As an inspirational leader par excellence and one of Africa’s brightest minds in the financial sector, banking luminary, Herbert Onyewumbu Wigwe has exhibited a strong bandwidth to engineer and transform for the big stage, as evidently seen in how he transformed Access Bank into one of Nigeria’s top five banking institutions with tentacles spread across sub-Saharan Africa and beyond. Very recently, Wigwe led the drive that led Access Bank to morph into a holding company structure —Access Corporation Holdings Plc— with multifaceted value offerings to the market(s). As Access morphed to Holdco, Wigwe stepped down for his erstwhile deputy, Roosevelt Ogbonna as the new Access Bank CEO while he took up the position as the helmsman of the new Holdco. Ever since, it has been bliss as Wigwe oversees the market value of Access Holdings stake rising by more than $2 million in the past one week. Wigwe owns a significant 4.27 per cent stake or 1,517,850,729 ordinary shares in the bank which is presently worth more than N13 billion, while Access Holdings’ market capitalization on the local bourse is N313 billion. However, in the last one week, the market value of Wigwe’s equity interest has increased by nearly N1 billion rising from N12.45 billion on September 21 to N13.36 billion at the moment. The increase can be attributed to the recent 7.32 per cent surge in the shares of the Holdco, as investors renewed buying interest in its shares after they fell below key technical levels. In the cutthroat terrain of the ever-changing Nigerian banking, he rides the tides of the industry, thus dictating the pace of change and influencing the thought of his time. He gives all the reason to believe in their dreams while giving back to society through his numerous philanthropic organizations. But the most humanitarian of his activities was his commitment to community and skills development.
Few days after this financial egghead marked his 56th birthday on 15 August, he announced plans to set up a world-class university in his hometown of Omueke-Isiokpo, Ikwere, Rivers State. The philanthropist revealed that the university —to be known as Wigwe University— will work towards the standards of globally acclaimed Oxford University and Harvard University with the first set of students starting lectures in September 2024. He also promises that the tertiary institution will have a 24/7 power supply within the campus and its environs.