ISSUE 48/DEC2022 - Flipbook - Page 38
Africa’s Most Influential Women | EVERYDAY HEROES
Kanayo Awani
NIGERIA
Executive Vice President: Afreximbank, Intra-African Trade Bank (INAT)
BANKING, TRADE & FINANCE: Intra-African Trade Champion
In July this year, the African Export-Import
Bank (Afreximbank) appointmented Kanayo
Awani to the position of Executive Vice
President to the Intra-African Trade Bank
(INAT) — a new executive division which is
now responsible for driving all Afreximbank
intra-African trade activities, including all
its African Continental Free Trade Area
(AfCFTA) implementation engagements.
With the appointment, Kanayo not
only became the first female EVP in
Afreximbank’s almost 30-year history, but
also cemented further her influence in
driving the Bank’s Intra-African trade agenda.
Since May 2016, Kanayo had served as
Managing Director of Afreximbank’s IntraAfrican Trade Initiative where she had
the primary responsibility of assisting
the Bank in ensuring the attainment of
its Intra-African Trade Strategy. In that
capacity, she successfully led Afreximbank’s
engagements in support of the
establishment and implementation of the
AfCFTA, championing the Bank’s support
for the negotiations that culminated in the
signing of the AfCFTA agreement in Kigali
in March 2018.
She was also responsible for growing the
Bank’s business attributed to intra-African
trade from around 3% in 2016 to 28% by end
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New African Woman
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of 2021, disbursing US$20 billion in support
of intra-African trade and investments in
5 years.
In the same period, she also led the
establishment and deployment of the Bank’s
Intra-African Trade Champions programme,
making it possible for major African
businesses to expand their operations
into other African countries, creating true
African conglomerates and making “Made in
Africa” products available across Africa with
the Bank cumulatively supporting over
25 contract awards estimated at about
$10 billion.
She was also the arrowhead for the
introduction and organization of the
biennial Intra-African Trade Fair (IATF),
delivering the first edition, IATF2018, in
Cairo in December 2018 and IATF2021 in
Durban, South Africa, in November 2021.
IATF2021 successfully brought together
32,541 visitors from 128 countries and 1,501
exhibitors from 69 countries, resulting in the
closing of trade and investment deals worth
US$42 billion.
Previously, she was Director of
Afreximbank’s Trade Finance and Branches
Department which drove the Bank’s
business development efforts in trade
finance across Africa.
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