WOMEN in Management, Business and Public Service (WIMBIZ), a Nigeria-based non-governmental organization (NGO) has announced the appointment of three new executive council members to its board.

The new members are, Mrs Opunimi Akinkugbe, Mrs Bolanle Austen-Peters and Mrs Ifueko M. Omoigui Okauru. They are joining an existing eight-member team that oversees WIMBIZ strategic policies.

The appointments are geared at strengthening the vision of the organisation “to be the catalyst that elevates the status and influence of women and their contributions to nation building.”

Nimi Akinkugbe is Regional Director (West Africa), Wealth & Investment Management at Barclays and Chief Country Officer for Nigeria. Prior to this role, she was General Manager and Head, Private Client Services at Stanbic IBTC Bank Plc. and a Director of Stanbic IBTC Asset Management Ltd. She is a Director of The Play Pen (Child Development Centre), The Daisy Management Centre and Bestman Games Ltd. She is also a member of the Board of Trustees of the Ajumogobia Science Foundation.

Mrs Austen-Peters, lawyer and founder of Nigeria’s foremost cultural center, Terra Kulture, holds a Masters Degree in Human Rights Law from the London School of Economics. She has worked with the various arms of the United Nations in different capacities in Switzerland, Ethiopia, Namibia and Nigeria. She currently sits on The Tate African Arts Committee.

Mrs Okauru was the immediate-past Executive Chairman, Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) and Chairman, Joint Tax Board for the period May 2004 to April 2012. She is a part-time member of the United Nations (UN) Committee of Experts on International Cooperation in Tax Matters and was recently appointed as an independent director of Diamond Bank Plc.