Update: A Look At Few Things You Didn’t Know About Late Access Bank CEO, Herbert Wigwe

The CEO of Access Bank, Herbert Wigwe has died in an helicopter crash in California.

He was reportedly on board with five others believed to be his wife, son, and Abimbola Ogunbanjo, the group chairman of Nigerian Exchange Group Plc (NGX Group), when the helicopter crashed.

According to report, the helicopter was headed to Las Vegas when it crashed near a border city between Nevada and California on Friday night.

Below are few things to know about Herbert Wigwe:

• Born on August 22, 1966, Herbert Onyewumbu Wigwe hailed from Ikwerre Local Government Area of Rivers State.
• He was married to Chizoba Wigwe (nee Nwuba) and had four children: Chizi, Tochi, Hannah, and David.
• Wigwe has a degree in accountancy from the University of Nigeria, an MA in Banking and Finance from the University College of North Wales (now Bangor), an MSc in Financial Economics from the University of London,
• As a banker in Guaranty Trust Bank (GTB), he worked with Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede to buy Access Bank, which used to hold the 65th position amongst the list of 89 banks in the country.
• Working with Aig-Imoukhuede, who became the MD of the bank, they grew the bank to a top-tier bank.
• He succeeded Aig-Imoukhuede as the MD of Access Bank and worked on a vision of transforming the bank into a global bank, a feat he achieved in his lifetime. He not only took the bank beyond the African continent, he expanded it to become a financial conglomerate.
• Herbert was the Group Managing Director/CEO of Access Bank plc, one of Nigeria’s top five banking institutions, after succeeding his business partner, Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede from January 2014 till April 2022.
• He was also an alumnus of the Harvard Business School Executive Management Program.
• Wigwe started his career at Coopers & Lybrand, Lagos as a management consultant, later qualifying as a chartered accountant.
• After a stint at Capital Bank, he joined GTBank where he spent over a decade working in corporate and institutional banking, rising to become the executive director in charge of institutional banking.
• On February 10, 2024, he was reportedly involved in an helicopter crash that killed him, his wife, his son, and a yet-to-be-identified Nigerian.