Bayo Ogunnusi, is an accomplished financial strategist with over 20 years’ experience in the private and public sector. His work life spans extensively across SME (Small and Medium Enterprise), Financial Control, Public Service, Infrastructure and Project Finance (PPP). Prior to joining TQM Capital, he was Group Head of SME in Heritage Bank, Consultant at Phillips Consulting Limited, Group Coordinator at First City Monument Bank Plc, Financial Controller at Bank PHB (Now Keystone Bank Limited), Financial Control Officer at Access Bank Plc and Technical Adviser to the Honorable Minister of State for Finance in 2008.

Bayo received his B.Sc. in Accounting from the Ogun State University in 1998. It was there that he developed his passion for numbers and analytics, with a focus on topics such as financial management and corporate finance. After graduation, he had the compulsory National Youth Service Corp (NYSC) at City Securities Limited (A Subsidiary of First City Merchant Bank-now First City Monument Bank Plc).

He got valuable experience in treasury, registrar and capital market operations etc. He then took some time off after his NYSC passing out to write his ICAN examinations which he passed in May 2000. He began his banking career in July 2000 at Access Bank Plc as a financial control officer where he successfully automated all the management reporting templates and reduced reporting timelines significantly.

He had a brief stint with the corporate banking group of Access Bank, Ikeja as a relationship officer managing large corporates like the Wemco Group, Wahum Plc and ADC Airlines. In December 2003, he was head hunted by First City Merchant Bank to turn around the financial control of the bank. Within a 6 months period, he was able to automate all the financial reporting templates which ensured timeliness and accuracy of financial reports for effective management decision making, reduced reporting timelines from 10 working days to 2 working days, automated the budget template, budget process and budget implementation to a paperless system thereby reducing cost and time spent on the process and also designed a template to track MPR (Monthly Performance Report) on a daily basis for Relationship managers.

Based on his performance at FCMB, the CEO of Platinum Bank approached him to head the bank’s financial control, and lead the finance and accounts team for the merger between Platinum and Habib Bank. After the merger of both banks, the new entity became BankPHB and there he developed the financial model for the successful capital raising in November 2007 (Local Initial Public offer = $2b, Unlisted GDR = $250m), recommended strategies on cost optimization and revenue enhancement which led to savings of about 20% and increase in revenue of about 15% and developed a monthly performance report for measuring each account officer (Account Officer Performance Report – each account officer is measured up to their profit before tax/contribution etc.) His performances at the bank led to his Secondment and subsequent appointment as the technical adviser to the honorable minister of finance (Remi Babalola) in April, 2008.

While at the ministry, he provided technical oversight on activities of the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC), Nigerian Custom Services (NCS), Federation Accounts Allocation Committee (F.A.A.C), Accountant General of the Federations Office (AGF) and he was part of the team that prepared the financial model and transaction dynamics for the concessioning of major federal roads and infrastructure projects in Nigeria. The framework approved by the late President Umaru Yar’ Adua was to form the basis for all major concessioning and PPP (Public Private Partnership) projects in Nigeria. He designed new process flows which improved the turn-around time for issuance of warrants from 45 to 24 days and researched on the problem of food crisis in Nigeria, made recommendations which led to the importation of 500,000 metric tonnes of rice and the release of 11,000 metric tonnes of grains from the nation’s strategic reserves. He spent about a year at Phillips Consulting Limited as a consultant in the Governance and Finance group performing specific functions such as market research, surveys, development of feasibility studies, business plans, due diligence, corporate review and sourcing for project-related finance.

He facilitates trainings on basic accounting and concepts, finance for non- finance managers, financial statements analysis, basic and advanced excel, advanced financial modelling, investment appraisal techniques, strategic management, strategic visioning and strategic analysis tools, and essentials of budgeting. He’s both a coach and mentor to many entrepreneurs. He was a pioneer staff at Heritage Bank in 2012 where led a group of dynamic individuals who developed a thriving SME Banking Business at Heritage Bank. At Heritage, novel approaches were developed for the SME banking business, and this enabled Heritage bank overcome most of the challenges faced by other banks at the initial stage.

He left Heritage Bank in 2016 to establish his own financial management consulting firm with special focus on small businesses. He further set up a thriving online and virtual SME support platform Thesmedoctor (Instagram- @thesmedoctortsd, twitter-@thesmedoctor) as a training and capacity development arm of TQM Capital Limited. Thesmedoctor was created to fill the gap of capacity development in the SME space with a special emphasis on rebuilding businesses, providing adequate structures and hand holding them to ensure they succeed through the use of non- conventional methods and approach. Thesmedoctor organizes free training/capacity development sessions on a monthly basis to add real value to about 50 of the Small Businesses on their network. They diagnose, and then give practical and honest solutions on the spot. They have partnered with HR specialists, IT and digital branding specialists, Tax specialist, Legal consultants and Accountants to offer bespoke services that will improve the governance structures and processes of these SMEs at an affordable cost. So far Bayo has directly impacted more than 4,000 SMEs and more than 10,000 SMEs indirectly.

Bayo got his first degree in Accounting at the Ogun State University, he’s a Chartered Accountant and an Associate of the Chartered Institute of Taxation. He has a Masters in Finance (M.Sc.) from London Business School, a Certificate in Entrepreneurial Management from the Enterprise Development Center (EDC- Lagos Business School), he is a Certified Public Private Partnership Specialist from the Institute of Public Private Partnership in Washington, USA), and he is currently pursuing a PhD in Finance from the University of Lagos and a Doctorate in Business Administration & Entrepreneurship (DBA) from the Business School Netherlands.