Tajudeen Afolabi Adeola is a Nigerian businessman and investor. He is the Founder of Guaranty Trust Bank (GTBank Plc.). He is also a member of the Commission for Africa, as well as Founder and Chairman of the FATE Foundation.
Adeola attended Methodist Boys High School in Lagos for his high school education. After training with Deloitte, Haskins and Sells and D.O. Dafinone & Company, he earned a Diploma in Accounting from Yaba College of Technology in 1975 and became a Chartered Accountant in 1980. (both Chartered Accountants). He has undergone professional development training from prestigious universities throughout the world, including Harvard Business School, INSEAD, and Switzerland’s International Institute for Management Development.
He took a one-year sabbatical in 1999 at the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies in Kuru, Jos, Nigeria, where he researched on economic development and job creation policies.
He co-founded Guaranty Trust Bank in 1990 with Tayo Aderinokun, and he served as its Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer from 1990 until July 2002. Since then, the bank has expanded into neighboring African countries (The Gambia, Sierra Leone, Ghana, and Liberia) as well as the United Kingdom. In 1996, the bank was listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange. After twelve years at Guaranty Trust Bank, Adeola willingly retired in 2002, turning over to his deputy, Tayo Aderinokun. He’s been chairman of UTC, ARM, Lotus Capital, Eterna Oil, CardinalStone Partners Limited, Tafsan Breweries (board member), and Credit Registry Services since then.
He is also the chairman of Main One Cable Company Limited which completed the construction of an open access submarine cable system that spanned 14,000 kilometres and provides international and internet connectivity to countries on the Atlantic Coast from Portugal to Lagos in 2010.
Adeola served as Chairman of the National Pension Commission, following the promulgation into law of the Pension Bill (principally authored by him), by the National Assembly f Nigeria. He chaired the Lagos State Disaster Relief Committee which was set up following the 27 January 2002 Lagos Armory. He was the Vice-Presidential candidate of the Action Congress of Nigeria(ACN) serving as running mate to former Economic and Financial Crimes Commission chairman (EFCC) Nuhu Ribadu in the 2011 presidential elections.
Adeola was also a member of the National Honours and Awards Committee and was appointed a member of the Governing Council of Lagos State Government in November 2004. He served as a member of the Solid Minerals Committee (constituted by the Federal Government) and was the Chairman of Ogun State Development Trust Fund Committee. He was a council member of Lagos State University and until 17 January 2011 served as a council member Olabisi Onabanjo University
He was nationally decorated as Officer of the Order of the Federal Republic (OFR) in December 2002 by President Olusegun Obasanjo. He has an honorary doctorate from Nkumba University, Uganda. He won the Banker of the Decade in 2009 by the Vanguard Newspaper group, the Distinguished Famous Alumni award by Yaba Tech Zik Leadership in 2003, This Day Awards 2011 – Change Makers in Social Entrepreneurship.
He’s married to Hargara with Six Children.
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