Mr Waheed Olagunju joined the Bank of Industry’s precursor institution the Nigerian Industrial Development Bank (NIDB) in August 1990 as a Senior Manager and rose to the position of Executive Director  (Business Development) in November 2012. He acted as Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer of the Bank of Industry (BOI) between 11th April and 16th May, 2014. Mr Olagunju was subsequently reassigned as Executive Director (Small and Medium Enterprises) .Mr Olagunju again assumed headship of the bank as acting Managing Director & CEO on 15th February 2016. In the last twenty six (26) years Mr Olagunju headed five different departments/directorates in the bank. The most recent being Executive Director, Small and Medium Enterprises. Mr Olagunju was appointed Assistant Company Secretary and Secretary of the Executive Management Committee in 1994 and was subsequently appointed Company Secretary and Secretary to the Board in 1997 a position he held for fifteen (15) years until he was elevated to the Board in 2012 as Executive Director. It is instructive to note that he handled other responsibilities as General Manager Strategic Planning, Business Development and Corporate Communications concurrently with his duties as Company Secretary. Due to his versatility, Mr Olagunju consistently demonstrated extra-ordinary efficiency, competence, capacity and capability in successfully taking on higher responsibilities assigned to him in the course of his twenty six (26) year banking career by the institution’s successive Managements and Boards of Directors. He accordingly stands out as one of the architects and strong drivers of BOI’s outstanding turnaround and transformation into one of Africa’s best Development Finance Institutions (DFI) that has earned the confidence of its domestic and foreign development partners, financiers, customers, international and Nigerian rating agencies (Fitch, Moodys and Agusto) and stakeholders in general. Under his leadership of the SME Directorate, the bank increased its annual lending to SMEs to N5.6 billion in 2015 which represented 205% increase over the average annual lending of N1.8 billion to SMEs in previous years.