Kennedy Uzoka
Non-Executive Director
Kennedy Uzoka, B.Eng., MBA, is one of Africa’s foremost banking executives – a transformative leader with over three (3) decades of experience spanning retail, commercial, corporate, and investment banking across four continents. He served as the Group Managing Director & CEO of United Bank for Africa (UBA) Plc from 2016 to 2022, presiding over one of the continent’s most wide-reaching financial institutions, with operations across 20 African countries, the United Kingdom, the United States, France, and the UAE – a 24-country footprint representing the full breadth of Africa’s global banking ambition.
Over a distinguished career, Mr. Uzoka has been at the centre of landmark transactions that reshaped Nigeria’s financial sector – from early-career roles in acquisitions and institutional transformation at Merchant Bank of Commerce (later Continental Trust Bank) and Crystal Bank of Africa (later Standard Trust Bank), through the historic merger of Standard Trust Bank with legacy United Bank for Africa that created UBA Plc. He has served at every level of executive leadership: as an architect of strategy and brand transformation post-merger, as a steward of the Group’s human capital across 19,000 staff worldwide, he extended the Group’s footprint to the UAE, establishing UBA’s UAE in Dubai presence.
He is an active mentor and investor in young enterprises and a passionate advocate for African economic sovereignty and a sports aficionado.