Mastercard Appoints Damilare Akanmu as West African Business Development Director

Global Payments solution provider, Mastercard, has appointed Damilare Akanmu, a former Head of payment products at First Bank, as its new West African Director of Business Development.

Akanmu, who spent seventeen years at First Bank, would now lead Mastercard’s Corporate Solutions business across West Africa, having enjoyed a steady rise at First Bank.

New Role

In his new role as the West Africa Business Lead for Corporate Solutions (Commercial and New Payment Flows) at Mastercard, Damilare Akanmu would be charged with assisting large enterprises and financial institutions in West Africa with digitalizing their payment processes, enhancing working capital efficiency, and unleashing operational value through top-notch commercial payment solutions.

This assistance would include streamlining travel and expense (T&E) spend management, simplifying and automating the procure-to-pay lifecycle, as well as expediting collections and reconciliation in order-to-cash processes.

Akanmu steps into his new role with a deep knowledge of the financial services sector, having had stints at First Bank amongst other companies as well as numerous certifications in Financial Engineering from numerous institutions, including WorldQuant University, Quantic School of Business and Technology, and The Fletcher School at Tufts University.