakeholder body, the board provides on-going strategic and policy advice for the initiative.
António Guterres, UN Secretary-General, who announced the appointment Adesola to serve as a new vice-chair of the board of the United Nations Global Compact, says she will co-vice chair with Paul Polman. Bola Adesola succeeds the out-going vice-chair of the UN Global Compact Board, Mark Moody-Stuart, former chairman of Royal Dutch/Shell Group of Companies and of Anglo American plc.
Adesola and Polman previously served on the UN Global Compact Board, and bring significant expertise to the role from their wealth of experience in the private sector, the corporate sustainability space and specifically with the UN Global Compact itself.
Adesola is the chief executive officer and managing director of Standard Chartered Bank Nigeria Limited, a role she has held since 2011. She has over 25 years of banking experience, having held various leadership positions in First Bank of Nigeria, Citibank and Kakawa Discount House. Adesola is an alumnus of Harvard Business School and Lagos Business School, and she also holds a Law degree from the University of Buckingham.
In her address to the United Nations Private Sector Forum, Adesola said, “I urge the companies present here to look at your businesses, map them to the SDGs, and then see how you can enhance those activities and play to your strengths, because, I think, it’s all about impact, and everything we do counts — whether it’s paper, whether it’s light — they all count.”
The UN Global Compact Board members are considered champions who are willing and able to advance the mission of the UN Global Compact to mobilise a global movement of sustainable companies and stakeholders to create the world we want. They act in a personal, honorary and unpaid capacity.
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