The McKinsey Quarterly has an interesting interview and profile of Cecilia Ibru.  Ibru has defied the odds to become CEO of Oceanic Bank International, one of Nigeria's largest banks. She is also a member of the UN Global Compact,and that appointment "solidified her reputation as a champion of corporate responsibility in a region long beset by corruption," according to the McKinsey Quarterly.  

Nigeria, like most developing economies, has been hit hard by the global economic crisis. Unemployment and corruption were bad before the meltdown, and since last year a lot of the international aid from places like the US has dried up.  So, Ibru says, Nigerian leaders must use this time to make some core structural changes to their economy, and become more self-sufficient:

We have a developing economy, so whatever little money we have now, we’ve got to use it for the greatest mileage we can cover. How we should move forward really becomes a question of the type of structures and reforms that we, as a country, put in place...

...Many positive reforms have already taken place in the health care, education, agriculture, and banking sectors of the economy. The government is also encouraging public–private partnerships in many areas. The whole idea of government leading industrial development, we realized, has failed, so there’s a lot for the bank to gain, as well as for the country to gain, if we privatize many of these government-owned industries. Our government can still have a little share in business, but the private sector should really drive it. For example, Oceanic funded the privatization of NAFCON, which is now Notore Chemical Industries, and it has become probably the biggest fertilizer company on the west coast of Africa. And we are now looking at how to start more new projects like that, because the opportunities are there despite the downturn. We can create more value by strengthening Nigeria’s industries and partnering with locals to do so.

Being CEO of a major bank in Nigeria, it turns out, does not mean breaking down the cultural positions of men and women there.  Here Ibru talks about overcoming some of the obstacles that were in her way as a women rising in business, while she herself continued to accept some of the "cultural norms" of her community:

Read the full interview with Ibru here.