Sonnie Ayere 2022 speaker

Group CEO/MD

DLM Capital Group

Biography

Sonnie Ayere began his career with NatWest Bank in London as a Corporate Banking Officer in 1993, and then in 1996, moved on to Sumitomo-Mitsui Bank working in corporate and property finance. In 2001, he joined the Global Structured Finance Group of the International Finance Corporation (The World Bank Group) in Washington D.C. and later in Johannesburg, South Africa where he was initially responsible for originating structured finance and securitization transactions globally; then in July 2002, he assumed the role of Structured Finance Specialist for Sub-Saharan Africa where he was responsible for developing structured finance and securitization transactions in addition to developing debt capital markets and instruments for the corporation and its clients across the continent.

In 2004, Sonnie Ayere pioneered IFC’s interest and championed the development of the Nigerian Domestic Bond Market and was the principal IFC adviser to the Nigerian Debt Management Office on the development of the market. It successfully took off in 2006 with the first issuance calendar. Following this achievement, he joined Tony Elumelu’s UBA Bank team as the pioneer managing director of United Capital Plc in July 2005. He left in 2009 and founded DLM Capital Group. He was twice the vice president of the Issuing Houses of Nigeria, in 2007 and 2014 and then became President from 2016 – 2018. He was also a non-executive director of AIICO Insurance Plc from 2012 – 2018. He was an a