Phillips Oduoza with about 30 years banking experience in major financial institutions, is the founder and Chairman of the board of Nova Merchant Bank Limited. Mr. Oduoza is an internationally recognized and accomplished banker with diverse knowledge and experience in commercial and corporate banking.

Prior to promoting Nova Merchant Bank, he recently retired as the global CEO of UBA Group where he firmly established the Bank as a leading African Financial Institution with global brand recognition. Mr. Oduoza was part of a small team that pioneered and established Diamond Bank Plc as one of the most successful and innovative banks in the early 90’s. He led many breakthrough financial products and initiatives of Diamond Bank. As a result, he rose rapidly to the position of Executive Director in 1999. Phillips Oduoza started his banking career in 1989 with Citibank as the first set of Executive Trainees where he trained in every aspect of banking after a brief stint with International Merchant Bank (IMB).

Mr. Oduoza has thorough knowledge of the Nigerian (indeed African/global) banking environment and what it takes to pioneer and run a very successful/sustainable financial institution. He has initiated and led many key successful financial transactions in infrastructure, agriculture, manufacturing, telecommunication, energy, technology projects, financial advisory, oil & gas, corporate finance, capital market activities and debt restructuring in Nigeria and across Africa. He has been involved in some of the key banking industry transformational initiatives, having led the Bankers Committee sub-committee on Payment Systems and Infrastructure that drove the BVN implementation and Electronic Payment System of Nigeria (Card, ATM, POS, Online transfers, etc).

Phillips Oduoza has served on the board of some key names such as Diamond Bank Plc, Interswitch Plc, Valuecard Plc (Unified Payment Services Plc) where he served as chairman, Nigeria Interbank Settlement System (NIBSS), Nigeria Payment System, Nigeria Economic Summit Group (NESG), Financial Markets and Dealers Quotations (FMDQ), UBA Capital, UBA Plc. He currently serves on the boards of Veritas University Abuja, Lagos State Security Trust Fund, Development Bank of Nigeria amongst others.

Mr. Oduoza is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Bankers (FCIB). He has a BSc. Hons with First Class in Civil Engineering(1983), an MBA (Finance)(1988), and is an alumnus (AMP) of Harvard Business School. He has been honoured with numerous awards of achievement both locally and internationally such as Africa CEO of the year New York (2013 and 2014). He meets and interacts with numerous people and business leaders in the corporate sector, diplomatic corps, entrepreneurship and professional services sectors, amongst many other sectors.