Union Bank announces confirmation of Hamza Bassey as Board Chairman

Union Bank of Nigeria (Plc) has announced the confirmation of Mrs Beatrice Hamza Bassey as the Chairman Board of Directors of the bank.

This follows her initial appointment by the board as the acting Chairman after the death of the former Chairman of the Bank, Cyril Odu, in September 2019.

This disclosure is contained in a notice sent by Union Bank to the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), their shareholders and other stakeholders on April 29, 2021, and signed by its Company Secretary, Somuyiwa Sonubi.

The statement from Union Bank reads, “This is to inform the Nigerian Exchange Limited, esteemed shareholders and other stakeholders that following the appointment of Mrs Beatrice Hamza Bassey as the Acting Chairman, Board of Directors (‘the Board’) of Union Bank of Nigeria Plc (‘the Bank’), the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has confirmed the appointment of Mrs Beatrice Hamza Bassey as the substantive Chair of the Board of Directors and the Bank.”

Mrs Beatrice Hamza Bassey joined the Board of Union Bank as a Non-Executive Director in 2015. She is currently the General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer at Atlas Mara Limited, a publicly listed financial services company that operates banks in various parts of Africa.

She is a lawyer of great repute with extensive experience in corporate governance and financial institutions, she is an authority in compliance and represents clients globally in compliance and anti-corruption matters.

In addition to overseeing Compliance, Corporate Governance and Legal Affair across all its subsidiaries, Mrs Hamza Bassey has led Atlas Mara’s acquisition and integration of the nine banks it has acquired to date as well as several strategic initiatives. Through her current service on the boards and board committees of public companies, Mrs Hamza Bassey has garnered in-depth knowledge of corporate governance best practices and trends.

Prior to the aforementioned, she was a Senior Partner in the New York offices of Hughes Hubbard & Reed LLP, a premier Wall Street law firm where she was a member of the Executive Committee. During her almost two decades at Hughes Hubbard, Mrs Hamza Bassey represented a roster of US and international financial institutions and other corporations in a wide range of industries on issues along the full spectrum of compliance.

Hamza Bassey holds an LLB in Law from the University of Maiduguri, a BL from the Nigerian Law School and an LLM from Harvard Law School. She was called to the Nigerian Bar in 1995 and the New York Bar in 1999. She is a fellow of the prestigious David Rockefeller Fellows Programme of the Partnership for New York City.